I have a photo around somewhere from the flea market of me with a full beard, goofing around with a beret on top of my ballcap.  I call it my French redneck tool dealer look.  I will have to find it and post it in the members photos thread.

Thanks for all the pictures.   Haven't been on here for a few days.   I'm not sure whether to cry or drool (or both)   

Great to see the diligence....I like old steel and wooden rules but I certainly don't see many out there in the flea markets and thrift stores....well done.

Quote from: wvtools on July 14, 2017, 10:44:47 PM
Part way down in the photos there is one with 3 blue clad aluminum Globemaster Made in Italy rules.  There must have been a translation problem because it says Grass Plated Joints instead of Brass Plated Joints.

Nice find!


It's a treat to see your collection, I love super-collections. I definitely grew up with a couple of those rulers in the kitchen junk drawers and my first hand box.

I just bought a collection of 240 zig zags.   I kept 110 and swappped some others out to upgrade  ones I had.  I'm at the longest flea market in Tennessee right now and I've sold more than half of the ones that I did not keep.  Unfortunately for you tool purists out there a lot of the ones that I sell that are one two or three dollars go to women to cut them up to make crafts.  The guys who buy them to use get the better 5 and $10 ones.

So, with the new additions, I have over 900 zig zag rules.

Congrats!  Sounds like a great buy and to turn around and almost immediately start making your money back is fantastic!

Don't know that I'm a purist but I like to buy some every now and then. Always think of the ones I broke as a kid that belonged to my dad. Should probably give some to my nephew, he gets away with breaking dad's stuff a little more.

 rustyfordgarage,  you reminded me of when I was a kid and broke my dads also, I will never forget the penalty.

  but I also broke one of mine in later years, you may have seen someone do this,  I was cutting some 2" X 4" and
  was using mine,  cutting 8" blocks and had the rule open one fold, being myself, I would mark one piece, cut, mark the next,
  but I would just slip the open rule in my back pocket, you must know what happened,  I turned around to gab another 2 by
  and the rule caught on the stack of lumber, hearing that snapping noise was not funny. in those days, money was tight.

   another episode;  later in life, I was working in a plant and the 1st time that I was involved in replacing a cable on a hoist, the guy
    that I was working with handed me his folding rule and told me to go cut a new cable, I do not remember how long, but it was over 150  feet,
    we would go to the cable shop, lay our rule on the floor and start pulling out the cable, keeping count of how many times we reached
    the end of the rule, brought it back and we installed it.

     testing it, the hook did not come down as far as it needed to ????  the guy asked  me if I used his rule, yes I did, what was my count ?
     I told him, he wrote it down, multiplied it and said it was wrong, I looked at his paper and saw that he had written 6 feet ??
     the problem was that my rule at home was 8 feet, when I opened his, I never looked to see how long it was, "lesson learned"

      yes, we had to cut another cable, but he went with me. no, I did not get fired, they called me a (AH, YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW."