I’ve posted a number of photos here and I thought I’d shift things a bit and post some photos of objects from what I think of as our museum. It’s not a museum really, it’s more like a library with objects that have stories. Unfortunately the photos are from posts I made in 2010 on a commercial site and reposted on our website and if I start talking about things it’s easy to Google. So there will be very little text.

What I can write about is the fact that the items shown occupy points of time within which economies were changing. For some of the objects, those made in a particular region in England, a change had taken place at the end of the seventeenth century from a focus on armour making to one devoted to precision tools and devices. Another change was taking place from localized family production units to factory production. The intermediary stage was the factor who went to a pub on Saturday and met makers of tools, purchased the tools, and provided raw materials for production of more tools.

The hacksaw frame and table vise were produced this way, in an 18th century style but made in the 19th century. The sugar nippers were probably made elsewhere in England, again in an 18th century style but probably dating around 1850.

The pastry wheel (or pie crimper) and plane are American. We purchased the pastry wheel at a midwestern auction in the 1980s. It has a walnut handle, forged and lathe turned wrought iron wheel holder, and a brass wheel, and dates around 1850. The plane was made in Massachusetts around 1800 and has the typical relieved wedge of that era and region.