Leslie C. McDaniel
February 2001
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More than 200 grinders are mounted in Dave Paulus' display.
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In an era when those who still cook use commercially processed foods, it is easy to forget the labor that meal preparation once required. Spend a bit of time with Dave Paulus' collection of grinders, and those chores loom large.
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Dave's collection of grinders started as nothing more than a question.
'I had one or two old grinders in the garage, and I began to wonder how many different manufacturers there were,' he said. 'So I started collecting them. When I got to about 30, my wife said to stop at 100. Well, I have over 600 now.'
About 200 (with no duplicates) are displayed in a trailer which Dave takes to shows. The inventory is a dizzying assemblage of what Dave classifies as 'hand crankers': pea hullers, tool grinders and a drill press, cherry pitters, salad grinders, juicers, vegetable cutters, sausage sniffers, coffee grinders, apple peelers and more than 100 ice cream freezer cranks.
Dave has no idea where it will end.
'You just don't know what's out there,' he said. 'There's no book or reference guide to grinders. And it's hard to come up with any background information because many of them are so old ... those companies are not in business anymore. Some of these grinders were patented as early as 1887.'
Many seem to have ties to the states of Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
'The Universal has the names 'Landers Fraley and Clark' on it, made in New Britain, Conn.,' he said.
Some offer surprising insights into early manufacturers' diversity.
'I've seen a Winchester Repeating grinder,' he said, presumably related to the rifle maker. That piece was priced at $65; another by the same maker was tagged at $300. Both prices are well outside Dave's comfort zone for new acquisitions.
'Most of them you'll find in a range of $15 to $25,' he said. 'There's some I didn't buy because they just wanted too much for them.' New collectors, he said, should start with more modest pieces, those in a range of $5-10. The most popular pieces are made by Griswold, Keen Kutter, Universal, Climax, Wards and Modern Merit.