H.D. Smith Company, Plantsville, CT

Private Lugnutz · Apr 29, 2018

Hard to believe there’s not a thread dedicated to the history and tools of H.D. Smith (est. 1855 in Plantsville, Conn.) here on GJ (woody must be slacking…, or I just couldn't find it!)

I'm not going to repeat publically available information.

Alloy Artifacts has a short summary, and some examples, linked here.

The Tool Archives has a nice list of all the H.D. Smith patents, linked here, and linked also to DATAMP for more info and easy linking to the full patents on the USPTO site.

References to H.D. Smith and H.D. Smith tools show up here on GJ from time to time, usually associated with the screwdrivers that give all “Perfect Handle” screwdrivers their name, but they made several other types of tools with the “Perfect Handle” design, and believe it or not, screwdrivers were not the first – adjustable nut wrenches were.

I happened to find one yesterday, prompting this thread.

Easily 7 of every 10 antique era monkey wrenches I see are Coes. Every once in awhile I’ll see a PEXTO, or a Bemis & Call, or a Whitman & Barnes. I see so many here in NJ that I usually leave them behind. The H.D. Smith is the first I have ever seen in the wild, so I snatched it.

The patent dates you see are for D33,468, 666,629, and D34,136 in short successive chronological order from December 1900 to February 1901, and they all together make up the “Perfect Handle” design branded just beneath the dates.

woody 73 · Apr 29, 2018

No Woody is not slipping you just are late to the game:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=265653&highlight=perfect+handle

I have slowed down after working so on the hard the stories that they die after a day, it's not like a good story "Tell me what you learned on the GJ" post. After all members are not interested in tool History they want Tool Drama...

Private Lugnutz · Apr 29, 2018

Well, now there's a thread for the OEM and the first (Shepard) of the two "Perfect Handle" patentees.

Toothaker · Apr 29, 2018

woody 73 said:
No Woody is not slipping you just are late to the game:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=265653&highlight=perfect+handle

I have slowed down after working so on the hard the stories that they die after a day, it's not like a good story "Tell me what you learned on the GJ" post. After all members are not interested in tool History they want Tool Drama...

Woody, please keep going. The stories behind the tools are very interesting. I believe there is a Silent Majority that appreciate the tools, the stories, the research and the time and effort you and many others put into your postings. At the risk of leaving someone out, Dads, Todd, Lugz, oldtule and dozens more who are the scholars around here.

The responses you see are the squeaky wheels, nattering nabobs of negativism, ill winds that blow no good, etc. Just remember, for every "I appreciate that, Woody!" post, there are hundreds of us who agree.

notlob · Apr 29, 2018

woody 73 said:
After all members are not interested in tool History they want Tool Drama...

I'm hoping for some historical tool drama. Maybe a new Netflix series?

:beer:

notlob · Apr 29, 2018

Woody - I know there are many GJ members, including me, who appreciate your time and research.

:thumbup:

twertsy · Apr 30, 2018

notlob said:
woody - i know there are many gj members, including me, who appreciate your time and research.

ditto!

thickhead · Apr 30, 2018

In case you don’t know....Plantsville is a village here in Southington, the home of the Peck Stowe and Wilcox (Pexto) company. The two companies were less than a mile apart. H.D. Smith was about half way between Pexto and Clark Bros. Bolt. All three were/are within spitting distance of the old Farmington Canal.

My two cents.

Private Lugnutz · Apr 30, 2018

notlob said:
I'm hoping for some historical tool drama. Maybe a new Netflix series?

Good one.

thickhead said:
All three were/are within spitting distance of the old Farmington Canal.

I knew about the proximity to Peck, Stowe, and Wilcox. I didn't know about the hardware maker, or the proximity of all three to a canal system. Did they float their products down to New Haven on it? Or was it already abandoned by then?

DadsTools · Apr 30, 2018

Private Lugnutz said:
Hard to believe there’s not a thread dedicated to the history and tools of H.D. Smith (est. 1855 in Plantsville, Conn.) here on GJ (woody must be slacking…, or I just couldn't find it!)

I'm not going to repeat publically available information.

Alloy Artifacts has a short summary, and some examples, linked here.

The Tool Archives has a nice list of all the H.D. Smith patents, linked here, and linked also to DATAMP for more info and easy linking to the full patents on the USPTO site.

References to H.D. Smith and H.D. Smith tools show up here on GJ from time to time, usually associated with the screwdrivers that give all “Perfect Handle” screwdrivers their name, but they made several other types of tools with the “Perfect Handle” design, and believe it or not, screwdrivers were not the first – adjustable nut wrenches were.

I happened to find one yesterday, prompting this thread.

Easily 7 of every 10 antique era monkey wrenches I see are Coes. Every once in awhile I’ll see a PEXTO, or a Bemis & Call, or a Whitman & Barnes. I see so many here in NJ that I usually leave them behind. The H.D. Smith is the first I have ever seen in the wild, so I snatched it.

The patent dates you see are for D33,468, 666,629, and D34,136 in short successive chronological order from December 1900 to February 1901, and they all together make up the “Perfect Handle” design branded just beneath the dates.

Nice find of historical importance.

Private Lugnutz · Apr 30, 2018

DadsTools said:
Nice find of historical importance.

Thanks.

EDIT:

Imagine what it must've been like in Southington at the turn of the last century. Could you walk into a saloon and see Mssrs. Peck, Stow, and Squire Robinson and Robert Cosmos Ellrich (assignors for Peck, Stow, and Wilcox) hoisting a beer with William Ward from H.D. Smith? Did Amos Shepard (who maintained his independence and licensed several key patents to both Peck, Stow, and Wilcox and H.D. Smith) drink alone in the corner or join them?

And this was playing out in other small tool & forge centers up and down the northeast Atlantic coast and Great Lakes areas.

DadsTools · Apr 30, 2018

woody 73 said:
No Woody is not slipping you just are late to the game:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=265653&highlight=perfect+handle

I have slowed down after working so on the hard the stories that they die after a day, it's not like a good story "Tell me what you learned on the GJ" post. After all members are not interested in tool History they want Tool Drama...

The drama is part of human interaction. I've been on both ends of it, as you know. And both ends can be unpleasant. Sometimes it's just rabble-rousing. Sometimes it's axe grinding. But sometimes it's stepping in out of good conscience too.

Yet, the tool history is another matter. As it's name implies, GJ is a journal, a ledger. As such, it's a database, a public record of such information, and regarding tools, perhaps the most prolific. Doesn't matter if no one responds to an historical reference thread. It's been entered in the public ledger. Few have an interest in a particular mfr or tool history until they encounter a mysterious artifact. Then they start looking. And the GJ is there. There's no instant gratification in that instance, no immediate recognition or expression of appreciation for the time, effort and enthusiasm devoted to solving a mystery and adding to the lexicon. But we made the contribution, scribed in the entry, so it's there for posterity. Sometimes our only reward is through being charitable, without which one can easily lose heart.

thickhead · Apr 30, 2018

Private Lugnutz said:
I knew about the proximity to Peck, Stowe, and Wilcox. I didn't know about the hardware maker, or the proximity of all three to a canal system. Did they float their products down to New Haven on it? Or was it already abandoned by then?

The canal was pretty much unused by the 1850-1860’s when a rail line was put in adjacent to the canal.

We also had Blakeslee Forging, Atwater Mfg. (Rex Forge), Hurwood Company, Pultz & Walkley Company and....Lake Compounce Park

It was a hoppin’ back in the day.

4xdog · Apr 30, 2018

I have that same monkey wrench, coming to me from the few but high quality tools inherited from my maternal grandfather, who I never met. He was born in Maine in the 1890s, lived in the Boston and Manchester areas all his life, died a few months before I was born in 1957. The wrench seems a little older than the other tools, which I'd date 1920s-30s. Perhaps from his father, who was a conductor on the Boston elevated before retiring to a farm in southern NH.

Great thread -- filled in some pieces on a tool I've had for almost fifty years!

Note that the imprints are slightly different between our two wrenches.

Private Lugnutz · Aug 9, 2019

Added a piece to the H.D. Smith "Perfect Handle" tool collection this morning at the flea market. It appears to be a pry bar or a crate tool, possibly a tire iron. Very similar tools appear in early Bridgeport, Armstrong and other catalogs. There is a very slight factory-made bend at the tip. Unfortunately it was encrusted in rust and the de-rusting has left some unsightly box rot stains in the steel. On the other hand, unlike many "Perfect Handle" tools - as well colloquially "perfect handle" copycat tools, the rivets are tight and the scales are not even a hair loose.

MShaw · Aug 9, 2019

The end looks like some tire irons I have seen in the past. Used to remove the locking ring on the rim. Maybe??

leg17 · Aug 9, 2019

Tire iron

Private Lugnutz · Aug 9, 2019

MShaw said:
The end looks like some tire irons I have seen in the past. Used to remove the locking ring on the rim. Maybe??

leg17 said:
Tire iron

I have several vintage tire irons, guys, from Herbrand, Cornwell, and Mossberg, hence why I listed it as a possibility in my post. The only reason I hedged was because I was wondering if H.D. Smith had sold out to Ryan before the advent of balloon tires on automobiles, but that's not the case.

HeelSpur · Aug 9, 2019

Anyone looking for a project? Someone attempted to make a scale for the wrench. The wrench has 1/2 in a circle, screwdrivers markings are wore off.

DSCF2415 by wvwheaties, on Flickr

JoCoSawdust · Aug 9, 2019

woody 73 said:
No Woody is not slipping you just are late to the game:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=265653&highlight=perfect+handle

I have slowed down after working so on the hard the stories that they die after a day, it's not like a good story "Tell me what you learned on the GJ" post. After all members are not interested in tool History they want Tool Drama...

I actually have every one of your tool history posts I've come across bookmarked and have gone back and referenced them on many occasions. Please keep it up!

Sam'sAutoParts · Aug 9, 2019

JoCoSawdust said:
I actually have every one of your tool history posts I've come across bookmarked and have gone back and referenced them on many occasions. Please keep it up!

I alway have enjoyed them, and often learn something new. My thought was that there should be a thread with all of them linked, maybe a stickie. That way new members could browse them, since some of them are a few years old at this point.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Private Lugnutz · Aug 9, 2019

I have been slowly organizing threads by mfgr/brand, which includes the more historical-oriented approaches (Todd's, mine, Woody's, others) as well as the 'Show me ...' threads for the Index section of a stickie I have developed which I am almost ready to post for comments and then propose to the mods. Also in the Index section of the stickie would be threads by tool type (e.g., Show me your DOEs, DBEs, Combos, Ratchets, etc) and other common topics (Cleaning/De-Rusting, cadmium, etc). The stickie will have a lot more to it than an Index (e.g., a Read Me, Helpful Hints, How to use Subscriptions, How to Search, How to post images, Don'ts, etc), but a big part of it would be the Index. My main motivation is to stop the proliferation and redundancy of new threads on a topic for which we already have a thread. It makes for disjointed conversations, creates confusion, breaks up continuity of research progress, and makes searches later on harder. Newcomers would find links to all the pre-existing topics in the Index part of the stickie and, organized alphabetically, it would be easier to use than Subscriptions.

LesserSon · Oct 12, 2019

I started picking these tools up when the price is reasonable (I had a ballpein in my hands one time, and the vendor says “$50”). I generally cannot resist the opportunity to refinish the wooden (beech, mostly) handles with shellac and BLO. I’ve come to believe the pins holding the scales on are threaded, without actually having seen them.
Today I passed up a small Coes-type monkey wrench because
1) I already have one
2) it was scarred like someone drove a drywall screw between the adjustment screw and the shank, then backed it out
3) I had just spent my last $5 on a 18” Perfect-Handle Stillson wrench.
The multi-position screwdriver sure is cool. It was covered with decades of dried paint when I got it.
Three Stillsons...the smallest has a rusted pin running through the coil spring, so the head doesn’t rock. Have to do something about that.

Private Lugnutz · Jun 21, 2020

Nice collection, LS. I missed your post until now.

I just picked up this ball-pein hammer yesterday. I spotted it at the bottom of a wooden box of odds and ends that long-time GJ lurker and itinerant CL tipster Kris S. in Boyertown made the mistake of letting me scavenge through.

It was sitting on the tailgate of his truck next to the early Hinsdale socket set he was rightfully showing off.

The date ("MAY 28-0") has a number worn off or it's mis-stamped. The patent (855,079) was granted May 28, 1907. Should read "MAY 28-07."

See Pic 4 for the entire 'collection'. (You know my saying: "One of anything is just one, two is a couple, but three is a collection.") So now it's a collection! It may be sparse in number, but as I told Kris, I am liking the variety! :lol:

RTM · Jun 22, 2020

LesserSon said:
. I generally cannot resist the opportunity to refinish the wooden (beech, mostly) handles with shellac and BLO. I’ve come to believe the pins holding the scales on are threaded, without actually having seen them.

The few I’ve had apart have been pins, not threaded. I peened mine over like rivets (poorly). Here is one of the guys I learned from.

http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/awl.htm

d42jeep · Jun 22, 2020

I received this formerly ink marked Irwin one recently that came to me dismantled. I put it back together on Thursday, carefully peening over the pins. I was familiar with the procedure, having done a couple a few years ago. I used to have some Smith drivers but foolishly let them go.
-Don

Private Lugnutz · Jun 22, 2020

d42jeep said:
I used to have some Smith drivers but foolishly let them go.

Same, including an Extra Heavy Duty machinists' jobbie. Ironically, I gave them away as "placeholders" for correct WWII GMTK screwdrivers. The ne plus ultra unicorn of all H.D. Smith tools is the triple-lever action screwdriver. THAT whacky confabulation would go under lock and key if I was ever lucky enough to run into one.

Private Lugnutz · Oct 22, 2020

With this extra heavy duty machinists' screwdriver, snagged at the flea market this morning, I am up to four different H.D. SMITH "Perfect Handle" pieces now (see Pic 5). That "white" on the blade in Pic 1 is glare from the inanely overly aggressive grinding handiwork of a PO trying to get rid of rust. In the process, they skinned it alive there and the flip side. Other than that, and four inconspicuous proprietary notches on a corner of the square shank, it's in great condition for its antique age, with a very nice branding and patent notice (August 25, 1903)(see Pic 4). The scales are as tight as the day they were pinned, and thankfully, nobody beat the daylights out of the **** end.

Private Lugnutz · Dec 4, 2020

As some of you guys know I've been doing some major "re-decorating" down in the Lugzsonian these past few months. While searching for some 'H.D. SMITH' catalogs or artwork or period advertisements that I could use for a placard on a pegboard display, I ran into two fairly hard-to-find "Perfect Handle" tools being auctioned on evilBay: an 8" Adjustable "S" wrench, and an 8" Triple-Lever machinists' screwdriver. I immediately decided to crack open the piggy bank and buy myself two early St. Nicholas Day presents. The Triple Lever is missing its prominent wingnut, and the Adjustable "S" was frozen, which is probably why I was able to get them both for well south of their typical price tags.

Private Lugnutz · Dec 4, 2020

Close-ups on the Adjustable 8" "S" wrench markings.

Private Lugnutz · Dec 4, 2020

Pics 1, 2 & 3 are the three positions that give the Triple Lever its name. Pic 4 showing the clever design.

I will be looking for a wing nut suitable in size and appearance to replace the washer and square nut. The bolt needed some work with a couple thread files just to get the nut off so that I could spec it out, but it's a 5/16" 18 TPI, which I double-checked with a modern 5/16-18 wing nut.

So, if anyone runs into a rather large, bulbous, antique 5/16"-18 wingnut (see Pic 6 for what it looks like...), please pick it up for me!

Private Lugnutz · Dec 4, 2020

Oh, and I went in a different direction for the display. :pimpflash

Leviton · Dec 6, 2020

Private Lugnutz said:
Oh, and I went in a different direction for the display.

Beautiful display Lugz.

Private Lugnutz · Dec 6, 2020

Thank you, sir!

EDIT: Sometimes inspiration just strikes. I like to try to keep everything period correct, if possible, and the clamp is itself vintage if not antique. The marking cracks me up. It's from the Cincinnati Tool Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, but that's a mouthful for a logo. So, it's marked...

"THE CIN'TI TOOL CO / CIN'TI, O., U.S.A."

....instead.

Private Lugnutz · Dec 9, 2020

Ichstnay on the ingnutway request, guys. I sourced one from an old, old hardware store in the area. It's not identical, but it's pretty dang close and I like the looks of it a lot.

RTM · Dec 9, 2020

Looking good, love the wide shoulder

Private Lugnutz · Dec 9, 2020

Thanks, RTM. That was key. It matches the diameter of the Smith pieces exactly. Even if fit the bolt but was narrower it would've looked odd and not original. I'm very pleased.

tombell572 · Dec 12, 2020

My wife and I have always enjoyed garage and tag sales. In the early '70's I recall buying a box of tools that contained an H. D. Smith "Triple Lever" screw driver in excellent condition. I thought it was interesting and tossed it into a drawer of little-used tools where it stayed for quite a few years. Perhaps it was in the '80's when I discovered selling stuff on eBay, I decided to let it go and I recall my surprise at how much it sold for. I don't recall the amount now but I know it was more than I expected. Now in hindsight, thinking of how nice a collection of Perfect Handle tools would be with that as a centerpiece, I regret selling it. I've enjoyed seeing yours, Lugz, and glad you found a similar wing nut. Enjoy 'em!

Tom B.

Old but slow · Mar 13, 2021

Great post on some very interesting and hard to find tools. Will try and get some pics up of some of their others but right now having trouble with file size. Ill get it figured out

Private Lugnutz · Mar 14, 2021

tombell572 said:
I've enjoyed seeing yours, Lugz, and glad you found a similar wing nut.

Thanks, Tom, and my apologies. I didn't see this until the thread just got bumped.

Old but slow said:
Will try and get some pics up of some of their others...

I'm eager to see them. If you attach photos using the GJ clip, they will re-size automatically. If you need help, let me know. My count is thirteen (13) different tools, although a few of those are screwdrivers with minor distinctions. I have seven (7). The only two (2) tools I am really hankering after - and, which would prompt me to use a different display, are the screwdriver with the turning "wings" on the shank, and the valve lifter.

H.D. Smith Company, Plantsville, CT

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