In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a Drummer was not just a percussionist. A drummer was a traveling salesman who’d make the rounds with tools, clothes, or anything else you might wish to purchase but could not easily find at the small retail establishments in your town. Think no internet, no Walmart, and few large department stores.
Now think about trade carvers; that’s right, there were many of them. They designed and made patterns and signs and carved the furniture decorations one at a time. Anything to be cast, machined, or reproduced required making an original master, and the carver was the individual who did that. With a good number of craftspeople to serve, there were tool makers who catered to these specialists.
The photo shows a collection of tools I am using for some tight recess carving on the jib sails of the ship portrait I am working on. The tools are primarily tiny back bents and knuckle tools that will fit into tight recesses. There are only a few manufacturers of these today, and I don’t like the design of their tools. So I purchased, for short money, this batch of C. Maier tools. The company was in business from about 1880 to maybe 1928 in Newark, NJ. Most of the tools I’ve seen that they produced are like those I bought – back bents, knuckles, and fishtails – good tools for working in recesses or miniature work.
The ones I purchased were in amazingly good shape but well-used. The carver who owned them before me was likely not their original owner. They are good tools that have lasted through at least three owners.
Nowadays, I go to a tool retailer and order online, but when these tools showed up in their first owner’s shop, that was not possible. Without the World Wide Web or specialty tool stores, they might have mail-ordered from a catalog or had a visit from a Drummer who would have shown them the tools, let them handle them, and taken their order.
Special needs are why carvers wind up with racks of tools, not a sort of wild tool lust.
OK, I’m lying. It’s a necessity, but also tool lust…I need a twelve-step program.
Hi, I am Lou Carreras. I’m addicted to buying tools.
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Paintbrushes for painters. 😉
This definitely got a giggle out of me, there at the end… hugs
Oh, dear lady…there is a touch of truth in it though!
If you are working with wood, and use these tools, you have are very talented.
Thanks, Alice
Now I know where the saying ‘Drum up some trade,’ comes from, thanks Lou.
I’m like you, when I go to the market to sell my wooden wares, I love to peruse the stalls selling tools, to see if I can find something I don’t have and might need – well one day in the future anyway.
Great post.
very likely!