Vintage tape measures

[Private Lugnutz]

Anyone as nuts as I am on these things?

I think I'm going to hazard a guess and say, "No"!

Seriously, though, "You've come to the right place and thread," is clearly an understatement. Everyone who has posted here has the same bug, or a variant of it, but yours is definitely the worst (i.e., best!) case I've seen.

Speaking of cases, those are spectacular! The tall, multilayered wood and glass chest is wonderful, but the K&E is a once-in-a-lifetime find! I'm sure everyone would like to see more of the epitomizing collection inside of them, and, if you've got details, history, research and other information on brands, models, and production, that's always popular here, too. We're more Encyclopedic than FBMP-ish. As you read through the thread, I'm sure you'll find a few mysteries maybe you can help us with.

Welcome to GJ!

 

[four.cycle]

love the display case, Packerdad!

 

[Packerdad]

I think I'm going to hazard a guess and say, "No"!

Seriously, though, "You've come to the right place and thread," is clearly an understatement. Everyone who has posted here has the same bug, or a variant of it, but yours is definitely the worst (i.e., best!) case I've seen.

Speaking of cases, those are spectacular! The tall, multilayered wood and glass chest is wonderful, but the K&E is a once-in-a-lifetime find! I'm sure everyone would like to see more of the epitomizing collection inside of them, and, if you've got details, history, research and other information on brands, models, and production, that's always popular here, too. We're more Encyclopedic than FBMP-ish. As you read through the thread, I'm sure you'll find a few mysteries maybe you can help us with.

Welcome to GJ!

Thanks so much and I will try and share a few thingd that I have learned.

love the display case, Packerdad!

Thanks! It is actually a quilt display that caught my eye. The sides open up too for easy access!

 

[Packerdad]

I think I'm going to hazard a guess and say, "No"!

Seriously, though, "You've come to the right place and thread," is clearly an understatement. Everyone who has posted here has the same bug, or a variant of it, but yours is definitely the worst (i.e., best!) case I've seen.

Speaking of cases, those are spectacular! The tall, multilayered wood and glass chest is wonderful, but the K&E is a once-in-a-lifetime find! I'm sure everyone would like to see more of the epitomizing collection inside of them, and, if you've got details, history, research and other information on brands, models, and production, that's always popular here, too. We're more Encyclopedic than FBMP-ish. As you read through the thread, I'm sure you'll find a few mysteries maybe you can help us with.

Welcome to GJ!

Thanks, and I will! The K&E display I picked up at a large antique mall in Ohio. Here is what it looks like without my tapes. I couldn't pass it up!

 

[Packerdad]

I do want to say if anyone wants to see a snapshot of tool history from the 1856, go to the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City, Mo. This boat went down filled with tons of general merchandise including crazy amounts of tools. They have dug it up and are preseving/displaying what the found. Check out these pictures! Just studying the tape measure gave me a ton of info.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I couldn't pass it up!

Heaven forfend! It's gorgeous.

if anyone wants to see a snapshot of tool history from the 1856, go to the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City, Mo

Thanks for the tip! Sunken treasure, literally.

 

[Beerhippie]

What impresses me about the Arabia wreck is how far from the current course of the river it was found! In the ~155 years it was buried, the river had moved miles away.

The preservation of the contents is incredible, too--straw hats! I'd like to visit the museum some day. Maybe add that in when I make my pilgrimage to NYC to see that famous Statue of Limitations....

 

[four.cycle]

In the ~155 years it was buried, the river had moved miles away.

^ ALL rivers, left to their own devices, will re-occupy ALL of the areas within their flood plains at some point in time.

It's for that reason that so many rivers have been diked, rip-rapped, or otherwise "contained".

A Process-Based View of Floodplain Forest Patterns in Coastal River Valleys of the Pacific Northwest - 2010 Naiman et al

(while the geographic areas may be different, the same principles apply to riparian ecosystems.)

 

[senlow]

I do want to say if anyone wants to see a snapshot of tool history from the 1856, go to the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City, Mo. This boat went down filled with tons of general merchandise including crazy amounts of tools. They have dug it up and are preseving/displaying what the found. Check out these pictures! Just studying the tape measure gave me a ton of info.

+1 I toured the museum about a year ago. I was amazed to see how well preserved it was.

 

[Provincial]

Mark Twain discussed the ever-changing nature of the Mississippi River in his 1883 memoir Life on the Mississippi. He recounts his training as a steamboat pilot, and how the knowledge of the dynamics of the river affected navigation. It is well worth reading.

I'm not sure if it was in this book, or somewhere else that he described the stacking of cordwood for sale to steamboats. A cord is a measure of volume, 4x4x8 feet, or 128 cubic feet. He described the stacks as being made so loose that someone could throw a dog through it at any point!

 

[four.cycle]

^ maybe it was cottonwood and they were hoping it would dry out faster?

 

[Provincial]

Most likely, they were ethically challenged.

 

[Beerhippie]

^ ALL rivers, left to their own devices, will re-occupy ALL of the areas within their flood plains at some point in time.

It's for that reason that so many rivers have been diked, rip-rapped, or otherwise "contained".

A Process-Based View of Floodplain Forest Patterns in Coastal River Valleys of the Pacific Northwest - 2010 Naiman et al

(while the geographic areas may be different, the same principles apply to riparian ecosystems.)

Yeah, I've also worked in hydrology. But, remember, I'm an Inland Westerner, where our valleys are usually canyons--not much room to wander outside of a few wide valleys and narrow coastal plains.

I live in "The Valley of Winding Waters" (half the businesses around here are eponymous), as the locals called it before we tossed 'em out (the other half of the businesses are named for the locals we threw out). The five major streams through the valley are all channelized now--no more of that there "wandering" ****--they just flood like mad instead.

 

[four.cycle]

^ I've hiked in the Wehanna-Tucannon and Eagle Cap areas, so I'm somewhat familiar with your topography. Give it another 2 or 3 million years and they'll evolve to what we have out here on the coast - it's just a matter of time, wind, and rain.
The "channelization" stuff was a huge mistake, as we are now learning.

About the turn of the 20th Century, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dynamited all the logjams out of the Chehalis from Aberdeen clear up to Pe Ell (to provide for river navigation). The result has been annual flooding all along the flood plain from about Oakville clear down to Montesano.

(The Davis Creek Unit is just downstream from Oakville, located on the south bank of the Chehalis. The photo was taken in March, prior to plowing and planting sweet corn. The "pond" the dogs and I were walking along is flood water that hadn't yet dried up or leached into the ground.)

We're a long ways from tape measures here. C'est la vie.

 

[Provincial]

I don't know how many times I've mentioned "geomorphology" to regulators and received a blank stare in response. Transportation engineers are, for some reason, the least likely to understand the reference.

Another way to evoke the "Deer in the Headlights" response is to mention "Sheet Flow."

 

[Old Radar]

^ You're leaving out the last word of that phrase--sheet flows downhill--they'll understand that.

 

[Beerhippie]

Well, there's actually a good tie-in to vintage tape measures, as we used metal tapes when surveying these morphologies.

 

[Squez]

 

[Patrick Eubanks]

The vintage cloth tape collecting bug bit me way to long ago. I currently have 120+ of various brands, mostly Lufkin, and some as old as the 1860s. Experimenting with a buffing wheel to polish up the brass cranks and banding. Anyone as nuts as I am on these things?

Thanks for sharing

 

[genog]

I have a bunch of "old" tape measures and rules
This is the only one that's probably "vintage"

 

[Packerdad]

Looks like a great place to start! Keep that collection going!

 

[Squirrel!]

Came across this 3 foot Walsco “little pal”. Carstairs was a whiskey company with the motto- “The man who cares says Carstairs.” Thinking it’s from the 1950’s
The tape is a steel grey-blue color.

 

[Mike007]

This has been kicking around my shop for a while. I was about to thow it in my scrap pile, instead I did a quick search. Apparently it's from the 30s. Almost 100 years old. Pretty crazy.

 

[Lesserstore]

I saw this several years ago in a catalog I have. Still can't figure out why Lufkin chose "*** Skin" for the name. Anybody know?

 

[Beerhippie]

Nope.

 

[RTM]

I saw this several years ago in a catalog I have. Still can't figure out why Lufkin chose "*** Skin" for the name. Anybody know?

Maybe cuz it’s tough as hell?

I had a chance to buy a box of them at a hardware store estate sale. Wish I would have, but I had enough fabric tapes. Plus they weren’t marked on the tape that I could see.

 

[wantedabiggergarage]

This thread is making me wish they still sold replacement tapes for all these style. I used my late grandfathers for years until they got too bent up. Great pocket carry items.

 

[RTM]

This thread is making me wish they still sold replacement tapes for all these style. I used my late grandfathers for years until they got too bent up. Great pocket carry items.

There are, places like HJE carry them, and I find some of them at garage sales.

Lufkin Nylon Clad Refill

Lufkin Nylon Clad Refill

www.harryepstein.com

Lufkin 3/4" x 25' Tape Measure Replacement Blade (RY325)

Lufkin 3/4" x 25' Tape Measure Replacement Blade (RY325) Lufkin 3/4" x 25' Tape Measure Replacement Blade (RY325)

www.harryepstein.com

 

[Lesserstore]

I saw this several years ago in a catalog I have. Still can't figure out why Lufkin chose "*** Skin" for the name. Anybody know?

I have found the answer in the 6/22/1916 issue of Hardware Age:

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I have found the answer in the 6/22/1916 issue of Hardware Age:

Good work.

Wirh English, sometimes it's all in the delivery. For example, there's a big difference between "Who's askin'?" and "Whose *** skin?"

 

[wantedabiggergarage]

There are, places like HJE carry them, and I find some of them at garage sales.

Lufkin Nylon Clad Refill

Lufkin Nylon Clad Refill

www.harryepstein.com

Lufkin 3/4" x 25' Tape Measure Replacement Blade (RY325)

Lufkin 3/4" x 25' Tape Measure Replacement Blade (RY325) Lufkin 3/4" x 25' Tape Measure Replacement Blade (RY325)

www.harryepstein.com

3/4" tapes only came out long after I inherited and started using the tapes. The first posts ones (like mine) were all 1/2" at most.

 

[RTM]

3/4" tapes only came out long after I inherited and started using the tapes. The first posts ones (like mine) were all 1/2" at most.

Sorry, those were two quick n easy examples I knew of, to show some are out there. As each brand of tape measure often used a different attachment to the spring or core, without your exact details, looking harder would be a fool’s errand for me.

 

[Provincial]

This P&C 1961 turned up at an estate sale last weekend. The tape itself looks to be unused.

 

[four.cycle]

Question for the tape-collecting crowd:
Has anyone seen, used, or owned a Supermatic Steel Ruler?
(this came up in an email exchange earlier... trying to figure out who actually made this thing...

patent 3004346 Oct 17 1961 Michel Charles André Quenot of Besancon, France for "Steel Tape for Measuring Internal Dimensions" - assignee: Société à Responsabilité Limitée dite: Etablissements Quenot et Cie, Beancon, France - marketed as the "Supermatic Steel Ruler"

 

[Mintgrun]

Has anyone seen, used, or owned a Supermatic Steel Ruler?

I have not, but just found one on eBay with a lot of good photos.

Mabo supermatic No 118 Vintage Imperial Measure, made in France | eBay

Mabo supermatic No 118. Made in France by Stanley. Pencil hole for circles.

www.ebay.com

 

[Mike'smeatshop]

After my success in shed hunting. I stopped at my local junk shop and found a Stanley 1266A to help with my next project. But unfortunately, it is to unclear to read. So if anyone has a small flexible tape they want to sell? Let me know. Thanks.

 

[d42jeep]

Here is a nice General 378 folding yardstick that recently arrived from an eBay seller. These were featured in several WW2 toolsets.
-Don

 

[four.cycle]

^ funny. "Rule, blacksmiths', steel folding..."

According to a 1915 Stanley advertisement, they had trademarked "Zig Zag" for their folding rules.
The day after that was brought to my attention, I found a Lufkin advertisement for "Zig Zag" rules.
Apparently the people who put together the catalogs for the tool and hardware wholesalers weren't much concerned about Stanley's claimed "trademark" on the "zig zag" moniker.

Another one of those "Band-Aid" / "Kleenex" things, perhaps?

But if it's made of metal, it's a "blacksmiths' rule" ?

 

[RTM]

But if it's made of metal, it's a "blacksmiths' rule" ?

I believe those were brass, Aluminum, or some such, which conducted heat much slower than steel, per Stanley catalogs. Can't search now.

 

[d42jeep]

The General and Starrett versions are both steel. They look like they were made in the same factory. Here is my well used Starrett.
-Don