More Saturday.

[Branson]

The garage sale had this approximately 4# straight pein hammer.  Now I just can't pass up a straight pein, and with the Boker nippers, the counter sink, hole cutter, the Snapl-On and the weird wrench, I was only down $5.

The second picture was color saturated to try to bring out the name on the hammer, which had only been partially decipherable -- A. Hovich Co.  It interested my step son enough that he researched the name before he showed me the picture.  A. Hovich Co belonged to Antone Hovich, a "ship smith," and is only listed in 1914, 1915, and 1916, in San Francisco.  I can't find any maker's name, but A. Hovich is stamped twice on this head.  Did the ship smith make it? Or was he just careful to mark his tools?

[Branson]

I checked out the addresses in the San Francisco directory.  His business address was a block from the docks at the end of Howard Street, now the site of a new highrise.  But his home address was in the Inner Sunset District, and still stands.  It was built in 1914, the same year he shows up in the directory, the same year he started his business as a "ship smith." 

I strongly suspect that this hammer was made by A. Hovich.  I'm sure glad I found it!

[lzenglish]

There is a lot of West Coast Tool History in Frisco! I'm sure you checked for the hammer in your Baker & Hamilton catalog right? I checked my Diggs catalog, and did not see it. Sounds like you made out pretty good for your 5 bucks!

Wayne

[rusty]

It is an interesting quandry. Being a smith, and that being a smith's tool, it is interesting to speculate if he made it, or used it. It looks very well made, which might lead one to suppose it was mass produced and he bought it, but then again, it might just mean he was a very good smith. I have seen some incredable work that I would have bet money was not hand made that was. There is also the third possability, that he was a smith but not working as a smith when running the company, eg, he might have been running a store and sold it with his name on it, neither making it or using it.

Either way, it's sure a nice hammer for $5 : )

[Branson]

It looks like, from the 1914--1916 directories, that we can eliminate the  third possibility.  A. Hovich and Company is listed as ship smith.  The business address is  an area that seems to have housed repair works from the pictures I've found.

>I have seen some incredable work that I would have bet money was not hand made that was.

I've seen some, too.  Jay Sharp, for example.  John Suttle made some of his own, and some are work expedient, while others are finely finished.

Antone may have bought it, or he might have made it.  There are no other marks except A Hovich & Co stamped  into the top and bottom, by the eye.  It's a mystery until I can find more information.  Thinking of the time and the place, I think it likely that Hovich was an immigrant, and had learned his trade in Europe, and had learned to make his own tools.  My first smithing teacher learned his trade from his father and his German grandfather, and making his tools was part of his apprenticeship.

Either way, though, this hammer was stamped by him, sometime between 1914 and 1916, when the company disappears.  There's a certain romance in that.  And, of course, any good hammer is worth a lot more than $5.  I can hardly wait to handle it up!