Treasures from my parents' basement

[mitch]

I recently visited my parents who have lived in the same house I grew up in since 1962. Whenever I'm there I try to spend some time cleaning out a bit of the accumulated detritus. It's actually not too bad compared to some horror stories I've heard from friends and when they eventually move out (they're in their 80s) it won't be such an onerous task, especially with my efforts over the years.

The first photo is of one of my earliest engraving attempts. Hey, everybody's gotta start somewhere...

The second & third are of a knife sharpening steel I always remember being in the kitchen when I was a kid. Note the Friedrich Dick mark in the closeup. I told my parents they make excellent tools and a few of my engraving tools, including my chasing hammer, are by F. Dick. My dad said he got panhandled in downtown Denver sometime in the early-mid 1960s and gave him a few bucks (way back before there were hordes of rude, obnoxious stoners doing it like today). The guy insisted on giving him the steel in trade. My dad always wondered if it was stolen (tho it seems an oddly honest act for a thief to then trade it away when he didn't have to) or if maybe the guy was an out-of-work cook/chef? That steel is now mine and if you're interested, F. Dick still sells them. The handles have changed and I'm guessing they didn't cost $100 sixty years ago.


The fourth just made me laugh. Yes, my siblings & I managed to survive playing yard-darts! If anybody wants those, let me know and I'll have my mom send 'em to you.

 

[John B.]

Hi Mitch, I expect you know this but other may not.
Back in the day Fredrich Dick made all the gravers and liners for the FN Browning company in Liege, Belgium.
The actual graver and/or liner and square handle was made in one piece of high grade steel 10 mm. square by 210 cm. long.
Years ago I asked my friends Angelo Bee and/or Gino Cargnel to buy me a full set of liners and gravers when they went back to visit friends Liege factory.
Imagine my surprise when I found I owed them about $2,000.00.
Even in those days they cost close to $100,00 each because the whole tool, blade and handle was made from one piece of high grade tool steel.
Needless to say, I occasionally look lovingly at my near pristine set of about about 20 pieces of liners and wonder what will happen to them when I bite the dust.
Just like your Dad's sharpening steel, only a few collectors would know the value.

 

[monk]

yard darts are now likely banned by u no hu. still have one lodged in me behind from 50 years ago !

 

[pkroyer]

Hi Mitch, I expect you know this but other may not.
Back in the day Fredrich Dick made all the gravers and liners for the FN Browning company in Liege, Belgium.
The actual graver and/or liner and square handle was made in one piece of high grade steel 10 mm. square by 210 cm. long.
Years ago I asked my friends Angelo Bee and/or Gino Cargnel to buy me a full set of liners and gravers when they went back to visit friends Liege factory.
Imagine my surprise when I found I owed them about $2,000.00.
Even in those days they cost close to $100,00 each because the whole tool, blade and handle was made from one piece of high grade tool steel.
Needless to say, I occasionally look lovingly at my near pristine set of about about 20 pieces of liners and wonder what will happen to them when I bite the dust.
Just like your Dad's sharpening steel, only a few collectors would know the value.

Very interesting. If you are able, it would be fun to see a photo of one of those liners.

A couple of years ago I answered a Craigs List ad for a Fredrich Dick knife sharpener. Since they retail for over $1800, the four or five hundred dollars he wanted was reasonable, but too much for me. Over several weeks the price kept going down. I decided that if someone were going to get it for 150 it might as well be me, and I now have sharp kitchen knives as well as my friends and family knives. The sharpener is built like a tank. I am sure my son will have no idea as to what to do with it (along with my engraving and woodcarving stuff).

 

[mitch]

$2,000 for a set of gravers, John? Yikes! I'm sure they're lovely, but...wow.

 

[thughes]

C'mon, steel darts for a bunch of kids to see how high they can throw. What could possibly go wrong? They make a nasty dent in a car hood, ask me how I know!

 

[JMiller]

Aaahhhh... yards darts! Found memories of me and my brother, seeing who could get the closest without moving.

 

[mitch]

C'mon, steel darts for a bunch of kids to see how high they can throw. What could possibly go wrong? They make a nasty dent in a car hood, ask me how I know!

i knew a guy in high school who shot an arrow straight up in his front yard. it came down right in the middle of the hood on his mom's station wagon. Put a hole in the air filter cover, too. LMAO.

 

[Dave London]

I had a friend that did the same thing and I got a groove between my head and ear. I was laying on the ground with hands covering my head.
Maybe that explains a lot LOL

 

[DKanger]

My parents were divorced when I was 6. I reconnected with my father upon arriving back in the US coming home from VietNam. He had remarried and was living in Redwood City, CA. Later he retired to Cave Junction, OR to a homestead and then to Ellensburg, WA as his health began to fail. My stepmother wanted to be close to her daughter. We visited several times over the years. I last drove out there in 2002, knowing it would be the last time I saw him. He was in an Alzheimer's ward at the time and died in 2003. My stepmother died a couple of years ago.

Last week I received a call from my stepsister. She was very emotional and said she had 3 large boxes of stuff from my side of the family. She had packed them over a year ago but it took her that long to break the emotional bond to let them go. They arrived yesterday.

One contained family photographs of my aunts and uncles, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents (taken in the old country prior to 1900). I had never seen them before and they provided a missing link in my family tree. Needless to say they are priceless.

My Dad was a tool and die maker by trade, but he did rockhounding, lapidary, and woodcarving as hobbies. The other box contained 15 of his woodcarvings. Again, priceless treasures to me. I had brought back all his woodcarving tools when I visited in 2002.

 

[John B.]

$2,000 for a set of gravers, John? Yikes! I'm sure they're lovely, but...wow.

Mitch, they are not much to look at but the liners cut so well when hammer driven.
They come in some of the finest, tight line spacing I have ever seen.