My wife's dad and two brothers bought a used 1928 model A in 1933 so "they could pick up girls". The pliers that came with the car had circle M after the ford logo, not the McKaig Hatch circle MH on the opposite jaw. I did see the circle M on a wrench on the Ford Museum site from 1917 so it goes back to the Model T days. Anybody know what it is?
My "family heirloom" is satin silver on the jaws and patina light rust on the rest. This is not some rare antique and I see a lot of them cleaned up to a nice dull silver. What method do you recommend, rust remover, wire wheel, for minimum damage?
Was the wrench you saw the one mentioned in this discussion?
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/411944/462395.html?1405772764
I'm kicking myself. I saw a chart showing all the common marks used by tool makers in the Model T era, but I failed to save it. Maybe somebody who's a better searcher than I am can find it.
This site looks like a likely place to find tool information, looks like a neat museum.
http://www.boltsantiquetools.com/index.html
Here's a site that has a few. Images appear lower on the page. Click on the image for slightly larger view.
https://home.comcast.net/~alloy-artifacts/trademarks-and-logos.html
Here is a group of pliers that were made over the years. They are from various forgers but the circle M is Moore Drop Forging as seen spelled out on the Ford Monkey wrench (in next post). It has the circle M on the opposite side of the company name. I think that the pliers on the left are the oldest ones. I don't think that any of the ones except for the far right were ever painted. The ones on the far right are English Ford and were painted black.
Here are the Moore Monkey Wrench photos
Ken, & all,
Yes, the Bolts Tool Museum is a neat museum--I was in charge of setting up the building it is now in, although the present set up has been really altered by Mr. Bolt and his volunteers. They're pretty good a finding out a tool's manufacturing history if you ask.