Very recently I had a chance to scavenge an old pole barn about an hour south of my house, that was filled up with planks and slabs of hardwood that consisted mostly of a lot of walnut, some oak, elm and cherry. Mixed in were several huge slabs of catalpa. I ended up bringing home a little bit of everything. The wood belonged to a man who owned a portable saw mill, which was also stored in the building. The man’s health was failing so his son was starting to lighten the load. After filling up my van with wood, I found out that the building next door also belonged to the same guy. It was a machine shop at one time, but over the years, it ended up as a “catch all” for everything.
There was stuff everywhere! Tools, machines, car parts, junk, etc. Just ten steps into the building and I must have seen a dozen things I was interested in buying. So as I walked/climbed/crawled/squeezed my way though the building with the owner’s son, I’d occasionally ask, “How about this Wilton vise. Is it for sale?” The answer, “No.” Well, that went on for about forty five minutes. I asked about several items to include, sockets, wrenches, a small sheet metal brake, an atlas lathe, and countless other things. Nothing was for sale. So I asked the son what was up. Why did we just maneuver our way through that building and I ended up with nothing? He knew I was offering cash. Well, he finally told me that his father wanted to hire an auctioneer to come and inventory everything and then hold a public auction. I sort of laughed, and said something like, “There’s enough here for everyone, but if you’re set on giving an auctioneer a cut of the profits, that’s your business.” He shrugged his shoulders and that was that.
As we were walking out of the building, I saw a tap and die set that I recognized as being an early 2000s vintage Craftsman metric set. I actually saw it when we first entered the building and took a quick look at it. From what I could see, it was missing a couple pieces. So anyway, as we walked past it on our way out, I just rattled off, “What about this tap and die set? You know, it’s missing a couple pieces.” To my surprise, he said, “Okay.”
It was really dirty and some light surface rust covered most of the pieces. It was missing the little screwdriver (which I replaced with one I had) and it was also missing the 18mm 1.50 tap and die. The price was right and with a little elbow grease, everything cleaned up nicely. While I had a few metric taps and dies that I bought as needed, I never had an almost complete set. As far as I can tell, it’s set # 9-52373. Sears offered it between 2000 and 2007.
Jim C.