He Collects Antique Lift Jacks

He Collects Antique Lift Jacks AG WORLD The best place to have a flat tire in North America might be right out in front of Larry Voris’s house The Springfield Mo collector has more than 200 antique jacks for lifting everything from a buggy to a train Voris knows a lot about jacks He bought a jack repair shop in 1979 and spent 26 years repairing hydraulic jacks for mechanics homeowners and even a mortician with an embalming table He created and built an air/hydraulic jack system to level mobile homes during installation and he designed and installed quick lube systems for garages Voris bemoans the era when quality repairable U S -built jacks were replaced by cheap throwaway jacks made in China It made parts impossible to find and changed the jack repair business He sold his business in 2005 In retirement Voris preserves the history of jacks by buying old U S -built jacks that he stacks on shelves and stashes in nooks around his 30 by 60-ft barn When he shares parts of his collection at shows he likes to show their diversity by setting a small 5-lb 1 1/2-ton Hein Werner hydraulic bottle jack next to a 260-lb 100-ton Hein Werner jack That’s not the biggest in his collection however Voris needs a forklift to move around some of the jacks such as his 600 to 800-lb Duff Norton train jack He collects all types: ratchet bottle hydraulic bumper screw-type rack and pinion worm and pinion floor and scissor jacks for example He picked up most of them at flea markets and sales The oldest jacks are wooden likely from the 1880’s or so used for lifting wheels on buggies The oldest metal jacks are from the 1910’s A big breakthrough came in the mid 40’s to early 50’s when ratchet jacks were upgraded to hydraulic jacks Voris has two Walker jacks models 769 and 770 with the same design but one is ratchet and the other is hydraulic “I’ve always been partial to Walker ” he says noting he has at least 50 of them in his collection He also likes Weaver jacks made in Minnesota The floor jack has a simple almost crude design but worked very well Blackhawk had the best bottle jacks and Voris believes a Blackhawk roll-around jack may be the most valuable in his collection It was made in the 50’s and has sleek lines a cover and light His most unique jack is a 1916 Weed chain jack with 4 ft of small-link chain used to install tire chains A 1916 set of four “tire-saver” single action jacks was used to slightly lift rubber tires off the floor Lincoln Buckeye Eureka Kimball King and Simplex are a few of the other brand names in Voris’s collection Other than removing rust to expose the model and patent date he keeps most of his jacks as they were when he purchased them Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Larry Voris 2340 S Luster Springfield Mo 65804 lgvoris@sbcglobal net

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