That pliers, or 'tongs' appears to be a 'special', alright.
All I could offer is a potentially 'plausible' guess.
Since the previous owner worked at GE, might that tool have been a 'safety' holding tongs for a particular size/shape of partially formed workpiece, which would be offered up to a press fixture for a piercing, forming, or rivetting operation, with the worker's hand being kept well clear of the danger of the rapidly moving press tooling?
The tooling-shop machinists and toolmakers would have had the responsibility to design such 'safety appliances', as needed, for various production operations, which then, if needed in any quantity, would have been supplied on contract by one or another tooling. manufacturer. (and not only GE, of course, safety-tongs of many varieties were very common in manufacturing production, especially with press-work.)
cheers
Carla
