Hammer Collector Always Looking For "One More"

Hammer Collector Always Looking For "One More" AG WORLD 33-6-22 What started as a quest searching for one unusual hammer, resulted in a collection of more than 1,400 hammers for Dale G. Palmer. About 20 years ago the Alba, Penn., man set out to find a hammer with the family's name on it. He had remembered that his father had a hammer made by the Palmer Hammer Co. As he searched at flea markets, he found other interesting hammers that he purchased - usually for $1 or less. About 20 hammers later, he found a Palmer hammer without a handle and purchased it for 50 cents. "The guy asked if I collected hammers and I said, æyes,'" Palmer recalled. As he walked away he heard the vendor tell others, "He collects hammers." And so it came to be. In the beginning, Palmer had no problem finding 100 different hammers a year to add to his collection - most of them inexpensively. He purchased books that showed all the companies that made hammers from the late 1800's into the 20th Century. "Many hammers were made for a special purpose," Palmer says. "I don't know what some of them were made for." He's collected hammers used by blacksmiths, silversmiths, bricklayers, shoemakers, farriers and factory workers, for example. He has branding hammers used to mark the ends of logs sent down the river to a sawmill. Unfortunately, dishonest loggers would sometimes cut off the end of the log and mark it with their own brand. Palmer's prize hammer is a "goats head" hammer that was a bonus inside Gold Medal flour in the 1920's. It seems the problem of men not putting hammers back in their place is an age-old problem. The ornate hammer was designed for the woman of the house. Another woman's hammer is also special to Palmer. When he was installing vinyl windows for a customer, he spied a small ball-peen hammer on the garage workbench. The owner said she used it during WWII to work on her machine at a candy factory. It had her initials on it. Palmer told her he'd love to buy it if she ever wanted to sell it. When he finished up the job, he found the hammer on the seat of his pickup. Palmer enjoys sharing his hammers and their stories with others, and over the years he's struggled with the best way to display them. Recently he fitted a 32-ft. trailer with display panels. It holds only about half of his collection so he plans to build another one soon. "I want people to be able to take the hammers down and feel them in their hands," Palmer says. People are fascinated by his collection when he takes it to old-timer events, and he always learns a few things. For example, he learned one of his hammers was a turpentine hammer used to make a groove on trees to collect turpentine. Another crowd pleaser is a bowling ball-size head with a handle. "A 100-year-old man said he thought people carried it in a buggy and used it to keep the horse from walking off," Palmer says. Though it's getting more difficult to find hammers he doesn't have, Palmer, 61, sees many in his books he would like to have, and he plans to continue collecting. Every time an article appears about his collection, he gets new leads. When he was photographed with a double-claw hammer in a newspaper article, for example, he received a call from a couple in their 90's who said they had a double-claw hammer and asked him to visit. Though they didn't sell him the hammer, Palmer enjoyed the visit he would never have had if he didn't collect hammers. "It's a sickness," he laughs. "I have a friend who said he wasn't sure if I'm crazy about hammers or a crazy man with a lot of hammers." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dale G. Palmer, P.O. Box 19, Alba, Penn. 16910 (ph 570 673-8871 or 570 905-4685).

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