It's taken me a couple months to go through the 1400 pages of a 1929 hardware supply mail order catalog, and it was very cool to discover many dozens of things inside... and now that I finally finished, I can share some with you!

 

They had more stuff than a Sears Christmas Catalog... 

it's so interesting to see the origins of so many common things, like roller skates... and see that they had rubber wheel skates for rinks, and plain metal ones for sidewalks... 

and though the Crescent brand existed, they hadn't cornered the market

and they were not called "Tin Snips" yet, they were "Tinners' Snips" 

And axes were known by the shapes, a Wisconsin, Michigan, Chicago, or California pattern

and what the hell is a Car Builders Half axe? 

and this is a freaking railroad car moving lever

and a car body clamp, as they were known then, and now, known as C Clamps - is that C the abbreviation for Car? Intriguing! 

I had to look up "Japanned" and "Japanning" and it's the black treatment that is performed on steel, like on Singer sewing machines, and Stanley Squares, for a couple common examples

Kennedy Tool Chests were already a thing! 

and I learned a lot of words/names for things... Darbies, Hawks, Riffles

I have no idea what a long chain needle nose is, or how it's different from a "long" needle nose?  Shorter and more curved handles? 

Ever seen a double ended Crescent Wrench? 

Wow, 10000 pounds cutting pressure! I wonder what other tools compare to that, and what tools have more?

Arm and Hammer... before it was a baking soda... and I never understood what the brand name of Arm and Hammer had to do with the chemical qualities of baking soda

and I learned what Berea stone is! I'd never heard of that before

What the hell is a barbed car nail for?  I had to look that up, of course! 

"Barbed car nails" were specialty heavy-duty fasteners used to build and repair wooden railroad freight cars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before trains were built entirely of steel

Because rail cars (boxcars, stock cars, and flatcars) were constructed with thick wooden framing and siding and subjected to constant vibration, heavy shifts in freight, and severe weather, standard smooth-shank nails would eventually loosen and "pop" out under this mechanical stress. To prevent this, manufacturers designed barbed car nails

and before we called them Cotter Pins, they were called spring cotters! 

there's a lot more, but that's for another day, it's late and I gotta call it a day