Bygone Trader Catalogues

Hi, just been looking at an old catalogue from a September 1938 issue of the Liverpool Casting & Tool Supply Co Ltd. and saw this, which might have interested Neil Wyatt.

Regards Nick.

Splendid

MichaelG.

Did you bolt the frame against a wall or let everything fall into your lap?

I like the two speed belt system. The low speed treadle pulley seems very small. Neil will say this is artist's licence.

JA

Hi JA, that is the complete description and there is no mention of fixing it to anything, so I guess one would make one's own decision. There were two Adept lathes and a Super Adept lathe also available in these pages, but didn't have any reference to the stand.

Regards Nick.

Still got my Drummond M flywheel in a corner of the garage

Very Heavy

I don't know if that foot-motor is Adept's own make, but you could buy ones made independently for fitting to whatever machine you had.

May I offer this from a 1939 Tom Senior catalogue (Liversedge not Liverpool)?

As they say, make sure you are sitting down before checking the price!

I remember my mum telling me that when she worked in the office of the local electricity company in Brighton just befor the war that the sevice engineers where paid £2 a week. So, one weeks salary for a working man to buy the castings and half a crown left over for beer at tuppence a pint.

Rod

Hi there, all,

Here is my contribution:

Note the date.

Here's the page showing lathes:

I'm sorry it's on its side - I did try to rotate it in my album.

The item pages give Bond's Part Numbers. Those Part Numbers are translated into prices in the last pages of the catalogue, in the 'old money', i.e. pounds, shillings & pence. The prices were dated December 1964 and there's a caveat stating that prices charged would be those ruling at the date of despatch.

A Myford ML7 was priced at £70 15s 0d while the Super 7 was £102 7s 6d.

For Neil's benefit, the Adept was £9 2s 6d.

If anyone has an historical interest in the prices of any particular accessories (Adept or Myford) PM me and I'll look them up but there are rather too many to list in this post.

I did shop at Bonds a few times back in the 1960s to 1970s, it was just round the corner from Buck & Ryans. The counter staff at B&R each had a roll of brown paper in a dispenser under the counter and they used to build all one's purchases into the most elegant and neatly-tied parcel. Sometime after I moved to Hampshire in 2000 I ventured across the border into West Sussex and discovered that Bonds had moved to Midhurst. I believe that the proprietor got ill and the business closed.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 28/04/2021 10:38:13

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 28/04/2021 10:39:42

I have quite a large collection of bound volumes of ME which is still growing.

It is a pity that, depending upon who bound them, covers and ads were usually not included as I find those I do have, fascinating reading.

One often sees the typical tradesman's weekly wage used as an indicator of price. How many weeks did you have to work for in 1964 in order to buy a Super 7, I wonder?

In 1939, B&R had premises in both the Euston and Edgware Roads; another nearby attraction was Proops (I don't know if they ever produced a catalogue of their fascinating stock).

I remember Bonds from my teenage years but I don't think I every went into the shop.

Buck & Ryan was a great shop, I used it many times in the 1960s & 70s. I am fortunate to have their catalogue from the mid 1990s. It is a mine of information and 40mm thick inside its hard covers. I borrowed it from my late brother in law. Below is their introduction to hammers (the catalogue is slightly too large for my A4 scanner).

Are B&R still trading? They don't seem to have a web site.

JA

Proops definitely produced catalogues - to a teenager they were fascinating to read. Their branch in Nottingham was full of the stuff in the catalogue while the Tottenham Court Road branch also had loads of ex military and ex-government surplus stuff in as well down the steps towards the rear of the shop.

The shop was a few doors away from Buck and Hickman - any link with Buck and Ryan?

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 28/04/2021 12:55:22

Hi, always went into Proops in Tottenham Court Rd. whenever I went down to London to get a few electronics bits and pieces and got valves from Z&I Aero Services and looked in at G.W. Smith & Co(radio) Ltd. and few others down that way, then would go to Henrys Radio in Edgeware Rd. and if I had time, to Cricklewood Electronics on Cricklewood Broadway. Happy Days.

Regards Nick.

I believe that Proops operated from a shop in Kingston-upon-Thames before they obtained the Tottenham Court Road premises. I remember that there was a spiral (helical? ) staircase at the rear of the Tottenham Court Road shop - I always wondered where it went.

When I lived in Essex, my neighbour had a relative who was a van driver for Buck and Ryan (not to be confused with Buck & Hickman ). He gave me a copy of the last hard-back edition of the Buck and Ryan catalogue. It was so comprehensive that it was out-of-date the moment it was published but it was/is a most educational tome.

Another London tool dealer was Parrys whose premises were in the Old Street area. In 1970 I bought a Coronet 'Minorette' wood-working machine from them. Its bed was a length of mild steel bar. I bought a longer length bar through my then employers' staff sales system to convert the 'Minorette', effectively, to a 'Minor'.

My bookcase also still holds copies of catalogues from G.A.Dunball of Victoria Road, Romford, and Acbars. The Acbars sales representative used to regularly visit my employers Ilford premises and they ran a 'tool club' system. I bought a Pratt-Burnerd 4" self-centering chuck from them, also in 1970 - it is still my 'Sunday' chuck for my ML7 and lives in its original cardboard box when not in use.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 28/04/2021 14:23:25

Swarf, Mostly!:

Some nostalgic stuff!

I have Buck & Hickman's 1964 tome (1200 plus pages) and Parrys' catalogue from about the same time. Here is your Coronet from the latter with part of the facing page showing the traditional interior at Old Street:

I don't know the detail of the B&R/B&H story but believe there were two Buck brothers. I think there was something of A Tyzack family as well.

The Coronet lathes/woodworkers were noted for their tapered bronze headstock bearings

This thread reminded me of a catalogue that I was given some years back - as far as I can tell it dates sometime after 1929 when Bell's Asbestos company became Bell's Asbestos and Engineering Supplies. The catalogue is several hundred pages thick and is numbered (!) from their local Bristol agents.

It is really aimed at the real engineering industry but has some smaller lathes available, the smallest being this 4" treadle lathe, a real snip at 35 Pounds 10 shillings for some 4 ½ cwt which is around 250Kgs I think.

At the other end of the scale are the larger lathes including the following range between 6 and 12.5” centre height costing between 87 and 247 pounds…

Also (price on application only) is this ‘small’ planning machine ranging up to 8 foot bed length, 4.25 tones, just the job for a ME workshop.

Loads of other items for sale including boilers, fittings, hand tools and pretty well anything else that engineering shops would need in the 1930s. If anyone can add a date to the catalogue, I would be very interested to know.

Simon

(apologies for the rotated pages, they just don't want to go in the direction that I have asked them to go in...)

Edited By Simon0362 on 28/04/2021 17:08:40