A skewer-type gripper for one-sidedly receiving a test sample positioned in a defined manner and still compressed by plungers in a punching device and consisting of viscoelastic materials with an upper side and an edge area. The gripper has a base and skewer-type means arranged in a plane therein, which can pierce into the edge area of the still compressed test sample parallel to the upper side. The skewer-type means are configured in such a way that the test sample can be received and held in a torque-proof manner by the skewer-type means. The gripper is configured and set up for horizontally receiving the test sample from a punching device, and the gripper or skewer-type means can be exposed to a feed force for this purpose.