Red Devil Hand Tools

[skmbabon]

I've seen S&H listed under hand and bench vises in old hardware compendiums, but I have never seen one in the wild, or a photo, or even an advertisement.

I seem to find more mentions of vises no one has seen than actual vises! Oddly, the previous discovery was for a vise from a foundry also located in Irvington. I haven't found more of a connection.
Posted here first because of the obvious knowledge about and interest in S&H, but will now post in the Vise Info thread and add S&H to the vise spreadsheet to raise awareness.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

It could be one of those "associated" things. Their arrangement with Utica was like that. Mfgr almost certainly someone else.

 

[d42jeep]

The only Red Devil tools I find consistently are glass cutters. They are usually virtually free at estate and garage sales so why leave them behind? I also run across other less well known brands. Here are some that are hanging around.
These are the Red Devil cutters.
The top two are Fletcher, next is a Hyde and the bottom one is a Millers Falls. If I ever have occasion to cut a piece of glass (which is unlikely) I’m set to go.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I snagged this No. 444-7-1/2 "Giant Grip" tool (S&H billed them as a pliers-wrench) at the flea this morning. There are two others on the thread. @MR.X 's in post #87 on page 2 and @LesserSon's in post #98 on page 3. LS's example has the "PAT. APPL'D FOR" marking on the flip side. Mine has that marking under the branding on the top side. I'm assuming X's is also on the flip side, since it's not under the branding. I have not located the patent this marking refers to, and it may not have ever been granted. Hopefully X will see this and confirm if his has the notice or the patent number. Perhaps it got caught up in the melee of the 1924 Smith vs. Hemenway lawsuit and the sale of the inventory, dies, and brands to Crescent shortly thereafter. It was introduced in multiple trade mags in late 1925 and appears in them throughout 1926 as well. One of the most prevalent illos, which also appears in the Smith & Hemenway section of the 1926 Crescent catalog, shows the "PAT APPL'D FOR" marking on the handle.

 

[MR.X]

I snagged this No. 444-7-1/2 "Giant Grip" tool (S&H billed them as a pliers-wrench) at the flea this morning. There are two others on the thread. @MR.X 's in post #87 on page 2 and @LesserSon's in post #98 on page 3. LS's example has the "PAT. APPL'D FOR" marking on the flip side. Mine has that marking under the branding on the top side. I'm assuming X's is also on the flip side, since it's not under the branding. I have not located the patent this marking refers to, and it may not have ever been granted. Hopefully X will see this and confirm if his has the notice or the patent number. Perhaps it got caught up in the melee of the 1924 Smith vs. Hemenway lawsuit and the sale of the inventory, dies, and brands to Crescent shortly thereafter. It was introduced in multiple trade mags in late 1925 and appears in them throughout 1926 as well. One of the most prevalent illos, which also appears in the Smith & Hemenway section of the 1926 Crescent catalog, shows the "PAT APPL'D FOR" marking on the handle.

Hi. So I don't have the pliers here but on post #89 of this thread I mentioned it said "Pat. Pend." on the opposite side. I'm going to guess if I said that, then it's probably 80-20 that it said that as opposed to "Pat appl'd for" and no chance there was a patent number. That's my best guess anyway.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

on post #89 of this thread I mentioned it said "Pat. Pend." on the opposite side. I'm going to guess if I said that, then it's probably 80-20 that it said that as opposed to "Pat appl'd for" and no chance there was a patent number. That's my best guess anyway

Thanks..., and Doh! (missed #89 in haste)

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I was very excited to find these at the flea market yesterday. Another combination approach with the Button's pattern cutters, but pipe jaws, a square smooth opening, and then gripping jaws at the tip.



The marking is extremely worn down. The RED DEVIL is legible, the S&H on the second line is barely legible, and just enough of the P/N on the third line is showing to confirm them as a No. 999, and the first example on the thread as far as I can tell.



They are very heavy in the hand and noticeably bulkier than any other in my collection.



The S&H cat excerpt, from 1922, and the Crescent, from 1926, help explain the diverse utilities of the design as well as the unusual massiveness.



Open jaws and handle shots in the thumbnails below.

 

[four.cycle]

"It is heavy enough to be used as a hammer."

It looks like the previous owner took them up on that offer.

 

[Outlawmws]

"It is heavy enough to be used as a hammer."

It looks like the previous owner took them up on that offer.

Yep, Sure does!

 

[LesserSon]

No20 duckbills today at Jake’s Flea. Have yet to check whether they were mfd asymmetrical, or not.

 

[Outlawmws]

Those look early LS...

 

[MisterEd]

Red Devil 410-8 Flare Grip Jaw Plier — Union, NJ

 

[Leviton]

Mr. X has this great 10th Edition Green Book. Does anyone know what year the 10th Edition is?

(According to Alloy Artifacts, the Green Book 6th edition is 1912, and the 7th edition is 1916.)

Not much tool hunting lately, though I did come across this 4" adjustable Red Devil "Auto wrench". Not really visible in the pics is that it has much thicker jaws then what you normally see on these little wrenches.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I was elated to find these 8" lineman's pliers at the flea market this morning.



I'm pretty sure the "S.C." marking with the redundant "U.S.A." is martial and Signal Corps proprietary. The "TL-" part number markings came much later. If you page through WWI-era Signal Corps field manuals and Table of Organization and Equipment there are no part numbers.



This ad is from the back of a commercial book called Military Signal Corps Manual, Major J. Andrew White, Wireless Press, NY (1918), with a dedication to Major General George Squier, Chief Signal Officer, US Army, "whose assistance made this volume possible."

 

[LesserSon]

Today, I bought two pairs of pliers because I already had them. That seems dumb when I say it, but as I demonstrated to MrsLS’s eye-rolling scepticism, I have two hands, and there are times when using two pairs in opposition is just the thing.
But when I was buying them, I didn’t feel the need to rationalize. The second pair of Giant Grips pat appld for, and (now I was thinking “for parts” at the time of purchase) a second pair of 925 slipjoints, with the screwdriver tip ground short, but potentially donating the nut and screw to the first 925s. Well, maybe. Neither 925 is actually great.

 

[MR.X]

S&H Red Devil. Cool little Ford script.

 

[GarageHobbyist]

I picked these up today. No other markings on them.

 

[B Halverson]

A Sherwin-Williams branded Red-Devil model P1-3f I cleaned up and added to my collection of Red Devil tools some years ago years ago, lovely......

 

[LesserSon]

Picked up these 650 sidecutter duckbills today. I also had a pair of glass cutting pliers in my hand, but they had boring smooth handles.

 

[B Halverson]

These are more uncommon so when I see one laying in the wild I pick them up. Not sure who sold them first, but the top one is a Red Devil, then a Millers Falls and a Goodell. Maybe one of them made them for the other two. They are deluxe glass cutters with rotating turrets to bring a fresh tiny cutting wheel to bear. One has a patent date in the late 1890s on it ;

 

[LesserSon]

Acquired an S&H nail puller today. I’ll update once I get it cleaned up.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Acquired an S&H nail puller today.

Wow! That is a FANTASTIC find, LS.

The diemaker clearly had some fun. Just look at that patent history panel! I'm wondering if he thought it wouldn't fit or if it would be illegible without staggering most of the blocks ('PAT', 'JULY', 'REIS' - for REISSUE, 'OCT', and 'JULY') on an ascending angle. Over the length of the entire panel, he may have gained a little space doing that. Incredible.

 

[four.cycle]

^ so I wasn't the only one who noticed that.... S&H must have been pretty proud of that unit to have gotten two re-issues.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

^ so I wasn't the only one who noticed that....

Nope. And I bet LS did, too. He and I have talked about typography before, and I posted a great typography book from the 50's last year that drew a comment only from him. The staggered/ascending baseline allowed the diemaker to put letters closer together without their parts touching or encroaching in each other's spaces. Look at the T in PAT, the Y in the first JULY, the T in OCT, and the Y in the last JULY, in particular. Those letters are hovering over the top of the letter to their immediate left. If the letters were all aligned at the baseline, they would be touching or at least overlapping spatially.

 

[LesserSon]

I got sucked into DATAMP looking up those patents. Haven’t really read through them.
G.J. Capewell has a slew of nail-extractor (and other tool) patents to his credit.
129210 16JUL1872 (reissue 5502 29JUL1873)
143496 07OCT1873 (but the forging looks like “OCT7 79”, doesn’t it? which was also a Tuesday).
Finally 243812 05JUL1881 issued to F.M. Stevens.

 

[four.cycle]

The staggered/ascending baseline allowed the diemaker to put letters closer together without their parts touching or encroaching in each other's spaces. Look.....

^ You may have forgotten that I actually apprenticed as a graphic designer and sign painter - I was struck by the guy's creativity in managing to jam all those characters into that space and still manage to make it legible and not all jammed together/overlapped (as I have seen on other pieces.)

(Painting big window banners on 48" butcher paper with tempera was always fun, but when they wanted to run sales on "Voltage Regulators" I found myself challenged.)

 

[LesserSon]

I’ve got a growing conviction the 7OCT73 link on DATAMP isn’t this reissue, but a different one to the same person. I think there must be a 7-year reissue on 7OCT79, that DATAMP missed. And of course, USPTO has been weirdly finicky for weeks.

EDIT - Nah, I plowed through 7OCT1879’s patents (after the much shorter list of reissues) and found no nail-extractors.

 

[LesserSon]

Picked up a 10” pair of Buttons pliers today. The pivot is a bit loose, and they were lying right next to a very early pair of Utica Buttons in better condition, but I exercised collector’s restraint, and stuck to just this pair.
EDIT - and that was a mistake, since I already had a better pair of S&H (though they don’t have Red Devil on them).

 

[RTM]

Acquired an S&H nail puller today. I’ll update once I get it cleaned up.

You might want to drop a pic to the DATAMP steward, as they don’t have S&H down as a mfgr for at least one of those patents

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I wish I had contented myself with my typographic die-making fascination, because this...

129210 16JUL1872 (reissue 5502 29JUL1873)
143496 07OCT1873 (but the forging looks like “OCT7 79”, doesn’t it? which was also a Tuesday).
Finally 243812 05JUL1881 issued to F.M. Stevens.

...is a torturous DATAMP venture I wish I had not tried to unravel!

I'm going to transcribe the marking, so I don't have to keep scrolling up to the photo...

PAT JULY 16 REIS OCT 7 79 JULY 5 81

The "9" in "79" that should apparently be a "3" may actually be the least of the issues.

If the "PAT JULY 16" marking signifies Capewell patent 129,210, granted July 16, 1872, where is the "72" signifying that it was granted in the year 1872?

What is the "REIS" (ostensibly reissue) marking signifying? If it's the action signified by the marking that immediately follows it ("OCT 7 79"), and DATAMP is postulating the "9" in "79" is wrong, and should be a "3" instead, the document granted on October 7, 1873 was a patent (143,496), not a reissue of a patent. And in it, Capewell actually disclaims the prior patent (129,210).

As you pointed out, patent 129,210 was indeed reissued (RE: 5,502), but on July 29, 1873, which is not signified by any marking on the shank. If S&H was inclined to plaster a product with all relevant patent markings, and "REIS" signifies reissue, why would they not include a marking signifying the actual reissue? That absence, along with the October 7, 1873 (not October 7, 1879) and patent (not reissue) problems, should cast doubt on the "JULY 16" marking signifying 129,210, no?

The final marking seems most secure. Stevens' 243,812 was indeed granted on July 5, 1881. More positively yet, he was an assignor to Maltby, Curtiss, and Atwood. DATAMP makes no mention of Curtiss and Atwood, but the Maltby jibes.

That sent me back to the Capewell patents. He owned his first one and the reissue. However, he was an assignor to Maltby, Curtiss, and Atwood for the second (143,496 | 7 October 1873).

According to the bio of John Francis Hemenway in the 1900 edition of Appleton's Cyclopaeida of American Biographies, linked here, Smith & Hemenway acquired the "Maltby-Henley Company," among several others, in one fell swoop.

I'm assuming Maltby, Curtiss & Atwood was a brief forerunner.

So, it seems to add up, somehow, despite the oddities.

...as they don’t have S&H down as a mfgr for at least one of those patents

They don't have S&H down as a mfgr for any of those patents. They are saying that all of them are associated with Maltby, Henley, & Co., but if you were reading the prior bit, you'll see that it looks like they bought out Maltby & Co, acquiring the rights and patents etc.

 

[RTM]

They don't have S&H down as a mfgr for any of those patents. They are saying that all of them are associated with Maltby, Henley, & Co., but if you were reading the prior bit, you'll see that it looks like they bought out Maltby & Co, acquiring the rights and patents etc.

But if S&H was stamping the numbers, they should include them as a mgr, since no one besides GJ will know of your research and buyout information.

I was trying to leverage USPTO searches this morning, but was a frustrating PITA on my iPad. I am starting to see, where once you can make the myriad of search options work, it can beat Google Patents for information.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

But if S&H was stamping the numbers, they should include them as a mgr, since no one besides GJ will know of your research and buyout information.

Concur. I was explaining and augmenting, not arguing. Whoever contacts them should include my S&H acquisition info.

 

[d42jeep]

These are more uncommon so when I see one laying in the wild I pick them up. Not sure who sold them first, but the top one is a Red Devil, then a Millers Falls and a Goodell. Maybe one of them made them for the other two. They are deluxe glass cutters with rotating turrets to bring a fresh tiny cutting wheel to bear. One has a patent date in the late 1890s on it ;

I had never seen a Red Devil glass cutter with a wood handle until you posted yours. Of course I found one at a sale today.
-Don

 

[ranger08]

Red Devil 444-7 1/2 Giant Grip pat applied for
with what looks like a quality Nickle finish
no usa in shield

 

[Outlawmws]

Interesting jaw design. How far will they close in the other position?

 

[ranger08]

 

[Outlawmws]

Hmmm teeth are angled like pipe jaw teeth too.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

no usa in shield

I've never seen a U.S.A. in the shield on the Giant Grips.

Nice find!

Interesting jaw design

Hmmm teeth are angled like pipe jaw teeth too.

Described as a plier-wrench in Red Devil literature and advertised as "15 jobs in 1." Too many examples, references, and discussion posts on thread to link them all. Search thread on Giant Grip.

 

[misterbill]

I'm not sure where these fit in the S&H/Crescent timeline, but I found these S&H stamped 654 pliers at my mom's house. It looks like my dad must have been using them to fix a lamp and forgot about the project (a likely casualty to dementia).







Bill

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I'm not sure where these fit in the S&H/Crescent timeline,

Nobody is absolutely sure how to date them, Bill, because Crescent treated them like a subsidiary with its own brand for many, many years after the purchase in 1926. But there are some clues. Most of mine with an early script Red Devil branding have different grips than the pliers without that branding and just the S&H branding. The decline (better said, the take-over and re-banding, which we don't talk enough about here or on the Crescent thread...) can be seen catalog by catalog, if that's any interest to you. Essentially, Crescent bought their know-how, tooling, and brand, phased out the Red Devil and S&H brand, and used their know-how and tooling to make and brand formerly S&H/Red Devil pliers as Crescent and Crestoloy. I've been meaning to lay this flat for some time, and your addition to the thread gives me the opportunity.

Crescent Catalog No. 17 (1926) has a reference to S&H on the cover and fourteen (14) PAGES of S&H pliers in its own section. Note that there are only two (2) pages of Crescent pliers, only slip-joint types. (Note: Your 654 long chain nose pliers are shown in this catalog, no markings visible. Almost all of the pliers that have visible markings have "Red Devil" brandings.)

Crescent Catalog No. 19 (1931) has a reference to S&H on the cover and nine (9) PAGES of S&H pliers, again, all in its own section. But now there are three (3) pages of Crescent pliers, and suddenly several types of Crescent-branded pliers that Crescent DID NOT MAKE prior to the S&T purchase. (Note: Your 654's are shown in this catalog with an identical S&H and model number marking. All of the S&H pliers have "S&H" brandings. None of the pliers have "Red Devil" brandings.)

Crescent Catalog No. 21 (1935) has a reference to S&H on the cover. They abandoned separate sections for Crescent and S&H pliers for the first time, instead listing pliers by type, and showing a mix of Crescent and S&H pliers on the same pages. But the brandings are roughly 50/50 now, with all kinds of additional pliers branded Crescent that were previously only branded S&H. (Note: No longer any S&H 654 shown. There is a a long-nose Crestoloy now, though.)

Crescent Catalog No. 23 (1939) has a reference to S&H on the cover. There are now about seven (7) or so pages of Crescent branded pliers and only 1-1/2 pages of S&H pliers, all only very special types (reamer, burner, pincer).

Crescent Catalog No. 24 (1941) has NO reference to S&H on the cover. Just Crescent. Inside, even fewer S&H tools.

Crescent Catalog No. 26 (1950) has NO reference to S&H on the cover and NO S&H tools.