Jim asked earlier today ... Have we just stopped with gloating over tool
finds? Or are we just not finding tools to gloat over? I haven't seen
any decent gloating here in so long that I can't remember the last one.
Are all the tools now collected?

Seems that our posts now refer to tool finds at "ungloatable" prices. I
still go to estate sales, but rarely find good stuff at good prices.

Jim and I occasionally exchange emails and we've touched on this topic
several times. For me, I just don't get to the storied "Field of Dreams"
much anymore, maybe in part because it had become a dry hole for me for
a couple of years, and in part because the day job had become a black
hole for my waking hours until recently. There also seems to be
noticeably fewer yard or garage (boot, Jeff) sales these days with
anything other than used baby clothes, baby furniture, frayed extension
cords and ugly lamps on offer. But the biggest problem I have is a
distinct lack of places left to store or stash tools in my shop, so many
of my purchases tend to be small in size recently. I have a whole
'nother room in the basement equal to the size of my official shop that
is largely unavailable. It is occupied by a few machines my shop can't
handle, a stash of mostly donor saws, a stash of now well acclimated
mahogany and poplar boards for furniture projects in waiting, and a
large assortment, or more appropriately described as a pile, of ex-
college items from my kids that need sorting to be pitched or given
away. That sorting will have to happen soon if I am to be acquiring any
more of the items I have a hope of finding. But Jim and I have both
noticed that it is harder to find good tools, especially at bargain
prices. My suspicion is that most of what we all used to gloat about is
now posted for all to see on *b*y, where it is misidentified, called
'rare' and priced accordingly until some sucker springs for it, all too
often only to find that the other side not shown in the pictures is
heavily rust encrusted or cracked. I miss the pickin's of twenty years
ago, and we already knew at that time that we had missed many of the
really spectacular gloats. Even Pat Leach seems to be getting a large
portion of his tool inventory from England these days, so that ought to
be an indication that barn collections for a pittance and shuttered
hardware stores are getting harder and harder to find.

Charlie Driggs--------------------------------------------------------------
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