Good ol'l Doc Barton heeheh.
Just kidding, but DR Barton was one of the largest manufacturers of edge tools at one time.
This is a woodturning gouge. For a lathe. (Sometimes called a fingernail gouge for obvious reasons.)
If you aren't sure when looking at a gouge, much of the time the ones with no bolster??
That swelling of metal so the handle can't pound into the handle any deeper?
If it doesn't have one of those?
Its probably for woodturning.
One or two companies made really small woodcarving chisels with no bolsters (Herron for one) but by and large, all the larger woodcarving tools have bolsters on the tang.
Yes they all had numbers once.
The "sweep" of the gouge? How much curve it has?
These were always numbered.
The only fly in that ointment is, different companies used different numbering systems.
Big help, huh?
I kind of think this box and tools date to the early 1900's.
The box could have been made last week and there is no way to know for sure.
But the tools? Seem to mostly be centered around this time.
I see some older and some newer too, but the majority??
yours Scott
PS If I was guessing, and I am, I am thinking this guy worked for the circus.
Something along that line. Carnival maybe? Municipal architecture?
But something involving stand alone carving.
The box is highly portable. Its missing all manner of cabinet or even carpenter tools. This guy wasn't doing a wide range of work. This was a carvers box.
