I Found An Unusual Walden Worcester 1/4” drive set. Feel free to post your Walden tools here.

[Username already in use]

Walden had letters on some of the wartime sockets as well.
Here's my black ox ratchet. It has a 'C' code on it.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Walden had letters on some of the wartime sockets as well.

3bay made the same observation. Are they the same as the letters we're seeing on the rats? And do they match the letter on the rat?

Here's my black ox ratchet. It has a 'C' code on it.

Nice. So we've got B, C, and D so far.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

We've known about the mark on wartime sockets that resembles a skinny upside down "V" for quite some time...



...but its size and orientation seems different than the small blocky letters on the ratchets and, oh by the way, on the hinge handles as well...!!!

 

[JjKk40]

Yeah I was gonna say the hinge handles too. One of mine has the "v" or "check mark" just like the sockets.

 

[JjKk40]

4 of my other black ox set hinge handles have a "W" mark and my 2 cadmium plated sets have the "W" as well.

 

[d42jeep]

I figured that I should put my two cents worth in on the hinge handle markings. Here are the results of the several I checked.
All of the cad ones I checked had the upside down W

The four black ones split between a right side up W and an upside down V


With this style you got A or B
I didn’t see any additional letters on this style.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Alphabet soup!

Not that we can safely draw any conclusions about what the codes even mean, let alone whether the pieces in these sets are original to each other, but did you notice any matching? Did the hinge handles with the upside down V come out of sets with upside down V sockets? Did the hinge handles with a B come out of sets with B ratchets? Etc

 

[d42jeep]

I can‘t speak to any of these matching any other tools. I only went through boxes of spares to get those pictures. Someday I’ll check my sets that were found together but I think they are pretty random. I still have no idea what the significance of these are.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I'm still percolating on it. It doesn't seem to be chronological. I'd be interested in hearing if there were any matching pieces in the sets when you go through them.

But I have to say your propensity for collecting and hanging onto more than one of the same thing is a research boon. Like a mini database rather than having to poll a bunch of different collectors.

 

[d42jeep]

Yeah, now that my GMTK and MVMTS sets are completed to my satisfaction, I’ve slowed down on that quite a bit. Old tool prices on eBay have kind of gotten out of hand. I saw a listing for an empty Walden 1/4” drive box recently. The seller wanted over $35.00 for it and it was nothing special. Wasn’t even FSN marked. Just an average green box. Crazy!
-Don

 

[four.cycle]

^ Those end-hinge Walden boxes have been selling for anywhere from $20 - $40 bucks for the last several years. One of my first ebay purchases was an empty Walden box, because I thought it so unusual. Only later did I figure out they're as common as rocks.
I have no idea where my Walden sets are at the moment so I can't check for letters, although after Don's dive into his inventory it's probably of little consequence - I think over 90% of my Walden is chrome anyway.

 

[MR.X]

I’m waiting for someone to say they had so many they welded them into a porch swing…

Leftover from my Ranch Gate project.

 

[JjKk40]

Found a partial set with this 6" extention and this Tee bar in black ox! Finally because I don't have any of these in black ox! They're in excellent shape and the Tee bar has the "B" mark too. It came with a few sockets which have no detent hole and I believe are the middle war years sockets. Ill add the pics of sockets later on but here's the Tee and extention....

 

[d42jeep]

Nice find on the extension. Those are kind of hard to come across. The sliding Tees are a little less difficult to find.
-Don

 

[JjKk40]

These are the sockets that came with the extention and tee bar. Three 12 points and four 6 points. Missing the three 8 pointers and one 12 pointer. These are the middle war years i think, with no detent hole???

 

[d42jeep]

With the lack of Walden catalogs to consult other than the 3/44 catalog that still shows cad plated toolsets and Walden’s penchant for putting mixed style of sockets in sets, I would simply date them to 1944 or 1945. When I put together my sets I prefer to include all the same style of sockets but that is a matter of personal preference. Occasionally I have received sets that come entirely made up of one style of sockets and I keep those together, only adding in the missing tools.
-Don

 

[four.cycle]

Maybe I'm missing something here... but if I am seeing things correctly, 12-points were included in the 3100 SET, but open stock was available only in 6-points?

1940 Stevens Walden catalog No. 140 pp 12-13

(* I will be bidding on the hard copy. 04/19/22 BK *)

 

[d42jeep]

I hope you get that catalog. I have virtually no experience with prewar 1/4” drive Walden tools so it may be quite informative.
-Don

 

[four.cycle]

I have not heard back yet from Mark, but I'll go for it if he does not.
Don't want to wind up bidding against him or another GJ member again on a damn catalog!

Adding that to the library would most likely answer a LOT of questions.

I have to wonder if the difficulty you encountered trying to find matching 12-points for one of your black-finish sets might have had something to do with the way the product was marketed -- 12 points in sets, 6 points in singles. Causes me to wonder.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

1940 Stevens Walden catalog No. 140 pp 12-13

Adding that to the library would most likely answer a LOT of questions.

No. 140 is already on-line somewhere. I have it on my hard drive and downloaded it a long time ago. Several years, at least, going back to when I created all my wartime midget guide tables for G503.com. I thought I got it from Tool Archives, which should mean it's on IA/ITCL. Anyway, it's dated July 1, 1941.

 

[four.cycle]

GAH!
okay thanks for savin' me fifty bucks!

did this on another one recently.... doh!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I actually can't find the 1941 cat on IA or IA/ITCL. Searching is not as good as knowing the list, though, so maybe ask Mark. But I just emailed it to you to upload if it's truly not there.

This whole episode is causing me no small amount of consternation at still not being able to ascertain whether or not PDF versions of all of the catalogs that Todd used to have on TA (which were NOT all his, many belonged and were loaned to him from others, such as tin medic, for scanning, many of which I downloaded) are now on IA or IA/ITCL or not. That was the plan, but I am not 100% confident it was carried through.

 

[four.cycle]

^ I HAVE a copy of that catalog in my "Walden" folder. I stupidly failed to check first before I started sending out emails to Mark and Don.
Did the same thing three weeks ago and ordered a volume that Mark already had uploaded to ITCL.
As to the TA/ITCL thing - I have NO clue. I only downloaded a couple volumes from Todd's site and that was long ago.

TinMedic and Mark were put in contact with each other at the end of December 2021. I do not know what all TinMedic supplied to Mark, but I believe it was a sizeable amount of material.

BK

 

[d42jeep]

I tried to make the 1942 letter a little more legible from that eBay listing. They could only sell tools to someone with a priority rating of A-9 or above.
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

Although I have quite a few Walden 1/4” drive tools, I had never run across a 1/4” drive speeder. I solved that by picking up this formerly rusty example on eBay. It came out of the evaporust yesterday looking pretty presentable. Based on the finish, it could well be wartime.
-Don

 

[four.cycle]

^ that's quite a find there, Don. I wasn't even aware they made one!

 

[d42jeep]

Here is a Walden set with a wood handle along with several screwdriver and nutdriver bits. Although I had a handle I only had one bit. These seem very lightly used.
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

Although I’ve been trying to cut back on buying 1/4” Walden sets, this set was priced quite a bit under what they normally sell for and looked like a partial late WW2 set specified from 4/45 through the end of the war. I only had to add one 5/16” 8 point socket and breaker bar to complete the set although I did move it into a nicer box that I had on hand. It didn’t include any sockets with the upside down V or detent ball holes.
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

I was happy to spot this on a buy it now. I grabbed it as fast as I could because they come up so rarely. They are the spinners shown in the 1944 catalog. I added it to the rest of the Walden stuff I’ve accumulated over the summer.
-Don



Added to the other recent Walden tool finds.

 

[d42jeep]

These cad plated 1/4” drive tools arrived today in a pretty decent box. They will allow me to fill out some sets.
-Don

 

[twertsy]

Gents, FYI..........the smithsonian has dozens of Walden cats. I passed them by when I did all those cat scans because well, Walden........

 

[d42jeep]

Yes?…………..
Welcome back, Todd!
-Don

 

[Username already in use]

Welcome back, Todd!

couple of posts in as many days.

 

[four.cycle]

w/b Todd

 

[d42jeep]

I bought this Walden lot on eBay to get the hard to find yellow and black spinner. As an odd coincidence it came with a knurled 6 point 7/16” socket that I had been looking for for years. I suspected that it existed but had never actually seen one in person. All of the other knurled 6 point 7/16“ Walden sockets that I’ve seen in person have Walden Worcester in a line rather than one word above the other. There is a collector in the UK that has one similar to this new one.
I added matching tools to the new box and sockets to make a complete set.
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

Although they were a little more than I wanted to pay, I scored these 1/4” drive Walden ratchets off of eBay. The dark finish ratchets are quite rare and I’m always watching for them. At least I got a slight discount off the buy it now price.
-Don

 

[four.cycle]

^ Almost sent you a note about that one but figured "No, he's gotta have enough of those by now!"

Came across a couple I didn't even know about the other night while out there digging around.

 

[LNKMK8]

I'm still looking for a black and yellow spinner myself to complete a set.

 

[LNKMK8]

Although they were a little more than I wanted to pay, I scored these 1/4” drive Walden ratchets off of eBay. The dark finish ratchets are quite rare and I’m always watching for them. At least I got a slight discount off the buy it now price.
-Don

Glad they arrived in good condition. I had no idea that black oxide finish were uncommon. It seems the Walden sets I have come across have been a mix of either the bright silver finish or the black oxide finish on the sockets.

 

[d42jeep]

They look just fine and I’m happy they came from a GJ member. Those black and yellow spinners are probably about as rare as the dark finish ratchets.
-Don