The oldest tools you still use

[Tmuir]

My family has a long history in the watch and clock industry.

My grandfather was a watchmaker, as was his brother.

My great grandfather was a watchmaker and back in 1986 when he passed away at the age of 13 I was given his watchmaker lathe.

My great great grandfather used to own a run a watch and jewellery shop on Oxford St in Sydney in the 1920s and although I have not found any positive evidence he was a watchmaker I would say it was highly likely he was.

Three years ago I was given my grandfathers watchmakers toolbox which my steo uncle had stored in his shed for 15 years after my grandfather passed away, as a consiquence I have a number of old tools, some that I know where my great grandfathers, some my grandfathers and some that are old enough to of been old even if they had belonged to my great great grandfather.

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to make a special graver for my watchmakers lathe and I was pretty sure I still had some old gravers in my grandfathers toolbox I hadn't yet refurbished so I went for a dig.

I found one that had clearly started it's life as a needle file and as some point in the past the file had snapped off the square handle and this had then been made into a graver. I decided to clean this up and resharpen it as the graver I was making would only ever see little use as it was for creating chamfers on balance staffs.

After sharpening it I noticed it had a brand name on it.

'Antonine Glardon A Vallorbes'

I knew the brand Valorbe, but not Antonine Glardon, a bit of a Google search turned up the Valorbe company history page http://www.vallorbe.com/en-ch/company/history

and it states ' in 1899, Vallorbe's three largest factories, Borloz & Noguet-Borloz, Antoine Glardon & Cie and Grobet SA merged to create Usines Métallurgiques de Vallorbe. '

So if I am reading this correctly this file must of been made before 1899. I also have a pivot burnisher labelled 'David Borloz Valorbe' so it would also date no later than 1899.

A quick dig through my pivot files I use and other in my grandfather's toolbox turned up 8 or 9 files labelled 'Antonine Glardon A Vallorbes'.

I am using the graver made from the handle of a file and the pivot file on the left in this photo below as it is finer and better than my new one I bought from Cousins, the otehr are just in the photo so you can see some other of these files.

This would mean the oldest tools I am still using are atleast 120 years old.

What's the oldest tool you still use?

 

[Tmuir]

The wonders of the Internet. I have just tracked down that my great great grandfather Marks Jacobs registered his business in 1903 as a watchmaker and jeweler, so my family has atleast 116 years in the industry and it would be fair to guess my G G Grandfather worked or apprenticed elsewhere before he opened his own shop, so probably longer.

I also incorrectly stated his business was on Oxford St and went back and checked my previous research notes and it was instead Liverpool Street Sydney

[Olga]

Witam.

Szukam pomocy w wycenie narzedzia po moim Pradziadku zegarmistrzu. 

Czy moze ktos pomoc 

Pilnik David Borloz

[wls1971]

37 minutes ago, Olga said:

Witam.

Szukam pomocy w wycenie narzedzia po moim Pradziadku zegarmistrzu. 

Czy moze ktos pomoc 

Pilnik David Borloz

Ebay byłby najlepszym miejscem do szukania cen

możesz zamieścić tutaj kilka zdjęć, jeśli nie wiesz, jakie są narzędzia.

Preferowanym językiem tej strony jest angielski, więc wszyscy to rozumieją

 

Ebay would be the best place to look for prices you can post some pictures here if you don't know what the tools are. The preferred language of this site is English so everyone understands.