Thursday 27 July 2017

Finds

I've found lots of bit&pieces while out walking the hound. But this was one of the most unprepossessing finds at first look for it was buried but for a tip that glinted in the morning sun. Anyhoo's I unearthed it and soaked it in a basin when I got it home to loosen all the clay that encased it.
I was really quite surprised at what revealed itself out of the mud and rust.
It seems it's an American piece, a Leatherman, Wave, and most shocking, going for about $100. I have a piece like it and that was €20.
It's kinda amusing composing a back story for the tool, as it was for the Quarter Dollar I found earlier. Why it/they traveled to rural Tipperary. Were they lost, or jettisoned. Even were they cast for luck like in the Trevi to the god Neptune, only to some Celtic deity, Morrigon (Án Morrigú) perhaps, or even Mannanán.


14 comments:

  1. That's certainly an interesting find - a Swiss Army Knife, of sorts. Now that it's cleaned up, will it go in your pocket?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I think that's what the designer had in mind when he came up with the idea. He was in Europe at the time. But I imagine the designer wouldn't thank you for making that very connection. :-)

      Delete
  2. Wow! Fun stuff! That's quite a variety of tools. Looks to still be in decent shape after being cleaned. Would be good to keep if it still works properly. Yah know, as silly as it is, quarters have always been my favorite of our money. I dislike change in the pocket of my wallet unless they're quarters...I like having at least a handful of quarters in my wallet. What's the date on it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, a remarkable state of preservation. And the blades were still sharp. Plus, I had a surprising amount of fun cleaning it to get it back to this state.
      It's about 1/3 less in size to my one. Meaning the pliers part of it is pretty much useless, but for very light jobs. And it's kinda a bit heavy to carry all the time. I might just leave it in the camera bag.

      1985 is on the coin. Are the coins generally uncoordinated between face and obverse. Here there's a top and bottom that works on both head and tail. But on the coin the top of Washington's ? head is at the feet of the eagle

      Delete
  3. A good quality Leatherman is nice to have. I generally have one on my belt in a sheaf when I sail. That tool and a hunk of wire can fix a lot of things in a pinch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I almost always have a penknife when I hike just in case I need a boot cut off. Or something. It's something you don't need until you really need it.
      That the tool returned to close to perfect is a pointer I feel that the stainless steel is of a good quality. But as I said above, my only issue with it is the size. It just seems a touch small. And while only a cm shorter than my one, that extra cm pushes the working bit of the tool beyond the range of ones hand. But what really gets me is it doesn't have a eyelet for a split ring or a carabiner so a lanyard can be attached. The reason I think it ended up in my hands. :-D

      Delete
    2. Ahhh, I looked on the website. It seems someone got there before me with my creative crit :-D.

      Delete
  4. My Leatherman has saved my hid more than once. These days away from the farm however, I rarely carry it anymore. I do buy smaller cheaper ones to hand out as gifts when overseas. They are always coveted.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Vice grips were the tools of choice back-a-ways. But in general a full set of sockets and open and closed wrenches sat all the time in the onboard tool boxes. And you could start a war if someone took a tool without replacing it. You know when you might need two 17mm sockets so a 17 and the powerbar would get borrowed. :-)

      Delete
  5. The cool thing is you FOUND it, and you can now let your imagination free with such questions as previous owner and how long it had been there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I keep finding stuff as I mentioned above. The latest is a golf sand wedge, just the sand wedge for some reason. But yeah, I do think finding it was pretty cool.

      Delete
  6. It's taken me a few days to remember, but I checked the coins in my wallet, and you are correct - if you flip our coins side to side, the face and picture (eagle in the case of the quarter) are opposite. If you flip them top to bottom or bottom to top, both pictures will be face up. I've looked up why, and no one seems to have an answer. There doesn't seem to be any legal reason for it, but they continue to do it out of tradition. I never even noticed...how fun to learn something new. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So this is a general thing with all coin in the US then. Not just the one I have.
      You see the fun here is that all Euro countries have their own design and you can play the collect the ones from each country. It plays to the OCD in some of us. Back when we only had Ir£ it was pretty boring. But you could collect off friends and family when they went on holidays, with Franc's, Pesetas, Lira's and Drachma's.

      Delete
    2. They were all the same for quite some time. About 15-20 years ago they did a state quarter roll out. Starting on the East and moving west they released a handful of states each year. Each quarter had a symbol or two representing each state and then GW on the other side. A lot of people collected them (hoping for all 50 states) and they did make their way into the other states. Similar idea. I'm not sure if they are still minting them now that they've been released. They did, fairly recently, remake the nickel. It has the same symbol/face but a more modernized version of it.

      Delete