What Was YOUR First Tool Set?

Nikki, your dad's C clamp deserves a place of honor up on your garage wall. It's really cool!
Did he stamp his name in it?

The best way for me to honor Dad's handy-work is to use it. I know Dad would not like to have a "monument" to his having passed this way. My wall space is reserved for provocative pictures.

I can vouch for that! hehehe

MM you sure have some neat old tools. When I was doing Heavy haul, I didn't think about taking pictures of the loads I hauled, they were just "work" and there was plenty of them, Now I wish I had. It is the same with tools, I had (and still have) plenty, but to document or make a museum of the tools of the trade is going to get harder and harder to do. I am glad someone is collecting and sharing the pictures of what it took to get the job done!
I knew a house mover who said the same, he did a lot of interesting stuff, most of which is not done anymore, but never "documented" it in pictures because it was just "all in a days work". I could listen to his stories of the "old days, moving houses" for hours. He is gone now, and so is the record of what he did.

CB, thank you for your kind words.
I'm gaining an even more increased respect for mechanics of yore. Some of these early tools are so heavy and clunky. A new Snap-On ratchet is a marvel in comparison.
I do find that certain manufacturers made exquisite tools way back when. Tools that I would be proud to use today.
"Truth" seems to be one of those brands. I have a Truth socket that is marvelously svelte. Williams tools are just as nice.
BOG tools of Chicago seems to have made everything on a lathe and then knurled them. Kinda like if I just decided to make sockets all of a sudden. They have a homemade yet very old timey look to them.
Anything Weaver, Manley, OTC, Plomb/ Proto is heavy duty. S-K, too.
It's evident that Snap-On just "got it" from the earliest days and even their earliest tools show signs of genius.
Snap-On tools are nearly as valuable used as they are new.
Old Blackhawk tools evidently have a following. I purchased an early "diesel mechanic's" box online and nearly fainted at what some people want for 1920s Blackhawk tool sets.
Yes, I agree that so much knowledge and experience gets wasted with the passing of each generation.

The guy I worked with at the bus company was always designing and building tools. He made a tool to pull a 1/4" pop rivet in one motion and was working on an air tool to drill and pull a rivet with one tool. He once "ported and polished" the air cambers on a 3/8" impact. When he got done, it would snap a 1/2" bolt with ease, he got kind of scared of it, with that much power in an aluminum impact, one had to wonder if it would hold together?
I've made a few of my own, mostly for pullers, for pulling a certain item, like a torque hub off a machine, but they were always crude looking assemblies, nothing nice. The Germans were very good about putting threaded holes for "jack screws" in things, The Brits did some of that but not to the extent of the German stuff I worked on. The US mfg rarely thought about the poor mechanic trying to get a part off.
On a M.A.N. (Graff-Stief) Bus, if you needed to tow it for some reason, there was a big Allen plug in the torque hub, remove the plug and thread a bolt into the axle shaft, and pull it out, then replace the plug, at the front of the bus was an air connection that would fill the air suspension and allow you to release the brakes, and you were ready to tow. No jacking it up and trying to pull a driveshaft. Well thought out and easy to do.

Dean Ashby's house moving Dart

If I didn't know better it could be a WWIi shot.
What an impressive truck, and in color!

your close, the Dart was built for clearing runways of crashed planes during WW2, Dean said when you hooked the winch to something, either you were going to move it or break something! I forget all the spec's but it was 10'-11" wide and quite tall. Had a large Waukasha running on Butane IIRC. His Dad bought it surplus after the war and had no problem moving just about anything. 6X6 and in soft ground he said it was real easy to twist an axle shaft in two. It is older and bigger than my Dart.
He also had a chain drive Mack that they would winch onto the back of the Dart (piggy back style) and pull the chains to run between jobs. I lost alot of the pictures he sent me when my old computer died.
The pic is from the early-mid 50's I would guess.

Reminds me of the TV Show Gold Rush's Oshkosh: very impressive!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshkosh_M1070