Happy New Year to everyone on this site. Many thanks to Noel (Papaw) for persisting with the site, including its revival despite a fierce MES experience in 2011.
I find this site to be educational, and it has widened my appreciation of what floats tool collectors boats. The site also reinforces a belief that tool collecting encourages humility and generosity. (Note: I will still be working on stubbornness in 2012).
We are all about preserving the American past, some of it long past, some not so long past. There is value in that. America has been a bastion of middle class-generated wealth, and the tools we have collected are one proof of that. Americans designed, made, bought, sold, and used these tools. The wealth generated at each step was earned by everyone involved.