Bonney 585 series 3/8 x 7/16 DOE wrench

I am always looking for "585" series DOE wrenches.

Here are some photos of what they look like:









The one wrench missing from the set above is the 585-5. It is marked just like the others with “3/8” and “7/16” on the faces and “585-5” on the handle. (The little 1723 wrench withe BONNEY on the face in the photos above is a placeholder, not a 585 series wrench.)

Please note that “585-5” is only my best guess at the numbering scheme, extrapolated from the other wrench sizes and model numbers. The prefix (585) is the federal (Quartermaster Corps) specification number for DOE wrenches during WW2, which Bonney seems to have very ingeniously incorporated into their numbering scheme. (No other manufacturers are known to have done this.) The suffix (-**) seems to follow a one-up series number, beginning with a wrench with 5/16 x 3/8 milled opening sizes, which is the smallest wrench (ISN 721) on a standard wrench chart from that era.

There is NO information on this production line on Alloy Artifacts or in Bonney catalogs between 1939 and 1943, and while a few wrenches have been sold at auction on the internet in the past, I’ve never even seen a photo of a 3/8 x 7/16 BONNEY 585 in order to definitively identify the number it bears.

If you ever see or find a wrench with the fractional sizes marked “BONNEY” on the handle and “585-5" or "585-any number smaller than 13!”, please grab it. Please grab any 585 wrenches.

I will pay beaucoup.

Thanks

! Btt !

BTT Again

As I noted above, one tiny problem with the Bonney 585 series – the tiniest, in fact - has been that nobody has ever seen let alone had the 3/8 x 7/16 wrench. Those collectors who do own the rest of the set usually substitute a Bonney alloy steel “1723”. The Bonney 585 series 3/8 x 7/16 critter has been so rare, we didn’t actually know if they existed or not, and of course, without being seen, nobody even knew what the correct model number suffix was! (These are wartime wrenches made exclusively for the Army - '585' is the QMC engineering drawing number for a DOE wrench - and they do not show up in any Bonney catalogs that I know of.)

Well, I am happy to report that these questions have now been…. ANSWERED!





The date code on this example is K:T (November 1942).

And note that my estimate was wrong. Here is an old chart that I had made to try to figure out what the number might be...



Bonney must have not made one of the smaller wrenches, which put the ISN 723 at 585-4 instead of 585-5 as I had figured (wrongly).

I should have said that the 585-4 wrench is not mine! I was just updating this WANTED AD with the correct model number. I STILL NEED ONE!