Show Your Vintage Utica Tools!

[Beerhippie]

Plus they have a Signal Corps part number!
-Don

Which # is the Signal Corps one?

 

[d42jeep]

The TL-119 number. Here are some Utica tools with Signal Corps markings. Left to right, two TL-13A lineman’s pliers, TL-126 longnoses and TL-103 dykes.
Close ups
-Don

 

[Beerhippie]

Thanks, Don! The 9 in the TL 119 wasn't clear to me.

What are the numbers on the other side? Utica PNs?

 

[d42jeep]

Yes, the 60 means that they are that style of Lineman’s pliers and the 5 indicates their length.
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

I liked the looks of these pliers when I saw them at an estate sale yesterday. They had a little rust so they went into the evaporust. They look better now.
-Don

 

[Fred Knox]

Three diamond Utica Button pattern pliers (5”) with diamond checkered grip, but no model number.

 

[LesserSon]

Beautiful example, @Fred Knox !
The combination of forged-in 3-diamonds logo, V-terminus depressed diamonds grip pattern, and Kellemen patent date (07Dec1909) help place the production years in the early/mid nineteen-teens, probably 1913-1914/15.

 

[four.cycle]

1950 Popular Mechanics Utica ad pp 148

 

[Vywr]

I'm not entirely sure if it's the same Utica as the other tools here, but I found these 21-6 round nose pliers in a scrap metal dumpster today.

The handles are marked 'USN' and 'AIR', which makes me think they're possibly military, but I'm not sure why'd they'd be in dumpster behind a university lab.

 

[LesserSon]

@Vywr
Those 21-6 longnose pliers are the same Utica as on this thread. Thanks for sharing them.
They likely date from the mid 1920s to about 1943. Alloy Artifacts’ timeline suggests “Made in USA” was added at the later end of that range, but in the captions under pliers with identical stamps to yours, they state “c1925-1943.”
I think it very possible that a mechanic could have served in the Navy, kept some tools, then been employed at a universary. Then again, tools wind up in places independent of the people who own them through borrowing and loss. One thing pliers like that are good for is putting loops or coils into wire. A lot of possibilities there.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Wow. A New Member who takes the time and effort to post in the correct, pre-existing thread, who is not trying to sell the tool he has found, and who uses the correct terminology for it. You made my day, @Vywr! Welcome to GJ.

Adding to @LesserSon's post, those round nose pliers could very well be wartime and of a military origin. Not all military pliers had martial "U.S." markings. As I am sure you now, the "USN" and "AIR" were marked with an electric pencil. I don't know about the Navy, but the Army encouraged proprietary markings and even distributed pamphlets to unit supply officers for how to rig one up themselves.

As for the university lab, wartime surplus ended up in some strange places. Good tools last long and travel well. And there may have been more of a tie than you think. Many university labs have R&D affiliations with the military. If you're not talking about a university near a navy base, probably just a former employee's, who may or may not have gotten them from someone who may or may not have gotten them during the war.

Nice find.

 

[d42jeep]

Here are a very similar pair of round nose pliers shown in the WW2 Navy NAF catalog.
-Don

 

[four.cycle]

1919 Herr & Co. catalog Klein Peck Stow & Wilcox Utica ad pp 54

 

[Squez]

Picked these up last weekend

 

[Mike'smeatshop]

Thanks to RTM. And the Drop Forge & Tool logo I believe these are the farmers wire cutter and bender pliers.

 

[Beerhippie]

Thanks to RTM. And the Drop Forge & Tool logo I believe these are the farmers wire cutter and bender pliers.

"Rode hard and put up wet" perfectly applies to that pair of pliers.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I believe these are the farmers wire cutter and bender pliers.

Side-cutting Button's pattern pliers, as I indicated on the Pliers mega thread. See page 12 Catalog No. 67 (1960) on IA/ITCL.

 

[d42jeep]

I found these three diamond marked dykes on Saturday’s tool sale.
At the same sale I found a Bell System marked pair and posted them on the Bell System thread.

 

[d42jeep]

I found these two Utica pliers at a local estate sale this afternoon. I expected the parallel jaw pliers to be Bernard and was surprised to see the Utica markings.
-Don

 

[RTM]

I found these two Utica pliers at a local estate sale this afternoon. I expected the parallel jaw pliers to be Bernard and was surprised to see the Utica markings.
-Don

I just grabbed a pair today too, had not even pulled them out of the bag til now. Back side of the pivot is marked THBX1A. Front side is Utica 402-6 1/2 Utica NY. The handles are marked just like Don's.
Also grabbed two adjustables that seem awful new, 91-4 and 91-8.

Edit: Utica Tools USA only shows up in the 1960 catalog.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Back side of the pivot is marked THBX1A.

That's a wartime Ordnance Dept stock number in a system that supply officers and NCOs called "TAXI" numbers due to the prevalence of "T", "A", and "X" across the series. You can see it in the excerpt from my 1944 ORD 5 SNL J-2. EDIT: They're an interesting case. Clearly the BERNARD design.

 

[AntiqueBen]

I've had these little 5" Utica button pliers for a long time. Never gave it much thought. They're marked U.D.F. & T. Co. Utica N.Y. USA. I've never seen another pair of 5" before. Most are 6" or more. These appear to be before the 3-diamond logo. Anyone have an idea when they were made?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I'm mystified. I just checked every Utica catalog on IA/ITCL between 1909 and the 1960's and there is no sign of BERNARD style compound pliers. Just speculation, but I'm wondering if it was a special wartime arrangement. To fill orders.

 

[d42jeep]

Especially with that Taxi number. I’ll check mine more thoroughly tomorrow.
-Don
Edit: I blew up one of my pictures and there is the Taxi number. Same as RTM’s.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I think Utica was making them for Schollhorn. It's similar to the Krieger-Bonney DOE wrenches situation, discussed here.

I had no prior knowledge of this arrangement. Not that I'm a huge Utica collector (I have a few things, as witnessed by this thread, some of them wartime, mainly Signal Corps, and some of them NOS wartime), but I am a huge Schollhorn collector, and I have never noticed or run into this before when talking about either mfgr, or in wartime collector circles. Granted, it's not a jeep tool or a GTMK tool, but a few of us have gone a little wider, and it's just never come up before as far as I know. It's amazing that facts like this still manage to turn up in our hobby, and even more amazing that it turned up in two different places, with two different collectors, on the same danged day!

Here's the story, told with WPB Contracts Books excerpts...

This contract...



...is not a Utica contract.

See that "3" in the FOOTNOTE column? Here's the footnote.



My hunch is that's a Schollhorn contract.

A paragraph in the Introduction to the WPB books emphasizes the intent and importance of identifying the manufacturer and the location of the manufacturing, but there aren't actually too many of these instances, and they flat out say they did not track subcontracts and subcontracting.

Schollhorn had plenty of contracts and were definitely supplying their side-cutting compound pliers to the Army. Unhelpfully, though, that particular contract is not also listed in the Schollhorn entry.



Obviously they didn't want to double-tabulate. And from their perspective, it was irrelevant. The actual contract would show the contractor. From our perspective, every one of these "3" footnotes would mean we would not know who owned the actual contract without physical identification. In this case, as well as the Bonney-Krieger case (which was a subcontracting situation), it's very easy to discern from the unmistakable physical features.

 

[RTM]

Wow Lugz is really getting into this. I have another pair of Bernard's pliers in a similar size and shape so they're together now for a comparison.

Utica v Bernard
Steel v Chrome
251g v 237g
Nuts v rivets on the last joint
Name on handle orientation reversed.
Differences in the edge transition from the handle to the jaw (see the pictures)
Utica moves a lot easier than Bernard

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Wow Lugz is really getting into this.

I must be slacking lately. I consider that routine.

EDIT: One thing to remember in your comparison, in which the differences are already in the negligible category, is time period. That chrome Bernard is not wartime. Not that all the minor distinctions are necessarily attributable to an earlier or later production period, but some of them could be. Either way, I think it's neat that Utica made them, even if they made them - I am guessing from blueprints, dies, and a few good physical examples as models - a little better than even Schollhorn did.

 

[RTM]

I think it's neat that Utica made them

Which is why I grabbed them. I have a handful of the Schollhorn / Bernard / Sargent, but had never heard of the Utica vein, so it was coming home. It had to hide with the other common tools to avoid paying too much, but its out and safe now.

 

[Gebirgekind]

These little guys were among my great uncle’s tools, 21-4 round nose pliers.

 

[d42jeep]

Which is why I grabbed them. I have a handful of the Schollhorn / Bernard / Sargent, but had never heard of the Utica vein, so it was coming home. It had to hide with the other common tools to avoid paying too much, but its out and safe now.

I cleaned mine up this afternoon and they seem to be made to a higher standard than my Bernard version ones.
Bernard units in various brands
I cleaned and lubed the longnoses as well.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I have a handful of the Schollhorn / Bernard / Sargent, but had never heard of the Utica vein, so it was coming home.

For sure! If only for the WTF? aspect. I leave Sargent behind, but I've posted my Schollhorns, just one in each size, on the Schollhorn thread.

Gotta 'fess up though. I searched around when I was still in a little how-could-this-go-unknown-for-so-long-here aftershock, and I couldn't find any other reference to the Utica production anywhere. Not AA, not old Practical Machinist forum conversations, not here, etc. Then I searched again, with a little more diligence, and guess what I found?

Yeah, I had seen one before, in a NOS Utica box, that I had misidentified in hasty assumption as "Mare for Utica by Schollhorn" (when the opposite is apparently true!), that prompted me to post the same SNL page I posted for you and correctly identify the WWII kit they belonged to (Armorer's), in one of those weird short-lived threads right here on GJ only three years ago!

Parallel Jaw Pliers

I got these parallel jaw pliers at a store recently, the second pair I've come across, though this one is in much better condition. It's coated in this hard layer of what I assume is grease that isn't present on the older ones. Should I leave it on or try and get it off?

www.garagejournal.com

All of which I completely forgot about until now.

The coolest part of Round II for the research junkie in me is to go from that blankness to now having it documented, perhaps - in the form of one little seemingly innocuous footnote!

 

[Mintgrun]

how-could-this-go-unknown-for-so-long-here

I posted these in this thread, in post #272. I typed the part number to help future searchers find them, but never mentioned Bernard, Sargent or Schollhorn. That's probably why they slipped under the radar.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

That's an even different situation, with them being chromed and from a different era of markings, Tom. So much more to uncover, perhaps, including why they don't show up in catalogs. Unless those are from later than I looked, which was only up through early 50's, I think. Someone else can run with that. My interest was primarily centered on the wartime production.

One more consideration for that further research: while they are unmistakably compound parallel pliers of the Bernard design, the patent was long expired.

 

[LesserSon]

Those compound pliers are on p11 of the 1967 and p14 of the 1968 Utica catalogs.

 

[LesserSon]

The 1981 Utica catalog has compound pliers on p95, but not that model. Same on P20 in 1977.
Ah, p14 in 1968 shows your model 402. So do other catalogs as far back as 1952. Not 1950.
So, 1952-1968, maybe a bit later, but not as late as 1977.

Ah-ha, I thought I looked this up before.
On p11 of the 1952 Utica (no66) catalog.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Thanks, LS. It looks like in 1950 they may have finally parlayed their wartime production on behalf of Schollhorn into a type they were not offering as part of their own line before the war. Maybe by popular demand.

 

[four.cycle]

Utica
(recent finds)

 

[jreb10]

This is described as a Utica Tool Point of Sale display at an online auction in Dekalb IL. I thought the readers of this thread might enjoy seeing it:

 

[Beerhippie]

This is described as a Utica Tool Point of Sale display at an online auction in Dekalb IL. I thought the readers of this thread might enjoy seeing it:

I believe that's only the second Utica box posted here! It's a real beauty!

Here's mine:

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I thought the readers of this thread might enjoy seeing sniping it:

FIFY!

Gorgeous! I've seen one before, but it must have been in a catalog. I just did a search of the forum and it didn't turn up.