What's this black gunk on my wok spatula?

I just bought a new spatula for my wok in Chinatown. It’s protected from rust with some sort of gunk that looks petroleum based. It’s pretty tacky and is almost impossible to scrub off. I gave up and burned off most of it, probably inhaling some nasty fumes while doing so.

What is this stuff and is it toxic? Are the burnt remains even more toxic. I’ll try to scrub more off before I use it, but I really need a sand blaster to do it justice.

I doubt they would use anything harmful on a cooking utensil. That said, without knowing the brand and model the best I can guess is that the coating was intended to be left on if there are no instructions about removing it and may be silicone or a non-stick coating (if the latter, you really don’t want to burn it off; see polymer fume fever, although since you say it is tacky it probably isn’t Teflon).

Sounds like they used Cosmoline, or something similar to protect the metal. You can steam it off.

This is an old school forged on Mao’s backyard coal fired kiln type of tool. This ain’t no high tech polymer. It looks rather like what might coat a machine tool or something. Really, I think it’s just grease of some kind that has aged like engine muck.