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Catalogues - get your catalogues!

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Catalogues - get your catalogues!

Postby AndyT » 11 Nov 2021, 18:58

This may be old news to some, but I think it bears repeating, and there's some new stuff, so bear with me.

Anyone with even a passing interest in old tools can benefit from looking at old tool catalogues. They are full of useful information to help identify them, point out special features and to show the range of designs and prices that were available. A good catalogue can illustrate the range of work undertaken in a forgotten trade. The trouble is, they are often rare, especially the older ones. Too many shops would have chucked out last year's issue when a new one arrived. Surviving catalogues in good condition can get really hard to find and expensive.

But now we have the web!

Wouldn't it be great if all the old catalogues were available online? Then we could download them and read them on our flashy modern i-pads, kindles, tablets, phones etc. And indeed, over the last decade or so, lots of people have scanned what they could and shared the results on various websites. Some of them are still there, but others have disappeared. However, a remarkable tool collector, Mark Stansbury is working hard on putting things right and making not just a handful, but thousands of catalogues available. He started with his own trowel catalogues but many many others have been added since. He has tracked down catalogues from societies and individuals who want their information to be widely available. He has even searched in old periodicals for interesting tool adverts. The collection, known as the International Tool Catalogue Library is held at the Internet Archive, here:

https://archive.org/details/internation ... -addeddate

If you follow that link today, you'll see 6,608 items.

Some recent highlights of special interest to us in the UK include:

Spear and Jackson 1939 catalogue - 156 pages of pre-war plenty, including scary great circular saws and a rather smart cover. (I do recommend a look at page 92 to see the chap testing (not ruining!) the butchers' cleavers and also at page 109 where a tweedy gent spends his days stepping on captive forks ;) )

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Record Tools 1960 - a pocket guide to your favourite vices and more

William Hunt, Brades catalogue from 1906 - one of the Black Country's best, at its peak of variety. Hoes hoes and more hoes, plus spades in all sizes.

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And Lock Tools of Oldbury - a Brades subsidiary I had never heard of, making lovely hammers, displayed like pieces of sculpture

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That's only the fresh tip of a very large iceberg. Have a look, have a read, reflect on all the tools you could have had a century ago.

If you've been good, and you're an optimist, you could even get some ideas for this year's letter to Santa!

:text-merryxmas:
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Re: Catalogues - get your catalogues!

Postby AJB Temple » 11 Nov 2021, 19:22

You need to be banned. The last thing I need is any encouragement whatsoever to lust after more tools. :lol:

Good post.
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Re: Catalogues - get your catalogues!

Postby Lons » 11 Nov 2021, 19:23

Thanks Andy I'll spend hours on there. :eusa-clap:

I'm not sure if that's the same guy I sent scans of the old Kity machinery to, his name certainly rings a bell.
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Re: Catalogues - get your catalogues!

Postby Mike G » 11 Nov 2021, 22:03

Thanks Andy, that's bookmarked. However, I have a much easier way of accessing that sort of information: I just post on here and you pop up 10 minutes later with the answer. :lol: :lol:
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Re: Catalogues - get your catalogues!

Postby AndyT » 11 Nov 2021, 23:04

Lons wrote:I'm not sure if that's the same guy I sent scans of the old Kity machinery to, his name certainly rings a bell.


Yes, he's on OWWM/Vintage Machinery as well. A busy chap!

And Mike, don't worry, your method will still work :D
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Re: Catalogues - get your catalogues!

Postby Trevanion » 13 Nov 2021, 16:41

That Spear and Jackson catalogue is great, unfortunately, S&J isn't the company it once was but they still make relatively decent stuff although most of it is garden equipment.

In the bundle of spindle moulder blocks and cutters I got from Guineafowl21 are a couple of S&J ones, at one point in time they were quite a well-regarded maker of circular saws and cutters.

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From that catalogue:

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I love these old catalogues because the illustrations are usually nothing like we have today, back then they took pride in what they produced, quite often you see images like this as a bit of a "show off":

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I'll have to sit down one day and do some that are in my collection, is it just handtool related stuff or is there any interest in Woodworking machinery and accessories catalogues?
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Re: Catalogues - get your catalogues!

Postby AndyT » 13 Nov 2021, 17:08

Dan, I'm glad you have found some of the gems in that S&J catalogue - I'd thought about highlighting them but decided you'd enjoy finding them for yourself.

As for expanding the scope to include machinery catalogues - why not contact Mark and discuss it directly? As mentioned, I know he's active on OWWM, which might have enough traction of its own to be the place people would look first, but there's always going to be an overlap, from manufacturers and merchants who spanned both markets and I am sure he will be interested in any fresh scans not available elsewhere.

You can find Mark's email and a bit more about him if you look at his profile on any of his blogs, such as this one where I first found him:

http://trowelcollector.blogspot.com/
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