ID this Vise

[In The Doghouse]

This is a vise that I picked up at an estate sale in Charlottesville VA about 20 years ago. I cleaned it up back then and it is now in queue to be cleaned and painted again, maybe blue this time. I think I can grind the jaw tops some and the face a little to clean up some of the wear.

The vise is secured to the bench with carriage bolts through a slot in the base.

There is no manufacturer's identification on it, but it does state Patented June 18, 1886. Does anyone recognize this vise. Could it really be from the late 1800's?

 

[Catalyze]

I just looked at the patents for "vise" during that year and all I could find were a Blake Vise sold to Prentiss and an Alphonse Montant vise. The second was a quick release vise where you tightened it normally. When you turned the screw the opposite way it came free of the main nut and allowed you to just pull the jaw out by hand.
Craig

 

[retDAC]

Better pix would help.

 

[purevl]

I can't believe no one picked this low-hanging fruit. You're reading the date wrong, which isn't uncommon because the castings are generally pretty rough. I usually think of them as "Colton vises" because George A. Colton is the patent holder, but most of them that I've seen are marked with H&B as a manufacturer. The patent date doesn't have anything to do with when it was manufactured, other than to say it certainly isn't older than that, it's probably from the early 1900s. They must have built millions of them because at any given time there's at least a few on eBay with a whole range of crazy prices. The patent includes a swivel jaw, but I've never seen one, so I'm doubtful that feature made it to production. They came in a range of sizes from roughly 1"-3" and usually have either a clamp or a "face mount" sort of base; yours has neither so either someone hacked off the ears on the front (happens a lot for some reason) or maybe it had a handle originally, which would be pretty novel. Here's the patent: http://www.google.com/patents/US320224

 

[In The Doghouse]

That Colon vise certainly does look like mine and mine does say June 16, 1885. Maybe my ears were hacked off. Thanks for the info.

When I get it cleaned up and painted I'll post pictures. What is the correct color? Should the sleeve also be painted? I am thinking I would like it in blue.

 

[In The Doghouse]

Oh yea, I paid $5 for this vise.

 

[purevl]

I don't think anything was cut off, the larger ones (that's the biggest one I've seen) must have had a different mounting arrangement than the table-top versions. Most seem to have been black. Don't paint the slide, if that's what you are asking. $5 is a fair price, the little ones are worth about $20 retail. Of course, I stopped keeping track of the prices on these after I tried them out and determined they didn't suit me and GJ has had a heavy (upward) influence on the prices of the vise market in the last couple of years.

 

[Outlawmws]

Resurrecting this after near a year, since I picked up a Colton pat. vies today.

I don't believe that vise of the OP's was chopped. The slot on the bottom was probably for a pair of carriage bolts to slide into and bolt the vise to the bench.

I have the clamp on version of that vise and no slot, and the casting of the static jaw base is different for the clamp on