Classic & Vintage - antique bicycle tool

Here Is a old chain breaker I bought at a garage sale,I thought would be Interesting..!

How old Is this one?

Here Is another one..maybe?

Well this will be all for now I got more thou?

I have the CCM one in picture #2! These photos remind me that my grandfather had all kinds of bicycle repair tools, I wonder what happened to them. The tool in picture # one looks more like a dental tool.

I believe these were made in france

The chain breaker's pin Is gone on It
probably broke or got bent from use..
In any case It wasn't there when i bought it at a garage sale
the guy I bought It off of says he can remember that there was a bicyle repair shop In our small town In those early years? :)

the guy I bought It off of says he can remember that there was a bicyle repair shop In our small town In those early years? :)

During the bicycle boom of the 1890s there were bike shops in almost every small town in North America. In my own hometown of Dixon, Illinois, there were, I think, six places to buy bicycles in 1896. A hardware store, two music shops, and a jeweler were among them. There was also a metal fabricator and enamel works in town that built bicycles for a short time. A lot of blacksmiths in those days offered bicycle repair services.

I enjoyed seeing your tools, Chip. The VAR tools were indeed made in France. I think that VAR has gone out of business, but they were still making decent tools until pretty recently. The wrench in your third photograph may have been intended for a tractor or early automobile rather than a bicycle, but I say that only from seeing similar tools and not from any certain knowledge.

I recently bought an old bicycle wrench at an estate auction. It was made by Acme and patented in 1882. It is an adjustable wrench, 5 inches long and weighing about 6 oz. It is almost identical in design to the one pictured below, except that the handle has a twist in it. It's pretty cool. I'll try to take a picture of it later.

OK. Here's my wrench with the twisty handle. Old tools are cool. I could get addicted to collecting them.

In my own hometown of Dixon, Illinois, there were, I think, six places to buy bicycles in 1896.

You were there????

You were there????

Nope. But I did a little research.

Nice pics chip.

Nice wrenches you got there RegularGuy. You mention Acme. Is it the same company as those inventing the police whistle?
http://www.acmewhistles.co.uk/

In theire webshop under "orchestral" they have this "Siren whistle". For what I´ve read and heard it was developed for bicyclists for over one hundred years ago. Pretty cool they are still available. I have been thinking of buying a Siren whistle for use on my commuter. My AirZound scares people to death if used on them :( . I only dare using AirZound on cars :p .

Nice wrenches you got there RegularGuy. You mention Acme. Is it the same company as those inventing the police whistle?
http://www.acmewhistles.co.uk/


I really don't know a thing about the Acme Co. that manufactured my wrench. My own websearches on "Acme Tool" didn't turn up anything useful. I just got a lot of references to Road Runner cartoons and a website that was set up to show off a particular website designers talents. The Acme Whistles website that you reference does say that the company's founder was a trained toolmaker, so I suppose it is possible. Maybe I'll shoot them an email and ask!

The logo on the head of the tool, which you can see in my photograph, is an oblong diamond with the remains of the word Acme in the middle. "Patented 1882" is stamped around the outside of the diamond.

And to answer Dave Stohler's question a little more completely: I had found a reference to a bicycle manufacturer in Dixon in the book Collecting and Restoring Antique Bicycles by G. Donald Adams. I spent some time in the basement of the Dixon Public Library going through microfilms of old newspapers to see what I could learn. I was amazed to find ads from no less than 6 stores selling bicycles in 1896. I didn't learn too much about the metalworks, other than their location.

very Interesting those old pipe wrenches

very Interesting those old pipe wrenches

I don't think it's actually a pipe wrench, though I'm willing to be proved wrong. At five inches length the wrench wouldn't give much leverage for plumbing applications, and there are no teeth in the jaws. I believe this wrench was made as an all purpose take-along tool for late 19th c. cyclists. I will be looking into it further, though.

Yup that wrench would be all I
would need for a lot of fixes
good all around wrench In those days

Searching the web for information about my little wrench with the twisted handle, I came across the website of the Missouri Valley Wrench Club. I emailed the webmaster, a Mr. Stan Schulz, who replied that the ACME wrench was manufactured in Chicago by a variety of firms. Mine, he said, was most likely made by Capitol Mfg. Co. between 1888-1893.

So, no, it wasn't made by the police whistle people.

I remeber seeing a few ACME tools in my father's toolchest. They were old, and he got them used. From what he tells me, ACME was a big conglomerate that sold all kinds of inexpensive mechanical things. They were all cheap, and some didn't really work well. The company went bust early in the depression.
When the Road Runner cartoons came out, the fact that everything Wiley Coyote bought was by the ACME company was a joke aimed at the older crowd. Many people who grew up in rural areas remembered ordering things from the old ACME catalog, waiting weeks for them to be delivered by RFD, and then finding out that they really didn't do the job.

FWIW, that type of twisted wire handle was a sign that the tool was built to be inexpensive. Even though it was a large diameter wire, twisting it into a handle was much cheaper than casting metal.