Do you know what you have lurking in the dark recesses of your closet? How about out in the musty corners of the barn? Maybe you have history out there!

When my father and his brothers were cleaning out the barn on the family farm after my grandfather’s demise, they had a lot to sort through. Much was covered in dust and cobwebs and appeared to have been forgotten for years. His brothers wanted the task to be done and favored throwing things out, but my dad, bless his heart, would not dispose of anything that he did not understand. He took those oddities home and put them in his closet. Years later he showed them to me and my (then new) husband.

One of the items was a rather weird bent looking old wooden and metal tool. I say bent, but it was all angles on purpose. We were curious and the guys turned it and fiddled with it and became even more intrigued, sharing a bonding experience of discovery. There were clues: markings and names engraved on the metal parts, the most useful of which was a date which read ‘PAT. MAY 21, 1901’. My husband figured out how to search the US Patents on-line (the internet was pretty new then) and how to order the patent itself. One day a FAX arrived, and for the nominal fee of $6, I had the full documentation on this rarity in my hot little hands.

It was classified as a Combination Tool and boasted the ability, through various contortions and inter-changeable parts, to function as at least nine different tools: a plain monkey and pipe wrench, a long-handled screwdriver, an S-wrench, a carpenter’s brace, a vertical or horizontal bench-vise, a plain short screwdriver, a glass cutter and ‘such other useful adaptations as the combination and arrangement of parts will permit.’ With the detailed drawings and descriptions we were then able to show my dad how it all worked and a mystery was solved. It seems my great-grandfather must have brought it with him from the USA as a homesteader in 1902.

As discussed last month, the markings on your heirlooms can provide a lot of clues; patent numbers and dates are among the most informative, if you can figure out the country of origin. In this case it was easy, as another marking mentioned Leesburg, Virginia. Different countries have various methods of numbering and filing patents, so even though it is now much easier to find things out with the help of the internet, you may still have to search and puzzle over things. It can certainly be worth investigating those old mysterious objects, lingering in forgotten niches. Perhaps you will uncover a hidden treasure and the ghost of a story.

This article was originally printed in the Bergen News and is being reprinted with permission.