I have been entrusted to the care of this spud wrench for a short amount of time and the rightful owner would like to know more about it's history.  It came from his grandfather's tool stash and unfortunately, it has few markings on it.

The one photo shows the"7/8 "on the handle(faintly), but the other side has a definite" H" stamped in there.  It appears to be in pretty good shape for its age, so if any of you old steelworkers know something about this, I'd love to pass the info along.   Indeed the 7/8 is the bolt shank size making this wrench pre-depression maybe??

TIA

DM&FS

I've see Billings, Williams and Armstrong, but never Herbrand. Could that be the H?

sometimes these are  branded for the steel company.

I have a Bethlehem Steel one.

so maybe H is for a steel company?

Herbrand *did* make spud's, they aren't very common.
They usually are stamped HERBRAND on the top side.
And the pointy end is usually a shorter fraction of the handle length than that, but perhaps you have an early one?

(Later spuds are numbered in the 900 series in addition to the size)

hmm...

Could this be a blacksmith  "one off" special??  The wrench came from Iron Co. Missouri, but no clue as to its history prior to that.....

DM&FS

My opinion is that in this case the "H" is for "hardened' which appears on many old spuds.

keep a keen i out 4 1's marked AB.

Right!? but why? Why do American Bridge spuds have a following?

Quote from: mr.x on April 01, 2013, 09:46:19 PM
.......Why do American Bridge spuds have a following?

YES

if u can get'm 4 nothing, they will sell on ebay or collectors outright.

Hi, I wasn't  asking IF they have a following, I'm asking WHY do they? Who is buying them? People who were/are employed by the company?

One of the mysteries of collecting anything is why is X insanely popular and Y nobody cares about, when X and Y are nearly identical..

American Bridge does at least have an interesting history, J.P Morgan, and United States Steel...

Last Saturday my buddy bought a 16" spud with a claw like on crow bar on the other end.
Not sure if I've seen that variety before or not.

Hmmm. if we're using the term spud to refer to construction / structural/ erection type wrenches, the absence of the tapered pointed hole alignment feature end, which would seem to be the defining feature of such a wrench would take that "crow bar' wrench out of the category altogether. Though I guess if you could hang it from a loop on your belt it would still have that in common.

Around here and i guess other areas of the country AB's are collected by ironworkers, maybe because of generation ties to the company. i know most i-w apprentices here always look 4 'em. good luck.