FG owns a H. Gerstner and Sons toolbox from the 1950s at sixteen inches, tall, nine inches wind, twenty-five inches long, found in a Goleta garage. Its origins go back to the founding of the Gerstner Company in 1906. The poor condition makes it difficult to opine on value, but Gerstner and Sons DOES offer restoration of antique boxes, which costs a BUNCH.
The history of this box lies in the founder Harry Gerstner’s grit: Harry, a newly graduated journeyman woodworker from Dayton, Ohio, made himself a tool chest of wood. In those days to become a woodworker and pattern maker involved four years of apprenticeship. Successful graduates received a $100 bonus.
Gerstner began his life as a journeyman
A colleague spotted his handmade box and asked Harry to make HIM one. A light bulb went off over Harry’s head. Gerstner decided to take that $100 and make himself into a company. He thought H. Gerstner and Sons sounded like a solid company name . No, he didn’t have children. Unmarried, this move distinguished Harry as a man who planned ahead. We also see grit exhibited when the interest of one fellow woodworker confirmed he himself should form a company.
Harry stuck to what he knew, precision tools, and wood. He designed a box with many wooden drawers, the perfect sizes for precision tools, and wood prevents rust. When WWI came on the horizon, and metal became in short supply. So, wood boxes DID find a “market!” He canvased all his fellow graduates, and they all needed a box like Harry’s and the rest became history back in Dayton.
Harry designed the chests for a journeyman to walk into a job interview with one of his boxes and satisfactorily ‘show off’ his tools.
All In the Family
Harry married his Emma, but they had three daughters, NO sons. The sons in the company’s title came to pass through sons–in–laws. His first born married an English teacher from college, John Campbell, and Harry convinced him to enter the business in 1938. Campbell’s way with words contributed to the art of the printed pamphlet to the company’s marketing. Harriet, the youngest, married Harold, who became Gerstner and Sons president till 1976, when Harry’s grandson John bought the company form his uncle. John’s son John is now the current president, holding down the family business in a brick factory in Dayton today.
The box dates from the 1950s. We see each drawer of assorted sizes lined with green felt, which we expected, as it shows off the tools well. We don’t expect to see a vanity mirror in the top lid of the box, which shows one’s face when lifting he box top. Why does a toolbox contain a mirror? I searched for comments of WHY A MIRROR from various hobbyists who LOVE these boxes.
Ideas of original uses for the mirror include:
- The mirror allows a guy to see the supervisor coming from behind.
- Bathrooms on the job sites in the early 20th century didn’t have wall mirrors
- It may have been a ‘machinist’s safety mirror’ to fish an errant piece of metal out of the eye in the days before safety goggles
- It is made for moral self-support when faced with a difficult job: you look yourself in the eye and say, “darn right I can do this” or, when the job was done, you could say “nice job my friend.”
Gerstner and Sons response to the WHY a Mirror question: Harry thought of the mirror in the early 1900s because manufacturing and /or tool and die companies had no indoor plumbing, and men needed to look presentable for the journey home.
These boxes today have a cult following, and are also used to hold art supplies, jewelry, collections of arrowheads, etc.. Prices for used ones of this vintage range from $200 to $800.