four.cycle
Well-known member
nice to be able to finally put a face on the name. thank you! 
The Lugzsonian - A Virtual Tour
- Thread starter Private Lugnutz
- Start date
txlonghorn1989
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- Feb 27, 2017
- Messages
- 2,786
What a story Lugz! And it may not be even close to done! Hope you hear back from the Museo Toma de la Zacatecas.
duddly
Well-known member
Lugz! That is a great picture of both of you!
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Amen.
Kinda funny. I'm fairly cautious about that, but between this photo and the group shot of me, LesserSon and Chris on the Garage Sale thread, I'm apparently gettin' all selfie-portraity lately.
Jose asked me if I was going to keep it. I think he was too well-mannered to ask for it, but that's as close as he came. My record/soft spot for that kind of thing is not good. If you've never read my wartime Chapman midget set story, you can find it in the Index in the Sticky under Chapman. Short version is I gave the set to Chapman for their little office museum, because they had never seen one that old before. I felt great for about two days, then I regretted it! A couple years later - unbelievably I found another one. But in this case, I am not taking any chances on karma lightning striking twice, and I did not cave in.
I'm a little disappointed I haven't heard back from them yet. I may try writing a physical letter and sending it snail mail.
Old Radar
Well-known member
Hopefully you'll have better luck than I did on a question I had for the Wabash RR museum last year. Nada.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
If you are fluent in Spanish and you are willing to make a call to the Museo Toma de la Zacatecas in Zacatecas, Mexico on my behalf, please PM me. They do answer the phone. My Spanish is just not good enough to get very far with the man who is picking up. I'm not even sure if he is just a receptionist or what. I will PM you a copy of the letter I sent, which should provide you all the particulars, talking points, and specific questions I have. In fact, the short version of this call might just be finding out if they read emails and if they have seen mine (subject: Machete Indagacion) or not. The longer version would be you asking to speak to a curator or director and discussing the machete with him or her.
I thought about asking Jose, but I have to go through his boss (Leo) first, and I've already intruded on them enough.
I thought about asking Jose, but I have to go through his boss (Leo) first, and I've already intruded on them enough.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Curator's Corner: Family Heritage Special Edition (Tona)
1 of SEVERAL
Here comes another long string of posts on a topic the Curator and the Acquisitions Dept feel too 1st Personally connected to write about from any other perspective.
Up until last year this time, I had in my possession only two small metric wrenches made by the company called Tona, located in Pecky, near Prague, in the Czech Republic. I found them with a Russian stub rasp and a few wrenches made in Belarussia in a lot of miscellaneous tools, pulled from the box of a well-traveled mechanic who had to hail, I figured, from Eastern Europe.
Then, last September, I found a partial Tona socket set, 1/2-inch square drive, metric, clearly made for an English-speaking export market (spark plug wrench is sized in British Standard Whitworth), proudly declaring that it was ‘MADE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA’ on the lid of the metal attache style case.
.Unless you follow the ‘Tools of the Old World’ thread up on the General board, you probably wouldn’t know any of that, because I have never posted them down here on the vintage board.
You may have heard me talk about my heritage on any number of threads before, though, including this one. If not, and I say that these tools make me want to do “The Pennsylvania Polka”, you may start to get an idea of what that might be.
1 of SEVERAL
Here comes another long string of posts on a topic the Curator and the Acquisitions Dept feel too 1st Personally connected to write about from any other perspective.
Up until last year this time, I had in my possession only two small metric wrenches made by the company called Tona, located in Pecky, near Prague, in the Czech Republic. I found them with a Russian stub rasp and a few wrenches made in Belarussia in a lot of miscellaneous tools, pulled from the box of a well-traveled mechanic who had to hail, I figured, from Eastern Europe.
Then, last September, I found a partial Tona socket set, 1/2-inch square drive, metric, clearly made for an English-speaking export market (spark plug wrench is sized in British Standard Whitworth), proudly declaring that it was ‘MADE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA’ on the lid of the metal attache style case.
.Unless you follow the ‘Tools of the Old World’ thread up on the General board, you probably wouldn’t know any of that, because I have never posted them down here on the vintage board.
You may have heard me talk about my heritage on any number of threads before, though, including this one. If not, and I say that these tools make me want to do “The Pennsylvania Polka”, you may start to get an idea of what that might be.
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OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
2 of SEVERAL
I am 100% ethnic Slovak. My maternal and paternal grandparents were all born and raised in Austria-Hungary, also known much more fittingly as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the history of the world, just how powerful this dual-throned monarchy was tends to be forgotten, which is a mistake, because Eastern Central Europe is still emerging from the tensions that plagued it. In 1911 it had a population of 53 million people and was the 4th largest industrial economy in the world behind only the U.S., Germany, and the U.K. It was without a doubt the most ethnically diverse, which is what led to so much strife, of course, when the Austrians and Hungarians tried to force their language and culture on everything within their boundaries. My grandparents left for America before WWI, when the empire was finally defeated and broken up into separate countries each more or less defined by their own historical ethnic identities. One of these countries was Czechoslovakia.
Here is a sort of slide-view presentation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where Tona, now part of the same STANLEY BLACK & DECKER European empire as FACOM (its modern incarnation website linked here), was founded by Josef Suchy as an iron foundry in 1892, where my maternal and paternal roots are, and how the country of Czechoslovakia was carved out of it in 1918.
The isotone maps in Pic 4 were created by a funny but very wise Reddit user named CountZapolai and meant to be a deliberately light-hearted effort to explain how the Hapsburg monarchy perceived its Empire between 1880 and 1914, when my grandparents lived there, interpreted from actual historical documents (strategy and propaganda) from the imperial thrones. And rule of haha is in effect rather than rule of thumb.
But, it rings very, very true. Bratislava (brat-ee-slaw-va), itself a sort of Pittsburgh to Prague’s “Paris of the East” reputation as far as cities go, is only 280 miles (or a 4-hour drive) from Kosice (co-sheets-ah), but it was very much like driving from Pittsburgh to, oh, say the town of Welch, in the heart of coal country WV. My grandmother’s father worked in a factory making barrels. My grandfather’s father was a farmer and game keeper.
I am 100% ethnic Slovak. My maternal and paternal grandparents were all born and raised in Austria-Hungary, also known much more fittingly as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the history of the world, just how powerful this dual-throned monarchy was tends to be forgotten, which is a mistake, because Eastern Central Europe is still emerging from the tensions that plagued it. In 1911 it had a population of 53 million people and was the 4th largest industrial economy in the world behind only the U.S., Germany, and the U.K. It was without a doubt the most ethnically diverse, which is what led to so much strife, of course, when the Austrians and Hungarians tried to force their language and culture on everything within their boundaries. My grandparents left for America before WWI, when the empire was finally defeated and broken up into separate countries each more or less defined by their own historical ethnic identities. One of these countries was Czechoslovakia.
Here is a sort of slide-view presentation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where Tona, now part of the same STANLEY BLACK & DECKER European empire as FACOM (its modern incarnation website linked here), was founded by Josef Suchy as an iron foundry in 1892, where my maternal and paternal roots are, and how the country of Czechoslovakia was carved out of it in 1918.
The isotone maps in Pic 4 were created by a funny but very wise Reddit user named CountZapolai and meant to be a deliberately light-hearted effort to explain how the Hapsburg monarchy perceived its Empire between 1880 and 1914, when my grandparents lived there, interpreted from actual historical documents (strategy and propaganda) from the imperial thrones. And rule of haha is in effect rather than rule of thumb.
But, it rings very, very true. Bratislava (brat-ee-slaw-va), itself a sort of Pittsburgh to Prague’s “Paris of the East” reputation as far as cities go, is only 280 miles (or a 4-hour drive) from Kosice (co-sheets-ah), but it was very much like driving from Pittsburgh to, oh, say the town of Welch, in the heart of coal country WV. My grandmother’s father worked in a factory making barrels. My grandfather’s father was a farmer and game keeper.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
3 of SEVERAL
Some of you know my last name from mailing each other tools back and forth in trades and other exchanges.
What you may not know is that it’s a variation of a name that is quite popular in Eastern European folklore. The Hajduks were a fierce and large band of Christian mercenaries, either bandits or freedom fighters, depending on which side you were on, who roamed the wilds ridding the Tatra and Carpathian mountains and the Ural plains of the Ottoman Turks in the 17th through 19th centuries. Sort of like a cross between Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Crusaders, the French Foreign Legion, and the James Gang.
Some more or less well-known descendants of this ‘tribe’ include Milan Hejduk, who played 14 years in the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche, the guy who owns Hyduke Energy Services, a large manufacturer of drilling equipment in Alberta, Canada, and Ex-Green Beret turned environment activist, George Hayduke, the fictional hero of Edward Abbey’s famous novel, The Monkeywrench Gang, and its sequel, Hayduke Lives!
You can see a more classic ancestor wielding something a little more lethal than a monkey wrench in the relief woodcut to the right in this little assembly I just pulled together from various places in the house.
The other things in the photo are just the typical detritus of a life spent in pride of one’s family, including one of my dad’s paintings of dancers in traditional garb, some playing cards, a thirty-year-old bottle of Borovicka (excellent juniper berry liquor) and two books that were tools of a former trade. (When I aced the dee lab - Defense Language Aptitude Battery - in 1982, had my pick of languages to study at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey, including Farsi, Arabic, and Chinese, and I chose Czech/Slovak instead, it should go without saying what motivated me, and, in addition to a stint as a linguist with the Army and NSA that launched my career in ISR, I enjoyed a few good years talking to my maternal grandparents in their native tongue.) While stationed at Field Station Augsburg I played for the Augsburg ice hockey team for a year. The league allowed three foreign-born players. When we played the team from Poprad in Czechoslovakia, I traded jerseys with #8.
Some of you know my last name from mailing each other tools back and forth in trades and other exchanges.
What you may not know is that it’s a variation of a name that is quite popular in Eastern European folklore. The Hajduks were a fierce and large band of Christian mercenaries, either bandits or freedom fighters, depending on which side you were on, who roamed the wilds ridding the Tatra and Carpathian mountains and the Ural plains of the Ottoman Turks in the 17th through 19th centuries. Sort of like a cross between Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Crusaders, the French Foreign Legion, and the James Gang.
Some more or less well-known descendants of this ‘tribe’ include Milan Hejduk, who played 14 years in the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche, the guy who owns Hyduke Energy Services, a large manufacturer of drilling equipment in Alberta, Canada, and Ex-Green Beret turned environment activist, George Hayduke, the fictional hero of Edward Abbey’s famous novel, The Monkeywrench Gang, and its sequel, Hayduke Lives!
You can see a more classic ancestor wielding something a little more lethal than a monkey wrench in the relief woodcut to the right in this little assembly I just pulled together from various places in the house.
The other things in the photo are just the typical detritus of a life spent in pride of one’s family, including one of my dad’s paintings of dancers in traditional garb, some playing cards, a thirty-year-old bottle of Borovicka (excellent juniper berry liquor) and two books that were tools of a former trade. (When I aced the dee lab - Defense Language Aptitude Battery - in 1982, had my pick of languages to study at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey, including Farsi, Arabic, and Chinese, and I chose Czech/Slovak instead, it should go without saying what motivated me, and, in addition to a stint as a linguist with the Army and NSA that launched my career in ISR, I enjoyed a few good years talking to my maternal grandparents in their native tongue.) While stationed at Field Station Augsburg I played for the Augsburg ice hockey team for a year. The league allowed three foreign-born players. When we played the team from Poprad in Czechoslovakia, I traded jerseys with #8.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
4 of SEVERAL
Having said all that as one very long prelude – you might could begin to see why I was just a tad elated when GJ member yamahaxt6600, a Kosice native, and a Tona aficionado, very kindly offered to help me complete my partial Tona socket set! His box arrived on Saturday.
That set, now shown completed here...
....is going to go to my brother Paul as a gift on the occasion of his 60th birthday in a few weeks time.
Having said all that as one very long prelude – you might could begin to see why I was just a tad elated when GJ member yamahaxt6600, a Kosice native, and a Tona aficionado, very kindly offered to help me complete my partial Tona socket set! His box arrived on Saturday.
That set, now shown completed here...
....is going to go to my brother Paul as a gift on the occasion of his 60th birthday in a few weeks time.
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gearhead1960
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Very cool Lugz. I've not had an interest in the tools of my heritage, such as yourself, but more about the military weapons that my ancestors might have carried. My grandfathers (both maternal and paternal) fought for the Kaiser. I've been hankering for a K98 of that vintage. I'm afraid they might be out of my budget at this point.... I did however pick up a M1 years ago to honor my dad, as he served under George Patton in a CIC unit during WWII.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
5 of SEVERAL
Why am I giving it away when I just completed it???!
Because I also acquired this gorgeous vintage set from yamahaxt6600!
I love the combination decal/packing slip!
The black leather attache case is super stylish and I really admire the tools. The black composite handles have a perfectly shaped feel in the palm of your hands and they are pebbled for grip. The RHFT ratchet has a very low profile and 73 teeth. The sockets run 12 to 32 MM. I have not figured out the purpose of the black rubber sleeve on the universal joint. I have seen photos in other sets on-line with a spring-like sleeve over it. It will not bend with it on there, so I supposes it’s just for keeping it in place. It’s not something any American mfgr ever thought of doing, but it's kind of neat.
yamahaxt6600 also sent me a vintage catalog. It’s not dated, but it looks like the 60’s to me. That is my attache kit on the ground on the cover. It reads, ‘For Motorists / Auto Service / Repair’
Why am I giving it away when I just completed it???!
Because I also acquired this gorgeous vintage set from yamahaxt6600!
I love the combination decal/packing slip!
The black leather attache case is super stylish and I really admire the tools. The black composite handles have a perfectly shaped feel in the palm of your hands and they are pebbled for grip. The RHFT ratchet has a very low profile and 73 teeth. The sockets run 12 to 32 MM. I have not figured out the purpose of the black rubber sleeve on the universal joint. I have seen photos in other sets on-line with a spring-like sleeve over it. It will not bend with it on there, so I supposes it’s just for keeping it in place. It’s not something any American mfgr ever thought of doing, but it's kind of neat.
yamahaxt6600 also sent me a vintage catalog. It’s not dated, but it looks like the 60’s to me. That is my attache kit on the ground on the cover. It reads, ‘For Motorists / Auto Service / Repair’
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
bbbarracuda
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2008
- Messages
- 709
Those are nice sets. The ancestry makes them special.
Does your brother hang out here, or is this a surprise gift?
Does your brother hang out here, or is this a surprise gift?
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Thanks, 'Cuda. Surprise gift for a surprise party. He's not a collector, but he'll appreciate it. We don't exchange gifts every year, only when someone finds something really good. In fact, I think the last time I gave him anything was this hunting cabin accessory, a flea market find back in 2018.
four.cycle
Well-known member
Now you're going to have to get a Tatra so you have the right car to work on with those tools!
They do appear to be very well made, looking at that last group of photos. I am assuming the "pebbly" black handles are hard plastic, correct?
Maybe the black plastic sleeve is to protect the spring from being damaged?
Love the maps. I have a bunch of "Bohunk" relatives in South Omaha. No doubt part of that "stupid peasant" ethnic group.
They do appear to be very well made, looking at that last group of photos. I am assuming the "pebbly" black handles are hard plastic, correct?
Maybe the black plastic sleeve is to protect the spring from being damaged?
Love the maps. I have a bunch of "Bohunk" relatives in South Omaha. No doubt part of that "stupid peasant" ethnic group.
Attachments
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
nadogail
Well-known member
What a fabulous tour !, I got called away at the end of Page 8, but I intend to use my rain check and complete the remainder of the Journey.
I found the Life Raft survival kit especially interesting.
Your collection and museum are world class.
I found the Life Raft survival kit especially interesting.
Your collection and museum are world class.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Thanks, nadogail. Overly kind of you to say, but I'll take it. If I was really open for business the brochures in the parkway reststops would probably say, "quaint and charming," borrowed from real estate, meaning "needs a lot of work."
You've got a few Curator's Corners (multi-tools, obsolete map reading devices, a macabre hex key, locking plier-wrenches not named Petersen, and utility knives), a visit from an owl, working man's art, Pancho Villa's utility knife, and a historically questionable but visually effective update on that WWII fishing kit you like to look forward to!
You've got a few Curator's Corners (multi-tools, obsolete map reading devices, a macabre hex key, locking plier-wrenches not named Petersen, and utility knives), a visit from an owl, working man's art, Pancho Villa's utility knife, and a historically questionable but visually effective update on that WWII fishing kit you like to look forward to!
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
I'm glad someone else reviewed those maps. Dude is hilarious, but again, spot on. I was kind of hoping my family would fall within the "illiterate murderous peasant" or the "illiterate untrustworthy rebels" groups, but my blood pressure would probably be higher than it already is!
misterbill
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2015
- Messages
- 670
LAST OF SEVERAL
Both of the Tona sets together...
Some markings...
...and some additional shots attached below.
But does either one have a 10mm socket?
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Snerk. There's always gotta be one joker in every crowd. How are you doing, Billiams? The answer is no. Tona made 8, 9, and 10mm sockets, but I think they were special order - I didn't see them come standard in any of the sets in the catalog Tomas sent me. Both sets are the same, just different cases, and they start at 12mm. You can see the layout in the sticker.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
I don't know if anyone caught my sly metaphorical reference to "empire" in this description, but the irony should not be lost an anyone.
Think about it. Josef Sluchy, the original proprietor of the iron foundry in Pecky, was probably paying handsome royalties to the Hapsburgs and the Hungarian king. When WWI ended, he and his kin enjoyed some private enterprise until the Nazis invaded in 1939, only to become 'nationalized' (and paying a different kind of fealty to the Party) after WWII as part of the Eastern Bloc of the USSR. That's when Josef Pecky became Tona and that is the period when these sets were made, which is interesting to think about. With the Velvet Revolution hastening the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989, and the Czech Republic and Slovakia splitting into free, separate countries in 1993, Tona went private again. Only to become almost immediately swallowed up and homogenized as part of a mega transnational corporation! Sure, the company still operates out of Czechia. But a company like STANLEY BLACK & DECKER is so big it has no borders. If that's not an empire, I don't know what is. So, full circle.
Farmer J.
Well-known member
Great thread Lugz, most amusing. Loved the maps! Maybe now it's your maternal family relatives making the new Land Rovers in Nitra..
The background history of the tools and your summary of the the Austro-Hungarian Empire puts them in context nicely. I don't know much of that part of the world, it used to be easier and a more attractive outlook to go to America than through the Iron Curtain...
The background history of the tools and your summary of the the Austro-Hungarian Empire puts them in context nicely. I don't know much of that part of the world, it used to be easier and a more attractive outlook to go to America than through the Iron Curtain...
harley jim
Well-known member
Merry Christmas Lugs. Hope it's a great one.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Thank you, Harley Jim! A Merry Christmas to you and all of yours, as well! Thanks for thinking of me.
To be honest, it's a little more melancholy than I even expected this year. My #1 and #2 and their families are far flung (L.A. and Tacoma) and the already too smallish gathering of #3 (who lives nearby), #4 and #5 (who are college students), and Mrs Lugz and I got even smaller when #4's entire basketball team got hit by the dratted C19 bug. They all elected to quarantine together at college rather than go home. So, we've only got two not so wee ones at home upstairs in the Curator's Quarters to open presents this morning.
But leave it to my 95-year old mother, who has just the barest bearings on mental life remaining, to gently and yet firmly remind me on the phone last night that no matter how small or how melancholy, it will always be Blessed!
And just to remind me that all the stars are still shining, here is my old 'O Little Town of Bethlehem Spark Plug Company' wrenches display!
To be honest, it's a little more melancholy than I even expected this year. My #1 and #2 and their families are far flung (L.A. and Tacoma) and the already too smallish gathering of #3 (who lives nearby), #4 and #5 (who are college students), and Mrs Lugz and I got even smaller when #4's entire basketball team got hit by the dratted C19 bug. They all elected to quarantine together at college rather than go home. So, we've only got two not so wee ones at home upstairs in the Curator's Quarters to open presents this morning.
But leave it to my 95-year old mother, who has just the barest bearings on mental life remaining, to gently and yet firmly remind me on the phone last night that no matter how small or how melancholy, it will always be Blessed!
And just to remind me that all the stars are still shining, here is my old 'O Little Town of Bethlehem Spark Plug Company' wrenches display!
gearhead1960
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Lugz,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thanks for all the Lugzonian memories. Here’s to many more!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thanks for all the Lugzonian memories. Here’s to many more!
Outlawmws
Well-known member
But leave it to my 95-year old mother, who has just the barest bearings on mental life remaining, to gently and yet firmly remind me on the phone last night that no matter how small or how melancholy, it will always be Blessed!
And just to remind me that all the stars are still shining, here is my old 'O Little Town of Bethlehem Spark Plug Company' wrenches display!
Classic Lugz! Merry Christmas you you and your family, and all the members of he GJ Guild!
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Are you sure you mean post #239? The only screwdriver in that post is a Craftsman Model Number 9C4117, with the bits stored inside the hollow plastic handle, which they marketed as the "Add-A-Bit". You can read a little more about it in the third blurb in post #240, which has a link to even more in a post in the Long C thread.
Like watching paint dry!
Yes in #239 that Craftsman looks like it has the same or similar bits to the Bonney. From looking at the shaft where the bits get inserted looks similar. I gotta find my Bonney in a catalog.Are you sure you mean post #239? The only screwdriver in that post is a Craftsman Model Number 9C4117, with the bits stored inside the hollow plastic handle, which they marketed as the "Add-A-Bit". You can read a little more about it in the third blurb in post #240, which has a link to even more in a post in the Long C thread.
Like watching paint dry!
Edit....
Yup same bits, same patent except Bonney is wood handle with now stowe away for the bits.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Dang! That is sweet. Have you posted that on the Bonney thread? I had zero awareness of that before. What are the full patent numbers? I see 20xxxxxx. Mine is 2,287,457 (Stowell/1942) assigned to Stanley. Which makes sense. They were a Bonney supplier. But I didn't know of ANY older wood-handled jobbies to the late 40's/early 50's plastic hollow jobbies.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
Those are the 1936 Phillips patents. I'd know them in my sleep - it's what wartime collectors look for on driver shanks. 250xxxx is 1950.
When you said...
When you said...
...I thought you had actually verified by seeing the Sowell patent number on it. It does look like a similar design (with the simple crimping in the shank to retain them), could in fact be the same Sowell/Stanley design, and probably is, but will require a little looking into.
Oh my appoligies I hadn't verified the patent before I posted "same patent". I tend to do that sometimes, bad habit.
I have other wood handle drivers that come back as Stanley and New Britain patents so it could possibly be Stanley. The only identifying text on the actual driver is on the wood handle and its just about almost gone and unreadable. I'll have to look into aittle more.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
No apologies necessary. I was just pointing out that we have some research to do to confirm that your Bonney is actually an earlier version of the later Craftsman Add-a-Bit. Physically, it sure seems like it.
Hey Lugz I strike again! Lol! There is more info on the tool and it is on the shaft. Its actually a Pat Pen'd! Heres a pic. Should I post this stuff over in the Bonney thread so I don't clog up your awesome thread with this?
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
I don't mind you posting here in the least and I don't consider sorting this situation out here to be in the least bit clogging or detracting. One curator to another trying to figure this out, so to speak. But I do suggest you definitely also post this screwdriver on the Bonney thread. I could be wrong, but I don't recall seeing one there before.
If the PAT PEND notice on the shank refers to the Sowell/Stanley patent, and I still think that is very reasonable to conclude given the look of the crimped shank and the shape of the bits, that would date its production to July 1940, when the patent application was submitted, through July 1942, when it was granted. Which does fit the physical features of the tool.
It's very interesting, and proper, that the Phillips patents for the cross-recess tip are on the bits and not the shank, where they usually are when the tip is not detachable from the rest of the shank and the driver, and the ostensible reference to the Sowell/Stanley patent is on the shank, since the bits are detachable. And everything makes chronological sense. 1936 Phillips patents, 1940 Sowell patent submission.
If the PAT PEND notice on the shank refers to the Sowell/Stanley patent, and I still think that is very reasonable to conclude given the look of the crimped shank and the shape of the bits, that would date its production to July 1940, when the patent application was submitted, through July 1942, when it was granted. Which does fit the physical features of the tool.
It's very interesting, and proper, that the Phillips patents for the cross-recess tip are on the bits and not the shank, where they usually are when the tip is not detachable from the rest of the shank and the driver, and the ostensible reference to the Sowell/Stanley patent is on the shank, since the bits are detachable. And everything makes chronological sense. 1936 Phillips patents, 1940 Sowell patent submission.
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