The old Popular Machanics Magazines

[Mel Larsen]

Have you ever looked at Google Books for the old Popular Mechanics Magazines?  They are a treasure chest of information on tool history and development. The old ads for tools are great.  here is a link to the site, http://books.google.com/books/about/Popular_Mechanics.html?id=nt8DAAAAMBAJ
They start at the beginning of PM and to date.
Be prepared to spend hours of time looking.
Mel

[Papaw]

Great reading and resource.

[lbgradwell]

The old ads for tools are great.

Agreed. That's where I find the majority of the ads in my files that I refer to for research...

[Nolatoolguy]

Pretty cool thanks for sharing i just spent a hour browsing an have a feeling when i have more spare time ile be doing the same

[oldtools]

Thank you for the memories
Great link, spent hours reading what was new, inventions, advetisments & price, etc.  from when I was born. (ie. $10-$20 for tires)

[RedVise]

Hmmmm, wonder if I can still buy a WW2 jeep ??



Brian L.

[scottg]

Popular Mechanics is what caused me to want to learn to read in the first place! I still remember looking at he pictures and desperately wanting to know what they were talking about.
Well PM and Mad magazine were what put me over the top!

At one time I owned hundreds of Popular Mechanics, Mechanix Illustrated and Scientific American. They were old and unwanted and I got big heavy boxes of them for a dollar.
  Clyde Lammey, shop editor for 30 years,  was and will always be a hero of mine.

Popular Science was mostly about sitting on your butt, reading about it. Except for certain periods when they got into actual projects and work related topics.
  Popular Mechanics went that way eventually.
"How to buy a dishwasher" and other such brainless consumer articles.  Every article a blatant sales pitch for something or other.
At one point I wrote the owners (board of directors, Hearst Corp) and expressed my heartfelt regrets over my beloved publication.
And that was when they hired Rosario Capotosto to take over the shop section and it was good again for few years.
  But eventually even that went back down to "How to make a 5 plank spice rack, in 37 installments" and other elementary things.

The world was a better place when every man owned tools, and every man (women too I'm including here) learned some actual skills.
  It gave the world a better perspective of life.
  When you make things for yourself, (instead of just buying everything),  you better understand everything else as well.
  yours Scott