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Curtis Industries brass pressure fitting display value?

SquirrelsTools

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 5, 2023
Messages
140
Location
Flint Michigan
So I picked this up a while ago (yes the little bags are weird. My girlfriend is an odd duck, bear with me). I sort, photograph and catalog everything I get ha...

I haven't actually been able to find but one?

It's a 64 drawer display and it's honestly huge. If I had space for another vintage display I'd keep it. The drawers are (I believe) 1"H x 2"W x 4"D.

It's metal, but the drawers are heavy duty plastic.

There were dozens of pre labeled dividers in it.

There were hundreds (Well over 100 and likely 200+) of brass fittings in it. The vast majority in their corresponding drawers. All unused. Just sitting.

I don't do anything that uses flare fittings all that much? I messed around with some things because I had them on hand, but eh?

I know they aren't cheap individually. I looked up like 10 of em while I sorted/bagged and just pulled what I used. But those weren't old? Not sure if that adds value to fittings. Haven't gotten there yet.

The cabinet is just cool. The gauges on the front of it are awesome and useful. And I've never seen photo labelled dividers like that. Any information would be cool. An accurate price estimate would be awesome. It's currently in the rafters because I legitimately don't have the bench space for it. It's about 3ft wide at the base haha. Thanks
 

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four.cycle

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Joined
Oct 19, 2015
Messages
29,143
Location
Tacoma, Washington
Very nice cabinet and it's in fabulous condition.

We carried Curtis Industries. I learned how to cut keys on a Curtis machine in 1963.
Later on we put in an assortment of little doo-dads: 1/8" x 2" cotter pins, black rubber vacuum caps, throttle linkage clips - stuff you couldn't get from anybody else other than maybe Dorman.
Curtis was strictly a repackager (other than key blanks and machines and merchandisers) so their stuff was inordinately expensive- we didn't carry their brass.
Most of that brass is obsolete now - it hasn't been used in automotive for decades and I'm not sure they even use any of that in industrial applications any more.

Ergo: if you're looking for a resale value on that brass - the answer is "Whatever you can get - take the cash and run."

The cabinet, on the other hand, in that condition, will probably fetch a pretty penny from the right buyer.

Welcome to the site. ;)

keep this link handy

and the one on my "signature" line below:

<edit> Hillman bins (Westgate ACE Hardware) have dividers in the drawers with somewhat "photographic" illustrations..
 
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The Cobbler

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Staff member
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Oct 24, 2013
Messages
25,962
Location
Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada
Curtis had some neat stuff, the sales guy would come around with his 1' thick binder and we would order some stuff. not a lot.
if I had those fittings, I'd go to my local ma & pa hardware store, ask him if he wanted any of it, and offer me a price. put it on my account for store credit.
 
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SquirrelsTools

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 5, 2023
Messages
140
Location
Flint Michigan
That's awesome! Like, I don't even care about the brass that much. If anyone needs a few pieces and wants to throw flat rate cost my way, cool? If it's worthless besides scrap, and someone needs it, let's do it. As far as the cabinet goes, thank you so much for that history. I haven't been able to find an awful lot on Curtis at all, mostly key related stuff. I guess at some point they had a whole hardware store in my area but it closed in the early 70s?
 
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