Wyeth Axe

[ponty56]

Hello,

My Grandmothers maiden name is Wyeth and is related to the Wyeth's that owned the hardware store in Missouri. So naturally I started looking for things on eBay from the store and stumbled upon an Axe head now it took me aboit a year to get one that was bellow $100 bid on eBay and the rarety that they we're posted up for sale. I'm not really looking for a value because its from the family name its kind of a priceless object to me. I'd like to find some information on this piece of history as well as what type of handle it would have came with so I can complete the restoration.

Thanks,
Jake.

 

[300Six]

If in fact this item is directly related to your ancestral Missouri hardware store then you are 'one up' on the competition! Steve Tall is (maybe) going to be giving you the best educated answer on the lineage of this and mine is only to buy it if you have the gut feel and conviction that this is going to make your day a little bit more sunny.
If ever I see a stamped axe head with my family name on it the bidding is going to be furious!

 

[ponty56]

I did get it just needs some touching up and I'd like to get a correct style or nos handle for it.

 

[BG_Farmer]

Just as one approach,You might see if it resembles something from another chain like Bellknap, as there might be more documentation available. Most hardware store axes and tools were made by the big companies, then either stamped or paper labelled to customize them. The quality is almost universally excellent until the modern period of imports, just as with the actual axe companies.

 

[ponty56]

Kelly is the manufacturer.

 

[BG_Farmer]

Kelly is the manufacturer.

That's what I expected. There should be lots of literature available on the Kelly labelled model, and if Kelly sent them off to hardware companies with handles, I bet the Wyeth handles were the same as Bellknap for example, so that you have a better chance of finding pictures.

Could you post a picture of the head?

 

[ponty56]

I don't have a paid subscription so I can't post attachments

 

[stevewest]

Russell, the Wyeth salesman, used to come by and see me about 34-35 years ago with his 12" thick catalog and order pad once a week. If I only knew then, what I know now, I would have a garage full of axes and pocket knives.

 

[ponty56]

There hard to come bye I know that!

 

[Steve Tall]

If you google
Wyeth hardware catalog
the results give some company information and potential sources for buying an old catalog (where you could probably find pictures of their axes).

Or you could look at other old catalogs to see similar Kelly axes (as BG_Farmer mentioned):

...Kelly made other lines, such as Keen Kutter and Belknap, and then also sold their own lines in Keen Kutter catalogs, and other hardware catalogs such as :

These two are from a 1930 Keen Kutter Catalog :

And then from a 1951 Jensen and Byrd catalog :

...

 

[Square_peg]

Here's a little about the Wyeth Hardware Co.

http://books.google.com/books?id=L0...CDUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=wyeth hardware&f=false

 

[Square_peg]

Check with some museums in Missouri. One of them likely has a catalog.

 

[ponty56]

I guess I could be going about this incorrectly, I've done a few simple google searches and maybe I'm just not looking in the correct location. Does anyone have a suggestion on a good sight that has info on vintage axes that Kelly subcontracted for?

 

[ponty56]

Here are some pictures

 

[300Six]

Someone cleaned this head up quite nicely and was kind enough not to file or grind off all the bumps and lumps. Lots of miles left on the blade too should you choose to put it to work rather than hang it on the wall.
For convenience sake you might look through the House Handle website for a reasonable facsimile of the type of curved handle this axe would have had. Weight of the head is indicative of how long the handle ought to be.

 

[ponty56]

Thank you! The only use it will see is for things like cutting down the family Christmas tree. I'd like to make a nice box to put on the wall with a glass door for it otherwise.

 

[ponty56]

If in fact this item is directly related to your ancestral Missouri hardware store then you are 'one up' on the competition! Steve Tall is (maybe) going to be giving you the best educated answer on the lineage of this and mine is only to buy it if you have the gut feel and conviction that this is going to make your day a little bit more sunny.
If ever I see a stamped axe head with my family name on it the bidding is going to be furious!

Steve Tall doesn't accept pm's anyone out there care to let him know about thread?!

 

[Square_peg]

I found this about your family business.

http://books.google.com/books?id=f2...UQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=wyeth hardware&f=false

 

[Steve Tall]

Steve Tall doesn't accept pm's anyone out there care to let him know about thread?!

I already replied! With instructions on how to find info like this:


The Wyeth Hardware Company of St. Joseph, Missouri was one of the numerous wholesaling concerns that sprung up in the nineteenth century in the Mississippi Valley. This is because the river served as the demarcation point for Westward Migration, and firms like Wyeth, Blish-Mize & Silliman, and the many St. Louis wholesale hardware concerns got their start outfitting settlers.

This particular company was founded by William Wyeth in 1860. Wyeth moved to St. Joseph, Missouri in 1860 with his wife Elizabeth and founded W.M. Wyeth & Company. He grew wealthy very quickly, and notably commissioned in 1879 a 43-room Gothic mansion that stands today as a museum and as exemplary of this style of architecture. It is known today as the Wyeth Tootle Mansion.

Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, William Maxwell Wyeth (1832-1901) had been in the dry goods business since the early 1850s, but got into the hardware line in 1856 with Lewis & Wyeth, a firm located in Chillicothe, Ohio. As an early Missouri history stated, "Wyeth settled in St. Joseph, Missouri, selecting it above the other localities which he inspected during…weeks of travel."

He chose St. Joseph because, as the magazine Do It Yourself Retailing declared in 1986, it was "the greatest wholesale outfitting point [for wagon trains] west of St. Louis. The wagon trains needed everything — pots, pans, tools, water barrels, lanterns." Wyeth supplied them with the goods needed to build the West.

After a disastrous fire in 1866, the company rebuilt in larger quarters and dealt specifically in hardware until 1872, when he expanded into saddle and harness making. In 1881, the company was incorporated as Wyeth Hardware and Manufacturing Company.

By this time the firm was one of the the most prosperous in the state, and joined by his son Huston Wyeth, the pair were two of the most prominent business men in the whole region. In 1901, when William Wyeth died and was replaced as president of the firm by Huston, it was one of the twenty leading wholesale hardware firms in the nation, with business in ten states and a massive saddle making subsidiary. In 1910, the company issued a Golden Anniversary history detailing its half century of growth.

Like most wholesale hardware concerns, the company sent out massive catalogs, often 1500-2000 pages in length. These show up occasionally for sale.

Wyeth Hardware had two major trade names. The first was WYCO, which was used on everything from hammers to shotguns. The second was the "Wyeth Shield Brand" which was sold with the pithy slogan, "Wyeth Shield Brand, the Goods in Demand." This was used on everything from household to hardware items...

Wyeth Hardware and Manufacturing Company became The Wyeth Company after World War II, and managed to survive the 1960s, which put many such firms under. However, it did not survive the 1980s. The last reference I can find to it was 1986...

by Dr. Todd E.A. Larson, quoted from:
http://fishinghistory.blogspot.com/2011/04/52-trade-houses-part-2-wyeth-hardware.html


But, I don't know of any sources that give the details you want about Kelly's manufacture of Wyeth axes.

By the way, that site gives a good explanation of how the big hardware companies operated back in the day, and the difference between wholesalers and "jobbers" and retailers (applies to axes as well as fishing tackle):


Nothing confuses people more than trying to figure out which company was a manufacturer, a wholesaler, or a retailer. Hopefully this little discourse will help you to better understand how the fishing tackle you so greatly covet made its way from a factory (or a basement) into the fisherman's hands.

The structure of selling for the pre-WWII tackle trade (like many others) was approximately as follows:

Manufacturer -- Wholesaler -- Jobber/Distributor -- Retailer.

This little graph begs a few questions. The first is what is the difference between a wholesaler and a jobber? Think of it along distribution lines. A Wholesaler was a BIG company whose buying power allowed it to purchase huge loads of goods (read TACKLE) cheaply from manufacturers. Then the wholesaler would sell at true wholesale prices to a number of other distributors, called Jobbers or Distributors, who then would mark up the goods and sell to a number of retailers in their local region. Thus three people had profited from your fishing tackle before it ever got into a retailer's hands, who would then profit from the mark up to retail price. In other words, four people sometimes made money from the same piece of tackle. The bigger the retailer (think Target or KMart here) the more likely they could cut out the distributor or even the wholesaler and buy direct from the manufacturer.

Let's confuse things even more. Some wholesalers sold directly to retailers, cutting out the jobber. Most of these Jobbers advertised themselves as wholesale houses but in reality they were one step removed from wholesaling, as they were distributors. Some jobbers became wholesalers, some wholesaled in one field and distributed in another. Some wholesalers set up distribution networks (think Marshall-Wells Associate Stores here). Large wholesalers controlled the means of manufacturing for many items (think Diamond Manufacturing Company, both an actual manufacturer of items like Keen Kutter axes and a distributor of fishing tackle under the same name)...

by Dr. Todd E.A. Larson, quoted from:
http://fishinghistory.blogspot.com/2007/12/discourse-on-trade-tackle.html

 

[ponty56]

Sorry I was so cought up in looking things up that I had forgotten you replied. I've let this consume my free time the last couple of days. There old catalogs are on eBay from time to time but I can't bring myself to spend the money on one and I'm not sure it will have the info I'm looking for. Other than the Wyeth logo and kellys stamps there is 25 stamped on the Axe as you see in the photos above any idea as to what this could signifie ? Am I chasing a ghost looking for the same style nos handle? Am I just as well ahead with a handle from house of handles ?