Introduction

Bob’s Collection of Small Ice Tools

Picks, Chippers, Crushers,

Shaves, Signs, and other Related Items

The collection is presented for your enjoyment. I don’t claim to be an expert on ice tools and will welcome any constructive comments and try to answer questions. Enjoy.

Use the Links below to search the different categories

To search through the collection use the links below, or those found in the Site Map If you would rather go through the collection in a series fashion, there is a link at the end of each page linking to the next page

Patented Ice Tools

Patent Identification Book

What’s New

These items are ice tools collected over the last few months. Each tool will also be integrated into the applicable pages throughout the site. Use the link below to see the new finds.

Ice Picks

Other Materials Handles

Ice Chippers

Multi- Picks

Bladed

Ice Cube Reducers

Ice Cube Chippers

Ice Cube Crushers

Containers to Crush Ice

Ice Shaves

Box Ice Shave

Scoop/Bowl & Other Shaves

Other Related Tools & Items

Special Groupings

Patented Tools

1850-1904

1905-1935

1936-Present

Tools with a Spring in Handle

Tools with Sliding Handle or Weight

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Introduction

This collection of small hand held ice tools has been assembled and refined since early 1990’s. When starting most of the collection items were found in antique shops and flea markets, locally and during travels through out the States. More recently sources have been the internet, i.e., eBay, and antique shows.

The collection started with a single ice pick having a different and unusual handle. I originally thought a couple dozen items would have a pretty good collection - little did I know where it would lead! The more I looked, the more different types of ice tools and other ice related items, such as chippers, shaves, crushers, tongs, signs, etc. were found. The more I collected the more I developed a better appreciation of the different varieties of ice working tools. There are approximately 800 items with almost 1300 pictures and illustrations presented.

Since one item may look the same size as another, but actually may be significantly different due to the scaling of each photo, the length or size of each item is provided. Some of the items may appear more than once. For example, each tool in the Patented, Spring-in-Handle, and Sliding Handle/Weight Groups is also listed in at least one other group.

Top of the Document

The Book for Identification of Patented Hand-Held Ice-Reducing Tools

A must-have book for ice tool collectors. The book is very informative and provides addition information about the patents, the patentees, and other relative information regarding small patented ice-reducing tools. More details regarding the book are shown below with a picture of the cover and short summary of the contents. Following that is a picture of a typical page, and a copy of item A5 covered in the book. Many of the ice tools in this collection are shown in the Book

Book Cover

'Patented Ice-Reducing Tools, An Identification Guide for Hand-Held Picks, Chippers, Crushers, and Shaves'. The first and only book about hand-held ice tools used to reduce the large blocks of ice. Bound hard cover, 330 pages containing over 800 photographs and illustrations including examples from five extensive collections. Over 325 patents for these tools are explained. Index of all individuals and companies named in the book. There are copies still available. The cover photo of the book and a sample page and write-up of A5 are shown. The hardcopy version of the book is out of print.

(toolman@edoppler.com)

Typical Page Layout

Item Number A5 of Chapter 4 - Ice Picks and Chippers

A5. Free-falling metal handle and guide strikes pick. Patent number 23,969 was issued on May 10, 1859 to Milton, Howard, Henry T., and Joseph White of Philadelphia, PA for the concept of a freely sliding pointed shaft within a metal tube with a hollow metal ball fastened to the top of the tube. The pick is held against the ice by grasping the shaft near the point, and the handle is raised and released. When it hits the end of the shaft it drives the point into the ice. The patent drawing is shown in Figure A5 (handle & guide tube screw together, pick shaft slides within) and a marked example is shown in Figure A5a. The example has an iron head on a brass guide tube and the point is four-sided. The guide tube is marked M. WHITE & BROS. PHILA. PAT MAY 10 1859 as shown in the close-up at the bottom of the figure. Cope9 illustrates a pick identical to the example shown in Figure A5a but marked C. S. OSBORNE & CO. It was offered in Osborne’s 1911 catalog as WHITE’S sliding ice pick. Osborne was located in Newark, N.J. and was a manufacturer known for leather tools as well as many other types of tools.

There also were several variations made incorporating this patent, four of which are shown in Figure A5b. All of these variants have the head and guide tube as one piece. In the photograph, two of the variants have their picks pushed back into the handle and two have them extended their full length but all are about of equal length when extended.

Figure A5. White’s Patent Drawing.

Figure A5a. Marked example of White’s Patent (BN)

Figure A5b. Four variants of White’s patent.

Cope9 illustrates a pick that appears identical to the third pick down in Figure A5b. It was made by ESTES & CO. of Nashua, NH and introduced as the POLAR ice pick in 1895. Cope also indicates that the Nashua Iron & Brass Foundry Co., Nashua, NH, made and introduced in 1899 a similar sliding ram ice pick called the WHITE MOUNTAIN ice pick.