What is the OLDEST tool in your tool box,

mrvette

mrvette

Phantom of the Opera
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not your fathers'....etc, not under your bench forgotten for decades and unused....but YOUR active tool box....

for ME, it's the lone survivor 9/16 Craftsman 3/8 shallow socket.....

what's YOURS...I think mine is dating to the early 60's....


:smash:
 
Oldest is most likely a wooden handle flat head screwdriver handed down from my father some 30 years ago....he got it from a hardware store on the south side of Chgo......many, many moons ago. Vintage 50's/60's?
 
My oldest tool is probably the caliper (in metric) I inherited from my father. It was given to him when he graduated as a mechanic. The tool was one of his prides, too bad it's useless on an old American car.
I often buy tools from garage sell, to there may be some files or chisel much older.
 
denpo said:
My oldest tool is probably the caliper (in metric) I inherited from my father. It was given to him when he graduated as a mechanic. The tool was one of his prides, too bad it's useless on an old American car.
I often buy tools from garage sell, to there may be some files or chisel much older.
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2.54 cm/inch....surely you can look up the smaller units and have a calculator....

I have my father's old tool box I remember from childhood, maybe 60+ years ago....he made it, and so he built houses, and then worked for Glen Martin aircraft in Cleveland Ohio, back when, the Univ of Maryland Aero school has a building engraved with Glen Martin on it....
Dad did prototype construction on wing designs....this all back in the 20's....

:crutches:
 
A couple of hand-me-downs from pop.
An adjustable (cresent style) wrench from an old Ford model tool kit. It's a sentimental piece that I turn a few times a yr just to justify keeping it.
A pre-war Snap-On 3/8 ratchet, circa 1930's.
The first tools I bought about 4 decades ago, a 3/8 Craftsman socket set. Has that dreaded ratchet with the 'V' shaped direction toggle, and that socket detent ball that won't let go. :push:
 
A few tool from my father in law but not much,
the oldest tool I might have would be this timing light.

thum_1804e3b6d2dc68ab.jpg

This was given to me by my neighbor, one day she asked me if I wanted tool,
If I didnt want them she was going to throw them away.

Hey why not,
She had her father's tool box, who was a mechanic in the 60's andd 70's.

I gave the tool box to my oldest son, I just kept the timing light .
 
Rod75 said:
The first tools I bought about 4 decades ago, a 3/8 Craftsman socket set. Has that dreaded ratchet with the 'V' shaped direction toggle, and that socket detent ball that won't let go. :push:
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I inherited a couple of those from my father-in-law and yes they do not want to let go of the socket. It also seems to slip it you barely touch the toggle.
 
My father bought a 32 Ford in 1932. He bought it new. It apparently came with a few tools. Somewhere in my tool collection I have a wire pliers with the Ford logo. I think it came with that car.

....................

My father graduated from Lincoln Memorial University in Holgate (spelling?), Tennessee in 1932. It was a school that specialized in providing education to people from Appalachia. The school owned a big farm and working on the farm paid for your education. He graduated in probably early June and had a school teaching job starting in September. He went to a Ford dealer to buy a used car. The depression was on and the dealer couldn't sell cars. Since my dad would have a job (a school teaching job was really a premium job in those years) he told my dad to drive a new Ford off the lot and start making payments in September when he started working.
 
For me it is an old box wrench with about a 1" offset. It is 1/2" on one end and 9/16" on the other. I got it in a toolbox I bought from an older woman whose husband had passed. I estimate that it is about 50 years old, it has no name, the only markings other than the measurements are 181 alloy steel and made in America...
 
I'm a Triumph racer and friends with the Triumph Competitions manager Kas Kastner. He directed all of the American racing efforts for Triumph and then went on to run the Nissan GTP efforts when they won LeMans. A very special guy.

A few years ago he gave me his twelve inch vernier caliper saying that "I was always measuring something". A treasured and utile tool....Thanx Kas:thumbs:
 
I still have and use my S-K 1/2 inch drive ratchet set I bought back in '72. Well worn, but still all there and working.
 
My 1/2, 3/8 and 1/4 ratchets and sockets are all passed down from my dad. I'm think they are from the 50"s. The oldest tool I have is a modified cast iron model T jack. The base is cut away so that I could spread the rails on a motorcycle frame. Worked like a champ and cost me $2 at a swap meet.
 
Oldest tool in my box would be the 1/2" socket set and wrenches I got when my dad passed away, next oldest would be the Huskey socket set I got for xmas in '74
 
I have an extensive set of Model T Ford tools from the teens. T's have some rather unique tools/needs.
 
big2bird said:
I have an extensive set of Model T Ford tools from the teens. T's have some rather unique tools/needs.
Click to expand...

My father had a T Ford also, there is this kind of oddball wrench, looks like the letter F with a adjustment that looks like on a crescent wrench, for the lower bar to adjust up/down the stem.....Is that a T Ford wrench ???
 
mrvette said:
big2bird said:
I have an extensive set of Model T Ford tools from the teens. T's have some rather unique tools/needs.
Click to expand...

My father had a T Ford also, there is this kind of oddball wrench, looks like the letter F with a adjustment that looks like on a crescent wrench, for the lower bar to adjust up/down the stem.....Is that a T Ford wrench ???
Click to expand...

More than likely. Ford did make a tool like that.
Any wrench made by Ford has a Ford script.
KR Wilson made alot of them, and countless knock offs sold by Western Auto.
 
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