Originally Posted by
Boringgeoff
Hi Graham,
Your three were all made in Sheffield England but whether pre war I'm not sure. In the case of Stanley, Stanley USA bought a share of J A Chapman of Sheffield about 1936 -37 and owned them outright by the mid to late 40's. Chapman made an extensive range of good quality braces under their own name and for other British makers including Mathieson, Preston and W'm Marples. They are very common here in Aus'.
At sometime after Stanley's arrival,they started branding their tools with both Chapman and Stanley name but continuing with Chapmans numbering system. Evidence points to Stanley badging tools with Chapman as recently as the 1980's.
144 and 73 are Stanley England numbers (quite different from their US numbers) which I had assumed were post war but could stand corrected on that.
Stanley used their same numbering system on their Australian braces when they came here in 1966, simply putting an A in front of the model No.
The type of jaws used in the No 73 were patented by A Stowell in the USA in 1932.(1,880,521)
Now to Skinner......what I know about this company apart from they are from Sheffield and I have a Skinner brace dated to 1933, is zilch, so if you, or anyone, knows anything about them I'd love to hear it.
Hope this is of some help,
Regards,
Geoff.