Came home today with a strange one--at least one for me.
It's an old Walden 716 pat pending 12" rat of what I would call the Indian war club type shown here in Figure 85.

http://alloy-artifacts.org/walden-worcester-p2.html#chrome-alloy

It is held together by two screws and only one rivet rather than two as we see in most examples.  Note that if you follow the link to the patent, it shows the one-rivet type.
And it has a dual sided plug rather than the usual female plug.  The plugs have no retaining ball--never did.
Any thoughts on that?
I am regrettably developing a thing for the old WW rats.

Two more ideas.
I forgot to mention that this beast has only 10 teeth.  Clank clank.
Another idea:  Did WW ever make an automobile jack?  Could this fit an old screw-type jack?  This might explain the fact that neither end has detent balls.
Does anyone have access to patent 1452131? from April 17, 1923?

This is what I found in the DATAMP!

Curioser and curioser.

Thank you.  This might be a dead end.  And then again, it might be unraveled someday.
Thanks again.

Try the following :- http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm    Then enter the patent number. open the image box this brings up the patent drawing for a jack by F E Walden, then you can open up the additional pages to the patent.
Danks

Thanks, Danks!!. I found the same, but couldn't figure out how to post the link!!

https://www.pat2pdf.org/

If you know the patent number you can view or download a pdf copy of the patent using pat2pdf site, pad the number with a leading zero or two if it is an early patent.

Hello, Les. I found it, but couldn't figure out how to post so that others could take a look!!

Thanks, guys.  I see the drawing, but it does not seem to be something that could be associated with my ratchet.

https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=01452131&homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D1452131.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F1452131%2526RS%3DPN%2F1452131&PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page

Quote from: Northwoods on April 24, 2021, 06:55:41 AM
Two more ideas.
I forgot to mention that this beast has only 10 teeth.  Clank clank.
Another idea:  Did WW ever make an automobile jack?  Could this fit an old screw-type jack?  This might explain the fact that neither end has detent balls.
Does anyone have access to patent 1452131? from April 17, 1923?

Me thinks this is so for two reasons - totally anecdotal.

1) Being for vintage car work (which then didn't know about compactness) a fine tooth ratchet wasn't necessary. You had plenty of room underneath the hood and all for a 36 deg swing
2) Metallurgy in it's infancy needed bigger teeth to stand the stresses.
3) Cost of machining smaller teeth with accuracy wasn't warranted on mass produced tools

Makes sense to me. 
Let's all give it some thought.

Pics?

No can do image, but imagine the No. 716 ratchet in Figure 85 with a permanent double-sided drive plug--but no detent balls.

http://alloy-artifacts.org/walden-worcester-p2.html#interchangeable