A little piece of history!

I went on the Snap On truck yesterday and found something I just couldn't leave on the truck. Dixie will say that happens way too often but I really don't buy much anymore from the truck. I do get some stuff warrantied when need it but I try not to go on very often. Snap On has become super expensive and their quality has been going down. That's a rant for another day. I am going to rant at the end of this post about something else. Ha Ha. Anyways I was on the truck and I heard someone talking about some used tools. I ended up going to the back of the truck and found this set of wrenches. I looked at them and knew they were pretty old by the finish on them and I thought they were pretty cool. There are 6 wrenches all together. They go from 11/16 up to 1 inch in size. I also was digging the homemade wrench holder they were in. Here they are:

 They are made by PLOMB and all in the USA. I did some research on them and found out that PLOMB eventually turned into PROTO. Five of my wrenches are PLOMB and one is a PROTO which makes sense. The one wrench probably got warrantied out at a later date for the proto.

 In my research I found out the dates they were made. Three were made between 1939 to 1944 and the other 3 were made from 1945 to 1948. I couldn't believe they were made during WWII. That made me even more excited about them.

 I wish these wrenches could talk. I bet they have wrenched on some awesome things in their time. I actually wish I could of talked to the original owner.  The wrenches are cool and the finish is different because of how they were manufactured during the war.

The other thing that caught my eye was the holder that was made for them. It is obviously homemade but is really well made. The wrenches fit nice and tight in it and it functions perfectly. I wonder how long ago it was made?

The sides of the wrench holder are brazed on. I think its cool as heck.

Here are the wrenches in their holder. They are easy to grab and take to where your working. I can see how they would be easy to store in your tool box until you need to grab them to go work on something.

Those are my new wrenches. I'm not sure if I will ever use them or not but I couldn't let them go. They aren't nice and smooth like my Snap On wrenches and they are very well used. I had a few guys at work tell me they are worn out and too old, some told me to see if I could turn them in for new ones under warranty. I think they are all crazy. I wouldn't turn them in for warranty. I am going to keep them for the history they have and they make a good conversation piece. Here is the kicker of it and the reason of my rant. I bought these for 10 dollars. 10 dollars!!!!! I couldn't believe it.  I asked the snap on guy who had traded them in. He told me a guy from across the airport. His Grandpa had died and gave them to him and he traded them in. I payed 10 bucks for them and so that means the snap on dealer didn't give him any more than that for his trade in. I couldn't do it. These wrenches were obviously used a lot by the owner and he most likely made the wrench holder to boot. I guess maybe I am a sentimental fool. I don't think I could ever sale the tools I have gotten from my Dad, especially for 10 bucks! Anyways I will quit ranting about that. I love my new wrenches even though when all is said and done they aren't worth a ton of money, they don't look fantastic and I may not use them much but at least I have some cool history that will remind me of those from the greatest generation. That's priceless in my book.