Went to a sale this morning and there was a huge shelf full of old Sexauer jars. Most still have their labels and Many still have old stock in them! I had never heard of the company but I knew I wanted them but now I can’t find anything about them online. There are over 100 glass jars of various sizes. I’d appreciate any information I could receive on them!
I'm The Sexauer System Man
- Thread starter Private Lugnutz
- Start date
four.cycle
Well-known member
^ Excellent find if you know of a bunch of old houses that need new seals in their faucets!
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
If you mean the company, I posted a trail of historical tidbits extracted from Google Books in the very beginning of the thread. Plumbing service supply (parts, tools, etc) company founded in Scarsdale, NY in 1921, still in business as part of the Home Depot Group since 2015.
If you mean the jars, no clue. Very unusual in my experience. Sexauer parts storage systems came in all shapes and sizes, from small metal cases to large wooden cabinets. I dare say all of us of a certain age are probably still storing some hardware (brads, nails, nuts, bolts, screws, washers, cotter pins, snap rings, etc) in glass jars (pickle, baby food, etc), just like our fathers and theirs before them, but those were repurposed. I was not aware of Sexauer or any other supply company originally packaging parts for retail in them and I have no idea when those were made. If you spool through the thread you'll see various Sexauer merchandising color schemes, fonts, and logos on things collected and posted and you may be able to date the jars to an era that way, but nothing about those labels is jumping out at me.
bctexas
Well-known member
Hi Lugz! My dad was a Sexauer salesman in the northern half of Florida back in the late '60s and early 70's. He didn't sell anything to the retail market. The salesmen would make a deal with the maintenance departments in big buildings to supply them with spare plumbing parts. This included big hotels, office buildings and even Disney World. The salesman would do a survey of their plumbing to determine what spare parts they needed. He would then provide them with a selection of the needed spares, along with a steel rack and labelled jars to hold the parts. He would then visit them periodically, inventory their spares and order replacements for what they had used. You can see on the jars that they have part numbers written on them - that was done by the salesman when he set up their inventory. I still have a few of the plastic jars they used in the '70's. I have seen pictures, but have never seen one of the metal racks for sale. I would jump on one if I came across it.
OP
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
^ Makes sense and thanks for the testimonial. I don't think Sexauer ever did any direct sales and should've wrote "wholesale", not retail. Even the small snap cases you can see on this thread were sold to plumbers or maintenance crews. There are beeyootiful wooden Sexuaer cabinets out there. Those, too, would've been in a service shop of some kind, not homeowner facing.
That background information makes sense as I bought these from a liquidation of a HVAC and plumbing shop that appeared to have been closed up for years prior to the sale. The jars were in the back of the shop on a homemade wooden shelf and labeled and organized. Felt just like walking into an old hardware store from my childhood. Very cool find and I wish I’d grabbed some of the other old metal boxes and things they had. I’ve done some searching but just haven’t had much luck on finding jars like these. I’ll keep searching 