Boxwood folding rules

[Stan D]

What is the brand on that 4 fold, Nasutushenri?

[Stan D]

Okay, clearly, I don't know all of what I have.  I must have put my hands on it all sometime, but I found one I don't remember at all.   It's a 6" folding square, inches on one side, metric on the other. And boxwood, I presume.







I can only assume that years ago, when I last was in that drawer, I didn't think too much about the contents.  It's marked "The Thornton Institute, 15 Castle St. London"

[Nasutushenri]

What is the brand on that 4 fold, Nasutushenri?

Stan, thanks for the interest. The brand is "Duimstokkenfabriek SCHUIL". In the Dutch language a rule is a "duimstok".
The factory make wooden rules of high quality for nearly 70 years.

[Northwoods]

Do a quick copy and paste on that brand name and you can see a Dutch language video of the rules being made.
Cool!

[Nasutushenri]

Do a quick copy and paste on that brand name and you can see a Dutch language video of the rules being made.
Cool!

Just for the record, the SCHUIL video is in the Frisian language, not the Dutch language.
Recently I came across another SCHUIL rule, a shorter one.

Henri
 

[Northwoods]

Touché!

[Stan D]

Wow, what detail on that Schuil.

So, I was at a steam engine show in Maryland's Eastern Shore this past weekend. There was a good sized flea market area, with lots of old tools. One guy had a few Stanley 4 folds like mine. Except not in as good of shape as mine.  He wanted $45 for his best looking one.  So either they're really worth that, or this guy has a pair of big brass ones to ask that much.  Either way, I was impressed.  I'm not interested in selling anything I've got. I'm just interested in the history of it all.

[jfran2]

I have an interesting old Stanley ruler that belonged to my grandfather, who passed away in 1963.  It's a two-foot ruler with a single hinge in the middle, and looks  just like the one on this web page:

http://www.jimbodetools.com/Rare-STANLEY-No-15-Boxwood-and-Brass-Engineer-s-Rule-with-E-and-M-Scales-Marked-SPECIAL-p49034.html

My questions is - what makes it special? And how do I know if it's a no. 15?  Is it really this valuable? Thanks for any information you can give me!

[Lewill2]

Rules like many other antique tools require a lot of research to determine their value. There is a lot of information out there about Stanley rules. Another thing to keep in mind is a person like Jim Bode makes his living buying and selling antique tools. Jim has a lot of inventory and has some very nice items but his prices usually reflect the upper end of the market value. Jim has been in the business for a long time. If the rule isn't marked with a number then comparing it with others found on line is a good way but you need to make sure the scales marked on your rule are the same as the ones you find online. English and Metric combination rules in my limited experience of looking at boxwood rules are harder to find.

Other guys on here have more experience an hopefully they will chime in.

[jfran2]

One of the things I didn't mention in my first post is that this rule has no number on it.   It also looks just like the no. 26 on this web page, except that where his says "No. 26" mine just says "Special." 

http://collectingme.com/Measuring/Stanley_No_26_two_fold_rule.aspx

I haven't been able to find out much else about it in the couple of hours I spent online, although I did discover that the E and M scales are apparently for figuring the taper on a ship's mast, and stand for "Edge" and "Middle," for what that may be worth!

Thanks for the reply!