27th Annual Antique Tool Show
and Sale - Sunday, August 4 - 9 am – 1 pm
Members of the Early American
Industries Association (EAIA) and the Mid-West Tools
Collectors Association (M-WTCA) will be holding their annual
Antique Tool Show and Sale at the Garfield Farm Museum on
Sunday, August 4th from 9am – 1pm. This is the only joint show
by these two organizations in the mid-west open to the public.
Typically, over 30 different collectors will have their tools
on display and for sale.
Garfield Farm & Inn Museum looks
at the settlement era of northern Illinois, that was a time
traditions arose around the seasonal cycle of farming. In that
spirit, Garfield Farm’s calendar of events has created its own
traditions that are approaching nearly 30 years or more in
age. The Antique Tool Show is just such an annual tradition
paying tribute every first Sunday in August to the
craftsmanship and inventiveness of Americans since the 1700s.
These collectors value and marvel at the simple hand tools
many whose design endured for centuries.
Garfield Farm Museum established this
annual show to help educate the public with the realities of
America’s founding. Hand tools were what built and shaped
America. In the 1840s as factories arose, handcrafted items
became massed produced but not in the way mass production is
envisioned today. The hand tools that individual craftsmen
used simply transitioned to the early factories. Waterpower
might have made it possible for a number of lathes to be
powered at once but hand tools were used to make any turnings.
Blacksmiths were becoming old school in the mid-19th century,
as the profession of mechanic became the high tech of its day.
Mechanics for the steam age to manufacture as well as maintain
locomotives and lake and ocean going steamers needed even more
specialized hand tools to produce the precision needed.
Tool and die makers became the top
hand tool workers of the 19th and early 20th century. Their
inventiveness and skills would create the power tools that
society depends upon today. Appropriately, some of the most
avid collectors one can meet at the Antique Tool Show are
retired highly skilled tool and die makers. Many are the last
generation to use hand tools and the first to use computerized
machines to make the complex machines of mass production
today.
Yet fine craftsmanship has not
disappeared as thousands of hobbyists that enjoy working with
wood, avidly seek out antique tools. Such tools that might be
made of higher quality materials than what can be found on the
market today or are no longer made but are still needed to
reproduce certain designs or affects in furniture. The Antique
Tool Show is thus an opportunity to talk with such experienced
individuals who might have worked with the type of tool one
purchases.
The public is invited to bring a tool
they cannot identify as many of the collectors will know the
answer. This is the only joint meeting in Illinois of the EAIA
and M-WTCA that the public is invited to attend. Opportunities
at the show to become a member of the organizations will give
access to their regional and national meetings.
Tours of the 1846 teamster inn and
tavern begin at 11am and continue after the show until 4pm.
Light refreshments will be available. Admission for adults is
$6 and $2 for children 12 years and under. Garfield Farm
Museum is a historically intact former prairie farmstead and
teamster inn being restored by volunteers as a 1840s working
farm. The museum is located 5 miles west of Geneva, IL off ILL
Rt. 38 on Garfield Road. For more information call
(630)584-8485. E-mail us at info@garfieldfarm.org
or visit our website at http://www.garfieldfarm.org
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