Lions and Tigers and Bolts, oh my!

You might have noticed that we are having some inventory reduction sales. You might also have noticed that some of the things on sale are not things that you would ordinarily think of the Cutlery as carrying.

These would be keen observations.

Meat grinder plates make sense, but Dremel tool accessories and files/rifflers make a little less sense. Bolts... yeah, those seem like a mystery.

The rifflers/files and Dremel accessories make sense if you know my grandfather. He's very into making things with his hands. Lots of woodwork and he did scrimshaw for a while. The bolts have a different story.

These bolts are leftover stock from the Heimerdinger company when it was still a hardware store in downtown Louisville. As you might know, our family business dates back to 1861, and over time has included things like manufacturing of scissors, shears, and knives. This went on until the mid 50's (and we still have several pounds of leftover blanks for shears if someone is doing a historical project). Anyway, from the 1920's to the mid 60's, the store was primarily a hardware store. These bolts and things have been in storage since Heimerdinger Cutlery moved to Shelbyville Road in 1983.

Because of their age, the bolts aren't the sort you'll find at the hardware store today. (Or so I have been told. I don't go hang out at Home Depot, or anything).
These bolts are mostly black iron (aka, not galvanized, not stainless, etc.) and mostly they are carriage bolts, machine bolts, and stove bolts. A lot of them have rolled threads (meaning the hot metal was rolled on something to give it threads, instead of having them cut into the metal).
They might be of interest to people doing restoration, or reenactment, who are very into authenticity. Maybe some SCA people out there?

Nancy (the employee in charge of the website) will keep adding more bolts and things as time allows. I'll be posting a mostly complete list at some point. However, feel free to contact us if you want to ask about specific sizes.


Probably the most fun I had while I was working at the store during highschool was rummaging through the old hardware store stuff in the shop. It was a blast, I found all sorts of fun things: glass bubble things for levels, a manual hair clipper, old key-making machines, and just tons of things. Oh, and did I mention the barrel filled with nails?

Don't forget to vote!

That's it. Whole message in title.