$15 Snap On Roller Box

[johnsironsanctuary]

Last Memorial Day I snagged a 7 drawer roll around box at the end of the day at the Maxwell Street Flea Market. He definitely was not going to take it home. I posted photos of my Rustoleum restoration earlier and now that I have managed to wrassle it down the basement stairs, I thought more photos were in order. The SO logo is gone, replaced with two vintage Craftsman logos and four anniversary lapel pins sniped on ebay. It filled up waaaay to quickly.

[lbgradwell]

$15?!

You suck!!!

(Nice collection.)

[OilyRascal]

YES, you suck!  It's a deal I've been hunting for over a year now.

Very nice wrenches.  There is a pipe wrench in there that smells like Thorsen - or it's same maker....pic #5 same drawer as chisels.

[johnsironsanctuary]

Sorry Oily, it's a Lakeside. Honest, I wouldn't hold out on you.

[OilyRascal]

:)

Would you mind taking a close-up picture of it - or comparing those attached below?  I'm wondering if Thorsen didn't produce for Lakeside, Lakeside for Thorsen, or if the both of them were sourced from a 3rd party.  It sure looks very close from what I can see - actually, it looks like an exact match.

Wasn't "Lakeside" a Western Auto store brand?

Pics of the Thorsen 10"

[lbgradwell]

Wasn't "Lakeside" a Western Auto store brand?

No, but Montgomery Ward sometimes used "Lakeside".

But there was also a proper Lakeside Forge Company that was not connected to Ward.

It's confusing; I wrote a thread on it here once, but I can't find it & it was probably on the original site...

[lbgradwell]

Many of those Stillsons look very similar.

Having said that, I can see two differences between your wrench Oily, and John's:

The handle on yours flares whiles John's remains parallel and yours has a hanging hole...

[OilyRascal]

Thanks, LG. 

My apology, John, for the brief thread hijack.

[johnsironsanctuary]

No apology needed Oily. This is the fun part.  Yours and mine were most certainly made by the same forge house. The diffs that LG spotted probably says one is earlier than the other.  There is an E in a circle on the moveable jaw. Is that a clue to the forging house? The partial red paint is the same.

[lbgradwell]

There is an E in a circle on the moveable jaw.

Can we see a nice closeup, John?

[johnsironsanctuary]

It is a block letter E in a circle.

[RedVise]

Nice box with a very nice collection. I also see some older boxes on top of the roller, an S-K and a Wards, sweet!

Brian L.

[lbgradwell]

AA thinks that's a Ward's "Lakeside", by the way...

[john k]

That is a great deal, I think of a fifteen dollar box as just that, drawers optional!  The thing even looks pretty straight.  How wide?  26in. or wider?   And I must inform you that it isn't filled up, the tools in there are only one layer deep, when they exceed 3 layers, and have to been all turned just so to closer the drawer, well that is filled up, Yah.  I hope you didn't strain anything going down the basement steps.

[scottg]

Great box!! But filled up??
  Not unless those are old pictures.
You've got 2/3 of the volume left to cram!! Why there is less than the first layer laid down.
 Until you can't close the drawers anymore???................... hehehehehehe


 Last I heard the proper Lakeside forge turned out to be something of a hollow shell name, and really, Monkey Wards owned them outright. Wards, Chicago, on the side of the lake.
 I also believe Wards had Lakeside branded on other tools they just bought from other makers.  I have a paring chisel marked Lakeside, and if its not really a Whitherby chisel, I'll kiss a pig. 

Same as Sears or Simmonds, H.S.B, L.F.C or any of the other big hardware chains of the early 1900's all did. Hardly any of them made much, they just ordered goods with their house name stamped on. Fulton, Keen Kutter, Blue Grass, etc.

 Cheap rail shipping, is why I heard the big mail order hardware chains were successful early in the century.
 Then shipping went up and they all eventually folded. Except Sears, Belnap and Wards.
 Wards and Belnap went to "retail only" sales for the most part (small catalog sales departments), opened a lot of stores, 
  and Sears started their own shipping line.

 Sears went all the way up to the 1980's. This was when they dropped their truck lines and started making customers pay for post office or UPS shipping.
 (I was totally shocked when I bought a yardstick and got hit with 12 dollars postage for a 4 dollar al stick!! I still remember it even now. )
  It wasn't long after that, they closed my buddy Ivan's store, along with all the catalog stores in every tiny town across the US.
  It was sad for my friend and our town both.

 There is a semi catalog store in Yreka Ca now. It has retail goods on display, but its not a huge store (bigger than Ivans though) and some semblance of the old catalog pickup is available there.  Free store to store shipping I believe.
 
 There is more to the great mail order hardware story I don't know. I only know a little of it but I find it fascinating. I suppose its partly because I don't just live in unbelievably rural Happy Camp, but 40 years ago I lived 18 miles downriver from Camp!!  With no phone. But since I had highway access, Clyde delivered the mail everyday.

    So I got real familiar with whatever mail order was in business then, and its just a lifelong habit.
yours Scott