more from the hardware book!

Ever heard of Soldering Salts? Not me

I've heard of bar lead, it's what body guys used to lead a seam on cars, but Pig Tin? Bar Tin? Never heard of them before 

the sheer variety is unreal... every variety of some item, like these forks, and I'd only ever heard of hay forks and common pitch forks before now

so reading these name... shaving fork? And how is a sugar beet fork better for beets than any of the others that are so similar? 

another example of a crazy number of varieties, is the number of rakes

Ever heard of a wood tooth rake? or a dandelion rake? 

How about a Lawn Comb? 

and these are something I've never heard of, weed diggers, and weed pullers

interesting... not a shovel or scoop... it's just the same as a snow rood rake

Ever heard of a Snath? 

It's been about 40 years since I've swung a grass whip... before the inexpensive weed whacker, this got the job done, slowly, like you were trying to make perfect gold club swings 

What a wicked knife! This should have shown up in some slasher horror movie

Corn knife and Hay knife... 

I've never heard of these shears called Heimerdingers before

outstanding tool, why have I never seen or heard of one? 

It goes without saying, these garden hose repair parts are something I wish we'd had when I was a kid... them must have worked perfectly with a couple hose clamps

seriously, if a hanging tube of foul smelling stuff kept dogs off yards, there would be a lot of years that dogs would avoid 

these are something... double sided gloves! 

and lastly, things with wheels! These seem to be nicely mechanically complex

ever heard of a chicken chaser? Kept pigs from hunting chickens when they got hungry

these are ORNAMENTAL trailer hitches! 

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