Indecent proposal - or - where to go shopping for tools

[Pekka Huhta]

My dear wife surprised me yesterday. She knows that I don't like travelling and she has always problems getting me anywhere. Now she found the right trick.

With a very innocent tone on her voice she popped the question: "Honey, as you seem to shop the eBay empty of tools anyway, do you think you would like to visit one of the real tool shops in London?" Don't you think that was a dirty trick? :wink:


Would you have good suggestions where to go? Is there a place somewhere where there would be more than one tool shop on the same area or good flea markets full of tools to be discovered? It doesn't have to be in London, as long as there would be more than one shop to visit. Good selection and even half-decent prices would be nice.

Alf had a nice list of the shops at http://www.cornishworkshop.co.uk/tooldealers.html
but it doesn't tell much about what kind of shops they are or how good selection there is.

Wives, what wonderful things they are

Pekka

 

[RogerS]

Pekka

I'm sorry to disappoint you but I am not aware of any decent toolshops in London...or certainly not Central London. The references to shops in Portobello market will most likely be to over-priced, tatty, old, scruffy tools.

Helsinki on hyvin arka kuin Lontoo

Cheers

Roger

 

[Alf]

The references to shops in Portobello market will most likely be to over-priced, tatty, old, scruffy tools.

Well the Nurse saw Mark got for a tenner was far from scruffy and not, IMO, over-priced, but I bow to your superior knowledge...

fwiw, I got an email last month from Jeffrey & Collard in Thornton Heath and they're still selling old tools and have an email address - jeffrey-collard @ zen.co.uk At some point I'll get round to updating that page. :roll:

Cheers, Alf

P.S. This thread might do better in Hand Tools or Buying Advice perhaps?

 

[engineer one]

have to say that i agree with roger about the shops in london.

what most strangers do not understand is the sheer size of london.
buck and ryan are no longer what they were, nor where they were.
rents etc are so high, that few could afford to sell old tools here.
the place in islington seems to have disappeared, so you need to look elsewhere. and much as i like jaycee, it is a ways from anyone else :lol:

maybe smaller cities pekka :roll:
paul :wink:

 

[RogerS]

but I bow to your superior knowledge...

:-k

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Well, she'll be happy travelling anywhere so London isn't the only option, it was just her first idea to get me hooked I haven't had my winter holiday yet, so I could just spend a week driving around.

What comes to distances, I've gotten used to them over here. It's always a long way to anywhere Heck, I'll drive 450 km just to get to our summer cottage on a weekend, so two hours drive from London to Salisbury to visit Pennyfarthing isn't too bad at all.

What I was thinking was that according to Alf's map Cornwall looks like a tool maniacs heaven, you could just hire a car and see half a dozen shops on one day. But are they all good? Which ones would be worth visiting? Is Cornwall actually the only place packed with second hand tool shops (wih Alf supporting all of them )

Pekka

 

[Paul Chapman]

so two hours drive from London to Salisbury to visit Pennyfarthing isn't too bad at all.

Hi Pekka,

I think Pennyfarthing Tools is a very good shop for quality second-hand tools. Their stock is always changing but I've been there about three times and always found something to tempt me.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Alf]

Cornwall is terrible - no, really. It's just I happen to live there and make the best of a bad job. The only place you're going to see more than a handful of tools for sale in Cornwall (if you're lucky) is Bob's Toolbox, and he's not cheap (no £10 Nurse backsaws there). You see wages in Cornwall are low, so people don't just dump stuff cheaply - you want a nice affluent area where they don't care and aren't still using the tools to earn a living. The Colyton area and antique shops round Honiton/Beer etc in East Devon may be a better bet and you can take in Axminster. Old Tools Feel Better in the Exmouth/Topsham area seemed to have wound down a bit when I looked at the last Axminster Show. There's Bristol Design and at some point I picked up a reference to The Old Tool Box in Corsham near Bath (anyone know if that's still in existance?). Then going east there's PFT of course, Leeside Tools in Arundel, Hanman Tools in Sussex isn't bad and a dart up and across Kent to take in Rochester Guildhall Museum should furnish a real-life look at the Seaton Toolchest and another Axminster shop to see. Probably the hottest bed of tools is Needham Market in Suffolk - Tony Murland, Classic Handtools, Roy Arnold - but equally not likely to be particularly cheap.

Of course take large dollops of salt with all this, 'cos the only ones I've ever actually been to are Bob's TB, OTFB, and The Toolbox in Colyton.

As for distances - I imagine there's probably a world of difference between 50 miles in Finland and 50 miles on British roads, so don't get too enthusiastic.

Cheers, Alf

 

[engineer one]

especially going down to cornwall no that the sun is beginning to shine :lol:

paul :wink:

 

[woodbloke]

Pekka H wrote:

so two hours drive from London to Salisbury to visit Pennyfarthing isn't too bad at all.

Pekka - If you're down this way and I'm about give me a PM and call in for a brew - Rob

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Let's see how this ends up It kind of feels funny (and a bit childish) to start thinking that I'll come to over there and raid the whole Britain in a week. I really feel like a tourist

Another love of mine is old wooden boats and ships, so I could figure out where I would see the prettiest old pilot cutters and allthesuch and guide the tour to that direction. It basically doesn't matter where to go, having been over there only a couple of times.

Pekka

P.S, I thought that a wife voluntarily proposing a tool shopping tour would count as a minor gloat

 

[engineer one]

apart from the viking exhibition at york, i would suggest that the east coast from norfolk down to essex would be the place to go for older wooden boats, and that is certainly near some of the vintage tool shops.

norfolk and broads have the dual advantage of the barges on the broads, plus all those lovely norfolk beaches, cromer, wells by sea etc.

luvverly

paul :wink:

 

[Alf]

Let's see how this ends up It kind of feels funny (and a bit childish) to start thinking that I'll come to over there and raid the whole Britain in a week.

It's an old Scandinavian tradition, raid and pillage of the east coast... :lol: (Finland sort of counts as Scandinavia in a broad sort of way, kind of, doesn't it? Aww, go on, for the sake of the joke :wink: )

Cheers, Alf

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Let's see how this ends up It kind of feels funny (and a bit childish) to start thinking that I'll come to over there and raid the whole Britain in a week.

It's an old Scandinavian tradition, raid and pillage of the east coast... :lol: (Finland sort of counts as Scandinavia in a broad sort of way, kind of, doesn't it? Aww, go on, for the sake of the joke :wink: )

Well but whynot, we can be counted as scandinavians if anyone. But if the norsemen were the ones that had a heart for travelling, we finns were the ones that stayed home whittling useless little pieces of wood just for the sake of it :roll:

Raid and pillage... I was thinking of some looting and ravaging as well

Pekka

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

Cornwall is terrible - no, really. It's just I happen to live there and make the best of a bad job.
Cheers, Alf

Hmmm! I have to bite my tongue or should that be typing finger. :evil:

 

[engineer one]

yes, and you fins produced the strangest language in the world,
makes the "swedish chef" seem legible :lol: :twisted:


must be the proximity to the ruskies :? :roll:
paul :wink:

 

[Alf]

Cornwall is terrible - no, really. It's just I happen to live there and make the best of a bad job.
Cheers, Alf

Hmmm! I have to bite my tongue or should that be typing finger. :evil:

Let me re-phrase that: :roll:

Cornwall is terrible for tools...

Cheers, Alf

 

[engineer one]

you mean you have left any out there for the grockles :twisted: :lol:

paul :wink:

 

[Pekka Huhta]

yes, and you fins produced the strangest language in the world, makes the "swedish chef" seem legible :lol: :twisted:

must be the proximity to the ruskies :? :roll:
paul :wink:

Umm, what's so strange in the language?

We have these short and nifty words for things. For example "epäkeskohiomakone" has just as many letters (17) as "random orbit sander", but we have just saved the spaces between words, economical as we are. And phonetically Finnish is pretty as well: try to pronounce the beautiful equivalent of a granny's tooth, "mummunhammas" and you'll know what I mean. And remember, they're long mm's then, like having too much fudge stuck to your teeth.

The eskimo's may have 200 words for snow, but we have at least a hundred. Starting from the clean white new snow blinding you, commenting the big, slowly descending snowflakes about the size of old socks and ending to the formations of frozen snow that stick to your shoes. I'd say it's much better to have just one word for all things

About the ruskies... well, currently we just pretend that they're not there

Pekka

 

[engineer one]

what's wrong with the language.?
well it was how it sounded when all those beautiful girls i met in the
70's when travelling around in the occassional company of
messrs saarinen and lansivouri. two REALLY fast men :lol:

when they all talked together, it sounded like lots of snakes talking so fast were the ssssss's :twisted:

paul :wink: