New collection: a taxonomy of hammers

[Private Lugnutz]

My second research stop was IA/ITCL.

The 1867 Stanley catalog shows a tack hammer/puller matching the original Conklin patent drawing. The 1870 Stanley catalog includes the same Conklin patent tack hammer/puller and an improved model (I only excerpted the new model below). The first Stanley catalog that includes a tack hammer/puller that is a spittin' image of the example I just found, called a No. 4, is 1872, hence my dating it to ca. 1872 in post #1, despite the slightly earlier patent and reissued patent dates stamped in its little boss.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

BTW, there are not photos of examples on DATAMP, and no notes about this particular model, or the catalog entries, so I contacted the steward.

 

[Outlawmws]

The brass rivets/pins showing about an 1/8th of an inch illustrates the depth of the wear on the wooden handle inserts over the years.

Wear or shrinkage or both?

Really like that find Lugz!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Wear or shrinkage or both?

I am not familiar enough with black walnut (ironically, since I have a living tree in my back yard dropping a bushel of nuts this time of year! ) scales to know, Outlaw. As you know, I have some very old H.D. Smith "Perfect Handle" tools, but none quite this old, and I don't know what wood they used, but none of those are as worn (or, as you say, shrunken looking) as this. It was extremely dry, which I remedied with Murphy's and BLO.

 

[four.cycle]

RE: Conklin tack hammer
see post #193. second image. top right.
same/same?

makes appearances on two or three other pages immediately following.
tells me it went into mass production or those wholesale hardware outfits would not have had it in their catalog, which makes the leap from Conklin to Stanley not too great a stretch.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

^ Yes, that's it.

I didn't think there was any stretch though. The tack hammers shown in the 1867 and 1870 Stanley catalogs look exactly like the hammers shown in Conklin's patent and reissued patent. My hammer doesn't, but the dates that are stamped on it are Conklin's patents, and it appears in the Stanley 1872 catalog. While DATAMP doesn't have a photo of one, it clearly continues the trend of Stanley using his patent, as they indicate. Apparently, they settled on putting wooden inserts into the hollow area, and changed the head, but the hammer matches the main features of the patent claims. It's good to see it in other catalogs, especially later ones, but that 1872 Stanley cat pretty much nailed it, and it continues to appear in Stanley through 1898. I'm not sure why it's not marked Stanley, but that's a minor machts nichts for me with the patent dates and the catalog appearances.

 

[four.cycle]

I didn't think there was any stretch though.

Nor do I.
I was concurring with the evidence you found, which points to Stanley being the manufacturer.
One guy in his garage would not have had the capacity to supply all those hardware houses.

AND... more to the point:
It is clearly evident that Stanley had a practice of swallowing up smaller manufacturers - buying out their patents, or buying out the entire operation. The New England boxwood rule makers are the prime example of that - after a few decades, Stanley was the last man standing.

another dive into the rabbit hole:

this "Worthpoint" page claims the unit WAS manufactured by "Stanley Works"

Thomas A. Conklin b. 1826 d. 1879 (age 53) (headstone)

patent 128020 Jun 18 1872 Thomas A. Conklin of New Britain, CT for "Improvement in Ice-Pickers and Meat-Mauls Combined" - no assignee - no idea if this unit was produced
witness Shepard, James, 1838-1926.

I've got this volume in my "cart" but I need to buy another $12 bucks worth of stuff to get free shipping

VintageMachinery.org says:

One piece casting with the handle hollowed with a large surface but with little material and coated to give it a rust proof surface. The casting is treated, "bit" with acid and then tinned or japanned. Incorporated by Stanley as their No 4 Improved Tack Hammer, No 5 Saddler's Hammer, No 6 Tack Hammer and No 12 Tack Hammer. A known example of the No 12 style is marked with just this patent & R. Boeklen's Aug. 28, 1860 magnetic head patent 29,760. John Walter indicates that the No 12 was not marked with the Stanley name.

I am assuming from your previous comment you sent all those photos in to Stan or and Russ?
(As a way-out-there-tangential aside: note that Russ is steward on the Conklin patent, but Stan is steward on the Boeklen patent. Go figure.)

 

[Private Lugnutz]

VintageMachinery.org says:

Note that they took that paragraph, verbatim, from the Conklin page on DATAMP (which they consider a "sister site"), which I linked for interested GJers to read in my first post.

I am assuming from your previous comment you sent all those photos in to Stan or and Russ?

I didn't send photos. I sent an email to Russ, because that's where the steward link on the Conklin page goes. In that email I briefly summarized my find and I included a link to my post here on GJ where he can view my comments and my photos and also download any photos he wants. That's what I always do with all external parties. Vice versa, too. And internally to GJ. (You should know by now I hate redundancy. ) It's the best information management practice, and it peer levels GJ with DATAMP and AA and IA/ITCL in a networked knowledge base of vintage hand tool collecting. No need to re-post and re-send everything everywhere.

 

[four.cycle]

datamp.org and vintagemachinery.org are both administered by Jeff, if I am not mistaken. Mark Stansbury is also one of the historians on VM, as well as his own "trowel" site (as well as a couple others I can't think of at the moment.)
the steward assignments are confounding - I very seldom know who to send material to if the patent isn't listed at datamp, so the stuff generally gets sent to Jeff and he forwards it to the appropriate steward.

 

[sselander]

Posting this to preserve it. found in my dad's stuff. F.R. Plumb copyright 1953 - Plumb rehandling kit instructions.
scanned it before the mice finished it off. It mentions the Plumb Permabond adhesive.

 

[Beerhippie]

Posting this to preserve it. found in my dad's stuff. F.R. Plumb copyright 1953 - Plumb rehandling kit instructions.
scanned it before the mice finished it off. It mentions the Plumb Permabond adhesive.

More people need to read that!

I cant believe some of the janky-*** hammer repairs I've seen....

 

[Mike'smeatshop]

This is a interesting hammer. I found it at the scrap yard for 50 cents. I thought at first it was homemade but as further review it had a pure rubber handle, and the head is removable with threads. It weighs 1.3 pounds, and I assume you can place a small weight in the head to have a true dead blow hammer. I am going to mount a golf club grip on it and give it a try. No maker marks.

 

[Outlawmws]

Interesting design! I think I'd make a lead slug or use lead shot for inside that so you don't get internal bounce so much

 

[Mike'smeatshop]

Interesting design! I think I'd make a lead slug or use lead shot for inside that so you don't get internal bounce so much

Good idea. I was going to try coins first. But I have a good bit of lead shot.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

That's just a scratch!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

BTW, there are not photos of examples on DATAMP, and no notes about this particular model, or the catalog entries, so I contacted the steward.

Update on that ca. 1872 tack hammer I found. Russ Allen, the DATAMP steward, kindly notified me that he had updated the Conklin page with photos of my example and the catalog excerpt downloaded from GJ. Apparently Conklin was one of the founders of Stanley, helping to explain why it was never assigned, but why they clearly used it. (Good to know. I am not a Stanley collector, per se.)

 

[d42jeep]

I found this small Craftsman ball pein hammer at an estate sale on Friday. I removed most of the rust and cleaned up the handle.
The ink markings on the handle are barely visible.
Opposite side.
-Don

 

[jake28]

I found this small Craftsman ball pein hammer at an estate sale on Friday. I removed most of the rust and cleaned up the handle.
The ink markings on the handle are barely visible.
Opposite side.
-Don

Mr don glad to see you out and about and posting. Happy hammering.

 

[d42jeep]

Mr don glad to see you out and about and posting. Happy hammering.

Yeah, I’m still at it. Thanks!
This Plumb claw hammer was a recent estate sale find. My restoration effort was limited to removing excess paint spatters.
As found.
Less paint
-Don

 

[kwigly]

Found this shoemaker's (cordwainer's ?) hammer at the flea today. Marked "solid steel, 3, Whitcher"
The Frank W Whitcher Co was a major Boston wholesaler of shoe manufacturing supplies in the late 1800s into the early 1900s (F W Whitcher Co was taken over by USMC, the United Shoe Manufacturing Co, in 1935). Frank Whitcher died aged 84 in 1940
The handle is cracked and taped, but the head is in fairly good condition with its dimples on the hammer face designed to firmly catch the tiny heads on the fine shoe nails so they don't slide off and bend (perhaps Clarke's 1872 patent). Length is 9-1/2 inches.

 

[Steve from Socal]

Here are my most used hammers the body hammers are Mac and Fairmount. The two that are unusual are the orthopedic mallet and dental soft face.

 

[four.cycle]

Marked "solid steel, 3, Whitcher"

Whitcher / Frank W. Whitcher Co., Boston, MA / lasting pliers, cobblers tools / patent 128463 Jul 2 1872 Alfred Clarke and Arthur Clarke & 372246 Oct 25 1887 Frank W. Whitcher / "Crispin pattern" hammer * units marked "Union Whitcher" with patent date of Oct 25 1887 * / https://www.thehcc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1951&start=125 / https://www.thehcc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1951&start=125 /

St. Crispin is the patron saint of cobblers

 

[kwigly]

"W Calder & Son, Toronto" Slater's hammer.
Seems to date from around 1900; From Kelly's 1897 Directory of Manufacturers & Shippers

 

[Outlawmws]

The handle looks like a grip for a file? Any catalog pages here?

 

[kwigly]

The handle looks like a grip for a file?

Might be a replacement handle

 

[Outlawmws]

Might be a replacement handle

That's what I was thinking.

 

[genog]

I keep this little brass hammer on my work table to tap on things....
About 4 ounces

 

[d42jeep]

Nice one, Geno! It has a military “Taxi” number along with a Federal Stock Number.
-Don