Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Smith Bros Hardware Co. Catalog No. 51

Thanks Kingston, just called packing...plumber I worked with on a number of construction jobs, BS'd me and told me it was Oakum(maybe just slang in the industry).

On page 330, they show a "lock lever"
I've got one, and they are very handy for cleaning loose dirt out of the bottom of deep post holes.

That's some great stuff. Going back in time.

This one's for Tedhorn and Crossfireoops, not that they need it.

I dig these old logos.

There are some fantastic tools on that page. We must have a mile of page wire fence on the farm. My father and I built them when I was a kid. We'd go scrounge RxR ties when they rebuilt track—a pickup truck load at a time. He ran the Danuser auger on the back of a 574 International that my grandfather bought new. I'd clean out the hole bottoms and deal with anything that held up the auger. The tools of the trade were a half wore out spade, a Collins double bit, a regular two handled clam style post hole digger, and steel point bar. I'd loved to have had some of those specialty shovels.

Years later, I was home from college. A few miles from the farm, a family was having an estate sale. I stopped. They had a "lock lever" post hole digger for sale. I didn't know what it was called. I'd never seen one before. The main handle was broken, but I was enthralled imagining how useful it would have been when building all those fences. I bought it, intending to fix it one day. It moved around with me for a good decade, before I scrounged the right handle to cobbled it back together. I've still never used it.

Geeze, that was great!

I have an old Fairbanks-Morse catalog that I like to look through once in a while.

Quite a lot of water damage but it is still pretty good.

One of the neat things about all those different items...

they were all made in America!

I was thinking $108 seems steep for a shovel then I saw per dozen.

How long would it take a typical middle class man to save $100 back when that catalog was printed?

Back in those old days even what we consider common everyday tools were much more valued and usually better made and cared for possessions than they generally are nowadays.

I've read old wills that itemized each and every tool belonging to the deceased such as axes, shovels, hoes, saws, pitchforks, etc.,etc., and directed which tool, often along with a physical description of that tool, was to be given to a certain individuals.

That is interesting. I need a dozen model 70's

If only my Time Machine was working!!!