A Welcome Diversion: Collector Likes Challenge of Wrenches
January 2001
Bill Vossler
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Don Lux with a wrench
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During the past three years, collecting antique wrenches has really taken off, says Don Lux of Janesville, Wis. 'Wrenches have come a long ways,' the 69-year-old former International Harvester plant worker says, 'and that includes the price. Everybody is after them now. Like the Oliver wrenches. I've only seen seven or eight of them in my lifetime, and two of those were the other day at a flea market, where they wanted $100 and $120 for them.'
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Don got started collecting wrenches on a lark, while serving as vice president and president of his local thresheree.
'I was involved running the show for so long that I wasn't able to do much with any of the IH tractors I've bought, fixing them up or showing them,' he says. 'But one day I thought I should have some fun sometimes, too, and since we had eight or ten wrenches around here from years and years ago, I got the urge to clean them up and show them.'
Next thing he knew, he was going to community auctions, rummage sales, and wherever he could to pick up wrenches.
'I used to work for IH, so I was trying to see how many IH wrenches I could get,' he says. He discovered he couldn't always buy only the IH wrench he wanted at an estate sale, for example, but would have to buy all the wrenches as a lot. That way, he always got half a dozen other kinds of wrenches.
Within three years he had 400 wrenches; today more than a thousand.
Don is in a good position for collecting wrenches because his favorites -International Harvester -aren't the most collectible because so many of them were made.
'IH had three different foundries making wrenches,' he says, 'so it's no surprise there are so many of them around.'
International Harvester also made wrenches for Case, Allis-Chalmers, and other farm machinery companies. One of their big productions was the four-in-one and five-in-one wrench, which could be used for different sizes of nuts.
'Those wrenches were made under contract for these companies until they could build or find foundries to make their own,' he says. 'They were identical to the Harvester or McCormick wrenches, but they didn't have anything stamped on them, not even any numbers.' Curiously enough, these particular plain wrenches are often more valuable than the ones that have the company names stamped on them. Don says more of the four-in-one wrenches were used in the south, for cotton pickers, while the five-in-ones were used more in the north, on combines.
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