In the heart of Philadelphia's older industrial section, stands a building that was once used as both a factory and a warehouse. When the owner died recently, a contractor was hired to clean it out. Most of what he found was put in the dumpsters, destined for oblivion. But one thing, in much better condition than the rest of the garbage, stood out. The contractor recognized it as an old tool that was used to drill holes. As he had the right to “dump or keep”, he took the tool home with him. It was the only one he found.
He decided to sell it on eBay, and it went much higher than he expected. As far as he was concerned, his adventure into the computer world was a great success.

The eBay gods blessed me, as I was the winner of this spectacular brace. It is a signed American Sheffield-style plated brace (John Booth & Son, Philada.) with neck, plates, chuck, and head plug all German silver. It has decorative knurling on the silver, and decorative beading on the wood. The head is carved ivory! The internal mechanism in the neck is a patent that provides for no wobble or play when turning. AND, are you ready for this? The brace is made of gorgeous boxwood , without a check, knot or stain! Yes, I said boxwood, the Holy Grail of Sheffield-style braces, because the shrub almost never gets big enough to make a plated brace from it. I will offer the proofs on the wood, metal, ivory, and internal mechanism as we go along.

Ivory carved head

After gathering credible information from Philadelphia brace collectors and the Smithsonian Institute, my considered opinion (along with others) is that this piece was an exhibition brace by John Booth & Son for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the largest World's Fair of its kind at that time. The display of hand tools was held in the Main Building, which was 1880 feet by 464 feet! (See litho.)

To give you a little background on the fierce competition amongst manufacturers at the time, let's go back to 1851 when American companies competed for the first time with England in the Crystal Palace Exposition in London. Some of our best in the toolmaking, gunmaking and machinery industries took on the world, and came away unexpectedly at the top!! This competitive attitude was maintained to even a greater degree when the top manufacturing countries in the world had a chance to show their stuff at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876.

With this caliber of competition, was it any wonder that two brace manufactures, in their home town of Philadelphia, were not going to let anyone from Europe beat them out? It would seem that John Booth and Edward Mills, each, wanted to be the one to show the world that the best brace was Made in U.S.A.

Now to present the case for its originality: First, let's take the head. Is it ivory or bone? Bone is much more open grain, with dark striations here and there. Ivory has smooth, close grain, and very little (if any) striations. This head has extremely fine grain (30-40 lines per inch), no striations, and is smooth as glass. And lastly - Booth Mills & Co., E. Mills & Co., and John Booth & Son, all used ivory for their heads on their special premier braces, and this brace was no exception.

But, was it carved during original manufacture, or later by an owner? That one is tricky. I drew an outline of what the head would have had to look like if it were just a plain uncarved contour in the final manufactured condition. To accommodate the outer extremities of the existing carving, it would have been much larger than the designs of other heads, particularly those by the Philadelphia makers. I measured the largest diameter of 25 Sheffield heads (American and English), and none came close to this projected diameter. It surprised me that all 25 were very close to the average diameter. To me, if the head of this brace was not carved, its' extra large size would have definitely looked out of proportion.

In addition to the above, and probably more important, was the fact that Edward Mills and John Booth were once partners (in Booth & Mills), but were separate companies at the time of the Centennial. They were most likely going for bragging rights for the best brace at the Centennial. Booth may have felt that Mills would make an ivory head. And as rosewood bodies were done before in American braces, it made sense that Mills might go up a step to ebony (almost unknown for American braces).

The answer: -- do him one better by making a carved ivory head and a body out of a near impossible species of wood - boxwood !! In the 1851 Crystal Palace Exposition, the English submitted braces of kingwood, rosewood, ebony, and the least common of all - boxwood. They also had two with plain ivory heads. But they did not have the rarest body wood in combination with the rarest head. I think Booth was determined to have just that.

The Smithsonian records show that Edward Mills did make an ivory-headed brace (uncarved) with an ebony body for the Centennial. It had inside and outside plates in addition to the regular side plates. It was spectacular! He must have thought that it would be the piece-de-resistance for the display. Little did he suspect that he would be outdone, both in the body wood and in the ivory head. The Smithsonian had the E.Mills brace on display from about 1976 to 1998. But there is no record of what happened to the Booth brace. Hopefully, this article will help to unearth some evidence to solve the mystery of its disappearance

So now, what about the boxwood? Is it truly boxwood? How could they get a shrub that some texts state only gets to 8” in diameter, to cut out a board that was big enough for the body of the brace? First of all, I have found texts that have boxwood getting to 12” in diameter. Unusual, but it happens. It is easy to lay out the board necessary to make the brace from the 12” (or even less) diameter. And it need not go through the weak pith (dead center of the tree). The rings on this brace follow this layout perfectly (complete with the same ring-angle relationship to centerline) and as such the brace keeps its structural strength. Second, if you are going for that “killer” piece, you would go after a species that very few others were able to use for this type brace.

But the truth of the pudding is in the tasting. The macrosection of the wood (from inside the chuck area) showed the pores and rays as boxwood (not even close to maple or beech); the yellowish-color was just like other boxwood tools that I own; and the 30 plus rings per inch are not found in very many other species (certainly not fruitwood). Also, everyone that I showed the brace to, that had any degree of wood knowledge, said it was boxwood -- and without hesitation I might add.

Next was the German silver. That was the easiest, silvery in color with the slightest wisp of a yellowish hue, particularly when oxidized. German silver (which has no silver in it at all ), is an alloy of copper that has varying percentages of nickel and zinc, sometimes with lead or tin, based upon whose cooking it up. No question about this one, particularly in light of the fact that many of the brace makers (and rule makers) used German silver. Sanding it under the plates proved that it was not plated brass, and a magnet proved that it was not plated iron. The heavy green oxidation under the plates proved that it was not Sterling or nickel.

The internal mechanism that locks the head to the spindle has a threaded stabilizer plug, with a set screw in the center of it. The screw is adjusted to bear slightly on the tip of the spindle. This prevents wobble, and can be readjusted for wear. It was a design that originally came from Brown & Wells (Sheffield) and was called “The Anti-Friction Brace”. Because of this feature on Booth's brace, the head and neck run so true that you can't even tell they are moving when you give it a good spin.

Another interesting piece of engineering was the thread on the spindle that goes into the body. In almost every Sheffield brace that I have taken apart, it is a low pitch thread, most often tapered to give better locking power. This one was ground square, after the threads were formed, and it acted as a tap and reamer combination to make the female cavity fit the male thread to an exact profile! It is another piece of evidence that the design requirements for this brace demanded the absolute BEST.

When I found that “yacht brace”, that I wrote about a few months back, I thought I would never find a better or more interesting one. This one is not only better, but it represents a great piece of American history and workmanship. Without a doubt, this is my finest hour in tool collecting.