Hello Tom and Jack,
Tom, I'll check back with Bob and see if he has any of the items you listed. A lot of this stuff is really old and either isn't marked or markings are, in some cases, illegible.
I didn't see a lot of pull-offs but in some cases, particularly the old stuff, I'm not sure I would always know the difference between what a farrier might have used for nippers versus pull-offs. They often look very similar.
A lot of the stuff has already been cherry picked. Bob shared some photos of what the shop looked like a year ago. You could hardly walk in the place it was so full! He guesses that over half has been sold, much of it to Lee Liles in Oklahoma.
As I said, I'll check for you and if any of those things are in there, I'll contact via the email address you provided.
Jack, Mr. Armstrong has several of those old draft shoes designed for the special calks. I found the original patent for the idea, dated 1932. They were made until 1953.
Some of the samples that Bob has do have the calks welded in, particularly the smaller toe calks.
Here's some trivia for you. I was browsing thru an old blacksmiths ledger page and noticed that some entries indicated an owner would bring in their horse only to have the calks replaced.
Ledger was from around 1904.
Shows 4 new shoes, calked, $1.25. Four shoes, calks only, $.90 cents. Does this mean the cost of the four shoes was only about $0.35 cents?
So... I think this means the farrier would reset the same four shoes, replacing only the calks.
I went back to Bob's this evening to get pricing on some shoes for another farrier on this forum. While there, I once again walked past one of the shoe boards. The one with a sample of these same draft shoes and also samples of the calks and toe grabs that were available for them.
Bob gave me a price and well......
What can I say... Had to bring the board home!
I'll make a nicer board and get everything mounted for better display. Should look nice with a copy of the patent information.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg181/msgough/Blacksmith-Shop/IMG_0088.jpg?t=1225806616
Every time I visit I see something new I had not noticed before.
This evening it was a couple of old saws hanging from the rafters of his barn. Both were huge tools. One was used for sawing large blocks of ice. The other is called a 'pit saw'. That has an interesting history and represents what had to be one of the worst jobs I can imagine. I'll get some photos later and share them along with their use.
A lot of the photos I've posted present racks or groups of tools. In some cases I focused on an individual item such as a shoe or particular tool.
If folks here are interested, I could go over occassionally and select one or two individual tools or products and take detailed photos. I'd focus on those things we have a date for and particularly anything with a known history or brand maker.
Cheers,
Mark