Parker Bench Vises

[edgarspencer]

Bill Bolyard and I were talking about Parker vises, but others may have some interest in them also.
My paternal grandfather was born in Meriden (as was my father) and after high school, went to work for the Parker family, apprenticing in the foundry, as a pattern maker initially, but eventually taking over the melting dept. He left Meriden Mfg in 1916, and with his cousin, bought the Connecticut Foundry Co, in Rocky Hill CT.
Most bench vises actually made in the Meriden Mfg. Co foundry are long gone, because, as the story goes, they weren't very good at Ductile and Malleable Iron, so concentrated on grey iron for their own product lines as well as many outside customers. Connecticut Foundry produced most of the castings for Parkers, until my grandfather and his cousin split up the partnership. The castings were briefly made in Wethersfield, just up the road from Rocky Hill, and only 2 towns up from Meriden. In 1923, my grandfather bought out Booth, of the Philbrick-Booth Foundry Company, in Hartford, when it became Philbrick, Booth & Spencer, Inc. The Parker vise casting business followed him and the ductile iron castings were made there until the early 1940s.
The patterns pictured were made well before the practice of lacquer painting patterns with black for as-cast surfaces, red for machined surfaces, and yellow for core prints (the part of the pattern that made the impression into which the cores were placed). PBS went into the steel casting business in 1960, and poured their last cast iron in 1970, concentrating on all grades of cast steel and stainless steel. I am the last of 7 generations of foundry Spencers. PBS closed in 1999.