Toolemera Blog

Mr. Witherby Builds His Dream House

Well, maybe not a dream house. But I did have a dream. I heard faint voices calling to me in the dead of night... "Garyyyy, Garryyyy, we are lost and need a home. We are lonely and need the companionship of our siblings" (clearly a very educated spirit). So I bestirred myself and hot-footed it over to the website. There they where, crying piteously in their loneliness. Being a kind-hearted soul, I forth-with corralled them and ushered them to their new home, the T. H. Witherby & The Winsted Edge Tool Co. page at my website. The crying stopped and all was well in Winsted, Connecticut.

Seeing their distress, I can only assume that the same fate has befallen other orphaned trade catalogs, billheads, post cards and the like of other companies. In answer to their plight, I will gradually arrange for suitable accomodations for these deserving entities, such as Disston, Ohio Tool, D.R. Barton and so on.

The measure of a man is his response to suffering. I can go to sleep now feeling that today I have done a Good Thing for all Ephemera.

Till next
Gary

The Toolemera Press Website

The Toolemera Press website, the companion to the Toolemera Blog, features the books, trade catalogs, photographs and ephemera of early tools, trades, crafts and industries.

My other blog: Mother Brook, a public service blog devoted to the first industrial canal in the United States - Mother Brook of Dedham, Massachusetts.

Leonard Bailey

Leonard Bailey. All you have to do is write the name and suddenly people sit up and take notice. Search engines go ga-ga. Wiki-people, well they don't do all that much in this case. A recent question regarding some specifics about Mr. Bailey led me to do some searching and lo, what did I find but not very much in any one place. Sure, there is a lot of stuff that has been written about Mr. Bailey, but it's mostly about the planes that he invented and a little about the try-squares that he designed. But what about Bailey the man? Why did he ditch the whole tool business and start making copy-presses? Sure, he lost some court battles with the Stanley Rule & Level Co., but why did he totally give up and go in such a different direction? Was his beard really so carefully trimmed?

As is my wont (I have to stick at least one archaic word in just to show that I am educated), I started looking up Mr. Bailey through various online sources. Tucked away in various corners of the internet are some interesting tidbits about Mr. Bailey. As I turn up more, I'll be adding them to the website, which is, if you have not yet bookmarked it, www.toolemera.com (shameless self-promotion runs rampant in blogs). Currently there are the summaries of the two Stanley Rule & Level Co. v Leonard Bailey court cases and a bunch of PDF file compilations of his patents... some of which may surprise you.

In time I'll be adding more information, including a bibliography of articles and books that discuss Mr. Bailey, the proceedings of the two court cases (hopefully, they've been ordered but I have to wait to see if the microfilm copies are legible) and whatever else I can dredge up. What you chose to do with all this information is your business. I'm just putting it together in one place to give Mr. Bailey his just due instead of the brief Wiki comments that so undervalue his genius.

If you really want to jump directly to the Bailey material, step over here.

Till next
Gary Roberts

EAIA New Member Offer

Folks, the Early American Industries Association is running a New Member Drive for 2008. Instead of the very reasonable $35.00 membership fee, new members can join for the extremely reasonable price of $20.0. And, you can put that $15.00 that you just saved towards the purchase of the Dictionary of American Toolmakers (DAT), Digital Edition which you can purchase at a member discount of $20.00 instead of $30.00 (plus $5.00 shipping) AND the reprint of The Pattern Book of Tools and Household Goods, an early pattern book from 1820, for $40.00 instead of $50.00 (plus, of course, $5.00 for shipping... but I am sure that Toby Hall will look kindly on you when it comes to shipping if you purchase both at the same time). The New Member Form PDF is available HERE. Of if you prefer, you can go to The Early American Industries website for information on the DAT, the Pattern Book.

If you are wondering why you should join the EAIA then allow me to clarify things for you. The EAIA is the cornerstone of the study of early tools, trades, crafts and industries. The quarterly journal The Chronicle is worth the price of admission. Shavings, the newsletter of the Association, provides information on local activities as well as Association happening updates. The EAIA is a member driven organization for people who simply like anything to do with tools, trades, crafts and industries. So if you are not a member, you are not part of the solution.

Till next
Gary

PS: The EAIA membership form may be downloaded, copied, distributed, framed or whatever to your heart's content

Catalog Disbinding

Disbinding: removing the covers of a bound book (or trade catalog). In the book binding trade, disbinding is a step taken when the the item needs to be re-covered or the original binding, or contents, needs repair. So why does the word Disbinding make me cringe?

There has been a faction amongst sellers of ephemera who routinely purchase books, trade catalogs and the like, disbind the original and sell the contents as individual pages or image plates. For the purposes of full disclosure, I buy these orphans when the contents are of interest and deserving of preservation. But I cringe each time I do, thinking of the cruel punishment the originals underwent in the name of commerce. On rare occasions I can assemble either the complete original or a near complete set by purchasing the individual leaves (book people term for pages, not to be confused with oak or maple leaves). I typically ask if the original cover exists, or the title page, but rarely if ever is this so.

As you all know, trade catalogs are a species on the brink of extinction. A non-renewable resource, trade catalogs do not reproduce, even under suitable conditions. Each time a trade catalog is disbound we lose another hunk of history. The individual plates or leaves, while hanging prettily on the wall, mounted in a nice Walmart frame, become objects of beauty, devoid of the historic context that reveals to the viewer how that piece of paper relates to the study of tools, trades, crafts and industries. If I had my way, those sellers who purchase trade catalogs with the express purpose of disbinding them should be banned for life from selling, sentenced to an eternity of hand dusting bindings in the Library of Congress.

I wish there was a rule on that online auction service that forbade the disbinding of books and catalogs. Sure, I might be outbid on the full catalog, but at least I would know that that catalog still existed in it's whole state, in some collection somewheres. And that is my New Year's Wish for 2008.

Gary