Old Leather Tools Beard-Gore-Hack Barth-King Etc

[Junkyarddog]

Last week I was at a local scrap yard looking for some steel for a project I was working on and a young man in his 20's was trying to sell a huge box of tools he inherited to the owner for scrap. The man said that some were marked stainless but the owner did not want them. From time to time I make sheaths and covers for my axes and knives and have thought about stamping some designs in the leather for decoration, so I was interested in what he had for sale. The guy wanted $100 for the stamps which did not seem like a bad deal, but I only had 70 bucks in cash, so we settled on 70 cash and the case russlock pocket knife I had on me. I took the tools to a guy I met a few times that does leatherwork and he offered me $250 for the set which I almost took, but something about the way he was looking at some of the tools made me decide to do some further research. I have found out quite a bit of information about the craftool stamps and barry king stamps, but not much about the others. I have decided to keep the tools marked craft tool co which there are about 85 of them and try my hand in stamping leather. I am thinking about selling the others to possibly pay for some other leather working tools and maybe picking up leather work as a hobby. If anyone could let me know if any of the stamps have any value.. I'm looking to either sale or trade the stamps for other leather working tools and leather to possibly make a rifle case and maybe some bags or pouches for hunting/trapping..

there are

85 craft tool co

12 robert beard (the black tools with gold lettering which look pretty cool)

19 gore tool

3 Cha Smith

8 Horse Shoe

7 Hack barth

10 Barry King

Any help would be appreciated or if anyone is interested in the tools please let me know

Also this website has already answered alot of my questions and seems to have tons of valuable information for someone new like myself, so thank you whoever stated this website.

[King's X]

You have kinda a jackpot. To give you an idea on cost and value of your find.........I would sell the Craftools to pay for what you paid and keep the rest. The Beard tools are about $50 a piece as new. I own a few Gore tools and they are top notch. To my understanding, I do not believe they are actively selling Gore tools though you can still buy them. Barry King and Chuck Smith are still hot on the market and still for sale. The Hackbarth tools, it depends though you have a good bunch. I would say the older the HB tools are better value though the new ones are still made the same when Ellis Barnes owned the company. Horse Shoe brand tools are the brand name of Mr. Jeremiah Watt in California though he is bicycling around the world at the moment. You can view his tools and prices at www.Ranch2area.com.

I hope this helps.

[Junkyarddog]

Thank you for the information you provided King's X. When I saw $50 a piece for the Beard tools I thought that was expensive, but I assume professional leather workers are like professional mechanics and the better tools last longer and work better. I looked through the horse shoe and chuck smith site and they both have some beautiful tools. There are actually 2 chuck smith and 1 black pro series cutting knives that came with the tools, so it looks like I am off to a good start to learn how to tool leather. I was planning on keeping the craftool stamps since there is such a variety of tools, but it looks like some of the tools I have might be hard to replace if I really get into this as a hobby. I can say after playing around with all of the tools, the Gore tools are my favorite. The Gore tools just feel better in my hand and work better with my large hands since they are quite a bit longer than the others. Maybe I will try the tools out for a while to see what I like and maybe sell the beard tools since they seem to have the higher value to help get other things I will need. edgers,hole punches, strap punches, round knives and that is just what I think I need so far.

Well anyways thank you King's x

[camano ridge]

To buy a lot of the Beard tools new will cost you more then $50.00 each. Trust me I just bought some from Robert. The Barry kings tend to run about $40.00 and up for new. If you are intent on selling some of them I would suggest listing there numbers as well as a picture of an impression of each stamp. There may be several of us on this sight interested in buying some of those stamps.

Edited August 5, 2015 by camano ridge

[King's X]

Enjoy!

[smirak]

I don't know what your budget is (or isn't), but my opinion would be to keep all the tools for now to see what you like. It's possible you have doubles of some stuff, like pear shaders or basketweave tools. You could keep what you've got, get the rest of the stuff you want/need on the cheap and then start selling off what you don't use/like.

[immiketoo]

Keep them all. You made the deal of the century!

[chrstn53]

That was an amazing find. I don't know if there is any scrap value, but it would have been a sin if they ended up being melted down. I can't imagine how many hours have gone into making those tools. If I were you, I would keep them all but if you figure out what tools you need you can post what you want in the wanted section and put up some of the tools you have for trade. Trade or sell, I would be interested in the gore and horse shoe brand tools. Congrats on the find

[Troy Burch]

If you get into tooling your going to seriously regret keeping the craftools and selling the others. After you learn how you'll be wanting to sell the craftools so you can upgrade to the others, you'll be saving yourself $100's of dollars.

[Bob Blea]

You made an incredible find. I'm thankful you were there to keep these from being scrapped. Keep them all. Your grandkids will inherit those Beard tools and they will still look as good as they do now no matter how much you use them.