# Utica vise? and Hello.



## on_the_hill (Oct 3, 2015)

Hello everyone. First time poster, just joined. 

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me about the vise in the attached picture. 

Recently my elderly, long-widowed mother sold her house. The vise was attached to my late father's monster of a workbench. I used it when I was growing up, and since the bench wasn't moving, I took the vise with me when we were packing up. 

I don't care much about the value or quality of the vise. I intend to use it to make sawdust. 

But I am curious about it. I checked around the 'net and didn't come up with anything. It looks like it says Utica. Definitely says 198 USA.


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## woodchux (Jul 6, 2014)

First, Welcome here to this very friendly WW forum, where there is always room for one more. Your bench vice was likely made in the early 1900's by the Utica Drop Forge & Tool Co. of New York, that manufactured a variety of tools such as pliers, adjustable wrenches, chisels, & punches for Montgomery Ward, and other tool companies. The diamond /Utica stamp was the company logo, & the 198 was probably the design item. Thanks for sharing, and be safe.


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## on_the_hill (Oct 3, 2015)

Thank you, woodchux.


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## on_the_hill (Oct 3, 2015)

Update: Looks like I was wrong about it being a Utica. :huh: It's almost certainly a Littco. My eyes aren't _that _bad, so I'm blaming it on poor casting.


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## on_the_hill (Oct 3, 2015)

As a follow-up: I emailed Littlestown Foundry and got an answer. They didn't record dates of manufacture for the vises. They were made between the late 1940s and 1989. If my dad bought it new, it would have been made in the late 1960s.


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## k9scooter (Mar 5, 2014)

you could have it glass bead blasted and start using it!


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## on_the_hill (Oct 3, 2015)

Heck, I'm going to use it as is as soon as I get it mounted.


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