Saturday, January 4, 2014

Vanished Tool Makes: Carll Wrench



I picked up this unusual adjustable wrench a while ago.  It gives a patent date of May 6, 1913.  The serrations on the bottom of the fixed jaw were a feature that enabled the tool to also be used as an alligator wrench by reversing the jaws.   P.T. Co. probably stands for the Plomb Tool Company or its successor, the Pendleton Tool Company (Plomb is credited with introducing the first combination wrench).  I've seen online pictures of other P.T. Co. wrenches of this design simply marked "ABC" for the inventor's initials.  They were also apparently manufactured by or for the  M. W. Robinson Co. of Brooklyn, NY, which also happened to be Smith & Wesson's oldest distributor.

Born in 1861, Addison B. Carll, originally of Jersey City, New Jersey, seems to have had a bent for inventing different forms of wrenches, beginning with a monkey wrench in 1892.  In 1910, he came up with an unusual wrench with a rotating head.  


At the time of his 1913 patent, he was living in Boothwyn, Pennsylvania:
Another monkey wrench design was also patented by him in 1913, and produced by the Greenfield Tap and Die Corporation.  He seems to have liked tools with reversible jaws:
Although his patents extended to other areas, such as balanced rocker valves for steam engines, the last patent I can find for him was issued in 1922, for a chain pipe wrench.  At this point in time, he was living in New York City.  He died a year later, creative to the end.

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