1892 PATENT ANTIQUE P.S.&W. CO. CAST IRON MEAT GRINDER WITH WOOD HANDLE #505 for Sale

On eBay Now...

1892 PATENT ANTIQUE P.S.&W. CO. CAST IRON MEAT GRINDER WITH WOOD HANDLE #505 For Sale

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

1892 PATENT ANTIQUE P.S.&W. CO. CAST IRON MEAT GRINDER WITH WOOD HANDLE #505:
$24.99

PECK, STOW, & WILCOX COMPANY HISTORY

The Peck, Stow, & Wilcox Company (\"Pexto\") was organized in 1870 by a three-way merger of the Peck, Smith Manufacturing Company, the S. Stow Manufacturing Company, and the Roys & Wilcox Company. In 1880 the company was chartered by an act of the Connecticut legislature. In later advertising the company claimed to have been established in 1819, but some sources place the company\'s origins as early as 1797. In 1797 Seth Peck of Southington, Connecticut began making machinery for tinsmithing and eventually became the Peck, Smith Manufacturing Company, thereby setting the stage for the three-way merger in 1870. By 1881 the company\'s capital had reached $1.5 million, and the company had acquired Wilcox, Treadway & Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The stated capital was a huge sum for that day. Although tinsmithing machinery was the most important early product, the company also produced a wide variety of other tools and hardware, including bit braces, woodworking chisels, hammers, and squares. Bit-braces were a particular specialty for the company. The company claimed to have made the first bit brace in 1850, which at first was just a primitive cast iron frame. By this time the brace had been greatly improved, with a rotating hand grip, a ratchet drive, and a collet chuck for round or square bits. In 1897 Pexto introduced a significant innovation with a new line of bit-braces featuring the \"Samson\" ball-bearing chuck. In 1901 the company began making tinner\'s machinery, mechanic\'s tools, and household utensils. The 1901 sales were listed as $1,152,000. At that time the company had factories in Southington, Plantsville, and East Berlin, Connecticut, and in Cleveland, Ohio as well. The company\'s 1910 catalog from the International Tool Catalog Library spans 463 numbered pages and presents an astonishing variety of goods for a single company, comparable to what might be offered by a major distributor. The first section begins on page 17 with 92 pages of specialized tinsmithing machinery and another 45 pages of tinner\'s tools. This is followed by a section for \"Mechanics\' Tools\" spanning pages 155 to 258 and including 16 pages of bit-braces and breast drills, woodworking chisels, hammers, hatchets, axes, carpenter\'s squares, monkey wrenches, pipe wrenches, dividers, calipers, 11 pages of pliers, farrier\'s tools, awls, saw-sets, plumb bobs, and clamps. A section for \"Builders\' Hardware\" extends from page 259 to 330 with a wide variety of hardware such as cabinet latches, pulls, handles, and hooks. This is followed by a section for \"General Hardware\" extending from pages 331 to 431 and including household items like scales, meat grinders, coffee mills, nut crackers, ice picks, animal traps, and pruning shears. A section on \"Fire Place Goods\" offers fireplace andirons and pokers from pages 404 to 440, and a final section on \"Stationers\' Hardware\" offers inkstands and paper files from pages 441 to 463. In looking through this catalog we think it must represent \"Peak Pexto\", with the company facing steep declines as its tinsmithing machinery slipped into obsolescence. The machinery offered by Pexto was not production machinery for factories, but rather hand-operated tools to be used by a skilled craftsman to make small batches of sheet metal goods. Even without the decline of the tinsmithing industry, it still would have been very expensive for Pexto to make such a wide selection of goods. The bewildering variety of machinery would all have required custom castings and forgings for the major parts, and the company would have needed an army of patternmakers to create and maintain the patterns and dies. The 1910 catalog suggests that Pexto may have started using contract production from other manufacturers to fill out its line. For example, page 224 offers \"Agricultural\" or \"Standard\" wrought iron monkey wrenches that appear to be production from the Girard Wrench Manufacturing Company, based on the illustration and the use of the terms \"Agricultural\" and \"Standard\". In addition, we suspect that some pliers may have been supplied by Utica. Pexto appears to have used Utica as a supplier somewhat later, based on the distinctive handle pattern. Tools made by Pexto were typically marked with the company name, or with the abbreviated form \"P.S.&W. Co.\" if space was limited. After 1914 the Pexto-Oval was frequently marked on