Picked up a Chas Parker 49X

[cgrutt]

Saw it listed a few months ago by a well known member on another forum for $75 said I'd take it sight unseen.

Don't really know much about it but pretty cool vise. Believe jaws are 4-1/4" and guessing it weighs about 75 lbs. Stationary base and casting drops down below bench surface. Marked "Semi Steel" whatever that means. Seems to be in fairly good condition overall turns in and out smoothly jaws are in decent shape and no obvious cracks or welds.

Anybody know anything about this vise? Original color, approx age etc? Have a Wilton I'm going to start working on and may work on this one at same time.

 

[Packard V8]

You ****! I'd pay $75 for every one of those I could find.

BTW - 'semi-steel' is just a better grade of cast iron.

Semi-steel casting is a lower cost method to produce a casting that is not quite as strong as a steel casting but less expensive to manufacture. It was used more commonly as a marketing term.

The carbon and silicon percentages are reduced to the amount approximately consistent with those in steel. This is done using pig iron or gray iron casting scrap and reducing the amount of carbon through the addition of relatively pure steel or wrought iron scrap in a well heated cupola furnace. The percentage of carbon is typically between foundry cast iron and wrought iron.

jack vines

 

[RoninB4]

Hate to break it to you but you do ****.



Congratulations, nice looking vise.

 

[cgrutt]

Found some info here https://archive.org/details/CharlesParkerCoCatalogue1912/page/n9/mode/2up

Old catalog dated 1/22/1912 talks about Slide Strengthening Solid Steel Bar patented 1/2/1906:

Patented Reinforced Sliding Jaw, consisting of a solid steel bar inserted the entire length of the slide, and thoroughly welded into the casting, rendering the slide, or movable jaw, practically unbreakable

and

...vice made from a mixture of cast iron and Bessemer steel...

on Pg 6 talks about "Series 29"... apperently the "2" was jaw width as they also list a "49" (not 49X) with jaw width of 4-1/4", weight of 66 lbs. 7" jaw opening and list price of $9.00.

From pics, vise body may have been black? hard to say as catalog is black and white. Cool stuff.

Some pics...

 

[four.cycle]

1925 H. Channon Co. catalog Parker vise ad pp 107

 

[cgrutt]

Thanks! @four.cycle

 

[four.cycle]

^ no problem. only thing I found with that model number.

 

[ejot]

Very nice user-grade vise. Top of the line version of their traditional fixed jaw designs. Intact original jaws, retainer collar and its mounting screw. Dead straight handle, fairly crisp slide. Those earlier ones required a notch to be cut into the workbench to mount. This gusseted design was eliminated on later models and it is not an unpopular modification to mill that area out for a more modern mounting scheme.

Trying to pull precise meaning from a Parker model no. digit is often inherently futile. They were notoriously loosey-goosey with model naming conventions. They also had an incredibly long history.
Check out this google sheet of all known American vises GJ's have discovered. The Parker section is extensive!
Also check out the "Vise Brochures" tab at the bottom for more great Parker lit.

I've seen green and black Parkers that I believed to be original paint. Mostly commonly black in my experience.

Here's a bit of Parker history I dug up and a trip I made to the factory site when I found a very early one nearby it.

@Fierljeppen has an extensive library and could narrow down mfr yr range as well as anyone on the planet. Parkers were not date stamped (after ~1860's).

 

[Fierljeppen]

That's a really nice Charles Parker vise. The "Superior" model was their flagship vise for many years. Although there is no date-stamp on your vise, we can easily get a fairly accurate timeline from certain features on the vise and vintage tool catalogs.

1920 is the very earliest catalog offering for the Parker model no. 49X vise. Here is one example of many that I found.



In 1927, the following Parker brochure introduces the new casting design for the bench mount, which is different than your vise.



With this information, I would conclude that your vise is circa (1920-1927). It truly is a beautiful piece of American history that is still worthy of it's original intention of being a very useful shop tool.

It has amazing patina! I hope you consider retaining as much of it as you can.

 

[cgrutt]

@Fierljeppen thanks for info. Bought several months ago not sure why I decided to take pics today. My mom recently passed she would have been 96 a few days ago (2-18-27). My dad passed many years ago but he would be 97 in a few days (2-26-26). Funny you put this in the 1920-27 time frame it suddenly became more valuable to me. Thanks for info.