Value of Stewart Handy Worker VISE w/ attachments?

I'm helping a friend price some tools for an estate sale and I know there are folks on the PM that know a lot more about vises than I do. I can't find a good comparable on the internet. This is a Stewart Handy Worker, c. 1916 with the jaw anvil, drilling plate, pipe jaws, gears and original crank handle. might have to go back and look for the grinding wheel and hardy.

I have no interest in this, just helping a friend.

What is one of these this complete worth?

Thanks,

rivett608 said:

I'm helping a friend price some tools for an estate sale and I know there are folks on the PM that know a lot more about vises than I do. I can't find a good comparable on the internet. This is a Stewart Handy Worker, c. 1916 with the jaw anvil, drilling plate, pipe jaws, gears and original crank handle. might have to go back and look for the grinding wheel and hardy.

I have no interest in this, just helping a friend.

What is one of these this complete worth?

Thanks,

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I've not seen that vise before but dang they had it going 104 years ago! Looking at the engineering, You clamp the jaws first and the real pressure comes from below. Super grip. I'm not saying anything about the value. (but it is so neat)!

Come on guys, someone must have an idea. I have to tell them in the morning.

Is $ 300 about right? too high or low?

rivett608 said:

Come on guys, someone must have an idea. I have to tell them in the morning.

Is $ 300 about right? too high or low?

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Sanity check is that as with a many-bladed VictorInox pocket knife or Leatherman, SOG, and Gerber multi-tools ....clever or never, most folks have enough space and money to use "many" separate vises/tools, each needing less time to mess with and/or making fewer compromises to the basics.

For vises, start with a Yost swivel for the core and add others as one actually has NEED to justify as to further oddity. Read "not very often".

We tend to just "tool" the jaws of a more general-purpose vise as a convenient platform for bending , forming, and such.

$300 bucks seems it should find a buyer who simply likes it for the cleverness, same year, not two years out. Handy only if a person wishes to MAKE it so, IOW.

Anyone else as NEEDS the functionality BADLY enough these days doesn't care about castings. Just builds "whatever" as a one-off, jig, fixture, or specialty materials or special ops handler from common alloy steels. Or even shiney-wood?

See also Gerardi, other "modular" global workholding "component" builders for equipping CNC "tombstones" and such like for bespoke parts working.

Rivett, perhaps the best source of vise info, both for technical and value information, is the massive thread on the Garage Journal forum, "Vises of Garage Journal" here: The VISES of Garage Journal - The Garage Journal Board. Most of the regular posters are serious collectors and possess a wealth of information.

Tom B.

Riderusty said:

Rivett, perhaps the best source of vise info, both for technical and value information, is the massive thread on the Garage Journal forum, "Vises of Garage Journal" here: The VISES of Garage Journal - The Garage Journal Board. Most of the regular posters are serious collectors and possess a wealth of information.

Tom B.

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I was going to suggest the same thing!

I don't think $300 is out of line?

Kevin

bsg said:

I was going to suggest the same thing!

I don't think $300 is out of line?

Kevin

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Willing to WAIT long enough. Or "merchandise it", could get double, maybe more.

Founder of W. Bell and company. "Bill, that Malachite carving has sat in the museum case for a year. Merchandise it!"

"How much should we lower the price, Mr. Bell?"

"You DON'T lower the price. You RAISE it! Then you keep raising the price until it sells!"

And then.. I twigged to it. Why he had built a multi-million dollar 18 store company in a mere 25 years off a cold start.

That massive and intricate Asian Malachite and gold carving might have been attractive to exactly TWO potential collectors on the entire East Coast of America. Each waiting for the price to drop to strike and gloat.

Or maybe only ONE. And we could only sell it to ONE, so ONE was all we needed.

Walter knew human nature. We raised the price of a Saturday. One (of them??) paniced that some other collector would grab it, the price now going UP and not DOWN?

And bought the ugly sumbich Monday before mid-day! Had to guess, the delay involved waiting on a bank. Price wudda bought a right recent used motorcar.

Annnnd .. that "museum case" got a fresh look for the next year. Some insanity executed in Amethyst, was it? Surely made a catalog discount showroom present itself as a rich man's hidden gem of a place to shop, actual average sale of $44 a go or not!

"Thin market??" "Few players, if even TWO?"

"Merchandise it!"

I've seen a couple at Hershey priced from $75 to $200, doubt if any were as complete and with handles and handwheel as that one, and Hershey is notorious for needing to raise the asking price to satisfy buyers who insist on a negotiated bargain. $300 is probably good.