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A 80 yr. young friend passed a couple years ago while working in his shop. Was under a 16' bumper pull car hauler and it slipped off the floor jack, pining him where he couldn't breath. Well his wife is selling the place and moving. To that end there was a online auction last weekend to clean out his shop and barn of all the lesser quality good stuff. Family had already removed all the loaded tool chest and cars/trucks.

On a whim I signed up and watched most of Ben's junk bring pretty good money. He had a 5' or so oval porcelain Gulf sign that sold for $2,850 some large vintage vices that brought $400 ish each (a quick check on auction day said that was about half price).

I however had a more modest budget. Picked up a few nos tools, including a made in USA 6 pack of Sears screwdrivers in a damaged but unopened package (yes, I did open it). Sticker says $3.92, similar on Ebay $57.00.

The biggest score was some of Ben's old country treasures, cotton scales, a buck saw, hand planes, a near new crosscut handsaw and a old tool box. I purchased the tool box for the two hand planes. It was a treasure trove with a few items I really can't identify. It had a yellow commercial quality flashlight that also had made in USA on the end, with new batteries and cleaning the contacts, it works. I feel guilty for only paying $10.00 for the box and contents.

Ben, Thanks Bud!

RonR

I had that same set of screwdrivers in my first tool box my parents gave to me in 1969 for Christmas. I still have a few of them today! The mill files are worth more than you paid for everything. And I love that rosewood bevel finder. I occasionally find scores like that at estate sales. It’s like opening Christmas presents, as you go thru the box for the first time. Great score!

Phil, didn't realize the bevel finder was rosewood. I was amazed at the good condition the files are in, didn't know they have much value. The big rat tail file is the biggest I've seen.

If you look at the truck bed image, near the top center there's a light gray 4" tall container with a squirt plunger top and a very small orifice outlet. I don't thing it's a oil squirt bottle, any ideas? Also something else I should know, (but the years have robbed the memory)...a 3/4 inch x 3" tube of what looks like ferrous metal filings. What that used for? Crack detection in blocks/heads with a magnet (as in magnaflux)?

The big items sold for fair money (for the buyer and seller). The small old stuff was cheap. Excluding the newer cup brushes, everything else on the truck bed was $21.00. Two lots, $11 and $10. That includes the using quality singletree, two cotton scale pea beams (only one pea), the 48" bow saw, and of course the packed tool box.

I really wanted to bring the two Reed vices home. One was a 108, the other a 104. They were in excellent condition, no dings or marks just that nice brown from decades of being mounted in the shop.

If, I were motivated in a entrapurnial kind of way I would have been a buyer of many dozens of items. Then Ebay would have had a new seller.

As it worked out, I'm happy. I now have several items to hang in the cabin, a few using tools to find a place for and several cleaned and oiled real craftsman quality items to go back into Ben's box. When cleaning it up and out , found the shippers card with Ben's name on it. It went back into the box along with the cleaned and oiled draw knife, planes and wood chisels and the 3 nos reciprocal saw blades I'll never have a use for.

RonR

Ron -- I was not able to enlarge the image any, but that squirt bottle thingy you are referring to is (I *think* ... hard to tell for sure from the picture) used for lubricating chain saw bars (the sprocket out at the tip on most bars, except Stihl, has a little hole that the tip of that thing fits in nicely). If that isn't something you can use, I know someone who really could use that thing and has been looking for one. I can get you in touch with him very easily....

We have several regular consignment auctions around here (especially the one next door to our (former) farm that the ODSS crew always enjoys attending. The best part is the afterwards part when, with beer in hand, we gather in the shop and all go though our "treasure Boxes" -- lottsa trading goes on Its (relatively) cheap fun.

One of my biggest scores in a junk box was a Cold War relic -- a massive Sargent & Greenleaf heavy duty padlock designed to lock nuclear storage facilities and is blast resistant. I have the keys (master for disassembly and the regular key that just unlocks it). Found it in pieces in the box and reassembled it. Seen them on ebay for more than $100. Found it in a 5-gallon bucket of treasure I got with a $1 bid.

John

I miss the days of $1 auctions. The Auctioneers around these parts cry when they have to take a $5 bid, many times just moving the items into the next item and starting the bidding over. That way you end up with 2 broken vacuum cleaners and the rare gizmo you really wanted. I can see their point, it’s all about the bottom line.

John said; "if that isn't something you can use, I know someone who really could use that thing and has been looking for one. I can get you in touch with him very easily.... smile"

All righty, let the negotiation games begin (otherwise known as haggling when I come from). I'll post a better image and shoot a PM your way later and you can pass it along to the, uh, ahem, uh, interested party . Headed to the hayfield in a few minutes. Near a 100 today, I do love hauling square hay in the South in the summer.

RonR

Ron, there is a item among your score that has peaked my curiosity. I took the liberty of copying your photo and it’s circled. Any idea?

Phil,

Its been my experience in treasure boxes that weird stuff like that is often actually a piece of a tool, not the whole tool ...

Special machinist hold down clamp?

Don

That’s a pretty good guess!

I think you nailed it, Don- - - -made to bridge a T-slot in a lathe face plate or on a milling machine bed. I've home-brewed stuff like that for special projects on the lathe.
Jerry

Well, survived the hay field and the unload/stacking in the barn. These days, it's the barn work that saps a man. Course, the last couple years it seems like those 60 lb. bales weigh 100 lbs.. And good thing it was only a 100 of em.

Now back to the "no longer mystery item". It's amazing what a minutes sleuthing can turn up. On the side it clearly has a name and the bottom has the manufacture. Lubrigun, made by Lincoln Engineering Co., St. Louis, MO.

It is a grease gun, the plunger handle is missing if it should have one. Found pics with and without.

We had those in old typewriter shop. When they quit squirting, you stabbed a screwdriver through the bottom hold to push the plunger up. I had forgotten all about those.

Those are regularly found in machine shops to grease machine ways.

We used Mobil Vactra Way oil to lube the ways. It flows like oil but is tacky like grease so it will stick to vertical surfaces.

I bought a chain saw many years ago that came with a sprocket lubricator that looked very similar, so I going with John’s guess.

I have used them ever since I was big enough to handle a chain saw. I also collect vintage bicycles and these are used to Luberplate the bearings without having to diss-assemble. A lot of nifty stuff moparguy. Doc

moparguy Worked with people once who sold pallets to nicholson file in Muncie In. They would give them files,they gave me N.O.S. files from the sixties,now these are real files !!

moparguy That little grease gun is used to grease your chainsaw snout,that is what that little hole is for in older bars.