I picked up a very cool wrench a few months ago at an estate auction. This wrench was hidden in the bottom of a tool box that I bought.

It is an S-wrench style, and on the handle, it reads "Janney Husker" in raised cast letters. It appears to have sported a chrome finish at one time. About 20% of the original finish is still there. 

Pretty neat little wrench.

Anyone else have Janney Husker tools?

1903 advertising piece. What a monster machine!
http://cgi.ebay.com/1903-JANNEY-Corn-Husker-Fodder-Shredder-AD-OTTUMWA-IA-/300256519094

Thank you for the reply, Neals!!!

I've seen some of those ads before, but I did notice that a firm in Indianapolis, IN bought the company later on. I'd never seen that ad....thank you!!!!!

It makes me wonder, since I am so close to Indy, if that is why that wrench was at an auction in the area. I know they sold thousands of huskers, but did someone buy a husker just because they were made in Indianapolis at the time of purchase?

I can think of a number of possible explanations.
Carried home in a workers lunch pail.
Surplus stock sold locally.
Brought from another area by someone moving

Tools travel.

A 50 or 100 year old tool may rest in one spot for decades, and then, for any of a gazillion reasons, it's off to travel for a few years or to another spot for a few decades. As long as folks can afford the luxury of 'collecting' them, many will kick around for another 100 years.*  Collecting is a luxury to be sure. Imagine how many little wrenches were begged, borrowed, stolen, swapped and sold for a nickel to buy an apple, or better yet, $2, and you could by a case of apples and sell them on the street yourself during the depression.

How things get from there to here is always a source of wonderment to me. Sometimes you can figure out where it started out, but not always. We've all got tools that have a name and a place on them but we can't find supporting evidence anywhere. The internet is helpful, and there are still some books. Sadly, those books, catalogs and magazines are going to the dump faster than the tools.

I could rattle on, but in short, hang on to those bits of history for a little while at least. You gotta feel a little bit bad for someone who can hold one of these in their hands and get not a single spark of the imagination. Hell, just be thankful, every day, that it wasn't Beanie Babies that got you. Amen and hallelujah!

I'm not saying anything that hasn't occurred to you all, it just feels good to say it, and to have a place to say it. Thanks for that!

*excepting the ones that Wrenchmensch sends to the scrap yard (really man, don't do it; you don't want your last tool to be a coal shovel ;).

 Caldwell Manufacturing Co. may give you more info on your wrench. Rathbone shows cast S wrench with (Janney Husker) under Caldwell on page 74

Thank you for the replies!!!!

I'd love to know the history on that wrench...I'm not sure I ever pick up an old tool and wonder who owned it before I did.

Jim-thank you for looking that wrench up. I'd love to see that book some day. I guess I never thought that someone made it for Janney, even though I should have.