I’ve been slacking. This is a haul from last Friday—a ranch about an hour north of town. They advertised a lot of tools and even more guns. I made a point to get there early and was the third car in line to enter the property. Then they made us line up at the gate to the yard for another hour but relented about halfway through, when the skies opened up and it started coming down in buckets. Most folks headed for the house, where the guns were—only a handful of us darted for the garage/shop. They had a big Reed and a big Rock Island vise but wanted too much for them. In fact, most of the tools seemed pretty spendy to me. Besides the vises, I was drawn to the military machinist chest. After I gathered it, and a few other items, the sale agent asked me if I needed a ticket. I said the chest marked at $65 was pretty steep so it would depend on how reasonable the prices for the unpriced items turned out to be. He looked at the Starrett 436 0-1” micrometer and double square, the rail of Plomb swivel sockets and another rail of ¼” sockets; thought for a moment and said $70. I looked at him and said, Well, that’s pretty reasonable. We shared a chuckle and I started putting the items in the chest—which had most of the things in the photo included already. I couldn’t comfortably get the ¼“ rail into the chest so I took the sockets off and said he could have the rail back. He asked for my ticket back, tore it up and wrote another with $65 on it. I said now that’s damned reasonable! I spent about 1.5 hours in there because it was still raining in sheets and there was a river between the garage and the house. I added several more things and the final price was $70. I had coordinated to meet up with
tin medic but never saw him. As I left the ranch, I called him to see if he was still coming. He said he was in the house and had spent the whole time waiting to get into the gun room. We were able to have a barbecue lunch in the little town of Blanco to catch up.
The Haul:
Plomb 5281 3/8" Speeder; 5 Plomb WF, 2 Plomb & 1 Proto LA 3/8" swivels; From the mic to the pin vises is Starrett; the Frankensquare is a Lufin stock with a too-small 4" Starrett rule; 4 no-name telescoping gages. No idea what the two things at the bottom of the pic are for.
Lufkin No. 89 Wiggler center finder and pocket scriber
Horstmann (Phila) brass whistle and Yale padlock for the Ord Dept.--no key. Calling
Jeff Moss!! Does the hole in the case indicate it has been drilled to open? If so, how does that work? Numbers next to key hole are U A 2394 G C.
Duro Chrome socket case and dark 1/4" sockets. Socket on right end is D-I and has been shaved down. Note the 292 stamped above the decal. USA is stamped on the exterior.
Hallowell No. 25 Socket Screw Key. Gerald has a similar one on
Progress is Fine. Stamps on the handle vary slightly from this one and his has a knurled
collar that I don't think is functional.
The prize is the machinist chest. No markings at all that I can find, but it is very sturdy with no dings, dents or bends. Cleaned up well and includes the latchable front door. I've viewed three of these on the web and they all had only one narrow drawer and four deep drawers. This one has two narrow and four deep drawers. The felt "flocking" in all the drawers has worn away but they are still green except for a 5" spot on one of the narrow drawers where something was spilled and ate it down to the metal.
Finally, a bonus item found in one of the drawers--a 2-inch multi-blade tool. My theory is that it is designed for a pipe smoker, but that's just a theory. The scales are stamped "Sterling" and examples with the same carving but less/different tools are listed on eprey for $130-$160.
