I have this wrench and on it it has these words "RiverSide"

[GOPAPA]

so being curious I looked it up and find that it's a Montgomery Wards Wrench

I used to have a few Monkey Wards Wrenches(what my dad used to call Wards Stores) and gave them to my son.. I seen a set of 3 on Ebay and they wanted $30 for them ............and I thought mine was a .50-wrench one finds at garage sales

How many do you have in your tool chest?

[Stocker]

I don't own any, but I recognized the name as a Monkey Wards brand before I read your post. Haven't heard about Riverside tools in several years!

[Ol Blue K20]

I have several "Riverside tools". They came from my grandfathers box....good ol Montgomery wards.

[davischevy]

Riverside stuck a chord immediately. It was the Wal Mart of the fifties and sixties. The store was on the west side of the town square here. They had an open shed out in the alley where they mounted tires.

I don't have any Monkey Ward items. Interesting how fast things are forgotten.

[GOPAPA]

This is the name I seen as a teenager and into my 20ies

Globemaster

I copied this below as when I was looking up Globemaster ,,this is what I was looking for as how I remembered the tools .. I would see the tools at the end of grocery Isles a lot. and all I knew of were from Japan

Made In West Germany.
Made in Japan.
Made in Italy.
Made in the USA.
Made in Sheffield England.
Made in India.

I am sure I am missing a few more places, but these are off the top of my head; as far as quality you can think of the Harbor freight of their day.

[100%Chevy]

Originally Posted by GOPAPA

This is the name I seen as a teenager and into my 20ies

Globemaster

I copied this below as when I was looking up Globemaster ,,this is what I was looking for as how I remembered the tools .. I would see the tools at the end of grocery Isles a lot. and all I knew of were from Japan

Made In West Germany.
Made in Japan.
Made in Italy.
Made in the USA.
Made in Sheffield England.
Made in India.

I am sure I am missing a few more places, but these are off the top of my head; as far as quality you can think of the Harbor freight of their day.

I remember auto parts stores had a big bucket sitting on the counter with Globe Master tools in it.They were from .25 cents up!
Only good for one use!
Mike.

[special-K]

Riverside was Montgomery Wards' counter to Sears' Allstate & Craftsman brands. I remember Riverside oil, tires, mag wheels, mini bikes, and even motorcycles. I think the motorcycles were Benellis



Globemaster had those bins near the register for the suburbanite Mr. Fix-it impulse buyers. Probably more of those were found in the kitchen "junk drawer" than any tool box. It became the name to call any low-grade tool*. When a tool failed in use it got called "Globemaster junk!". My dad bought a few things and even as a kid I could see that stuff wasn't worthy of the task. Think the other end of the spectrum from Snap-On. More like Snap-Off

* That and Handy Andy for carpentry tools

[Sheepdip]

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...9&d=1570352827

Yes ...the Wards Riverside (Benelli's) 2 stroke motor bikes had a sound all their own.

[special-K]

You forget just how far it went with what they offered back then.

[special-K]

How about a snow machine?

[100%Chevy]

Originally Posted by special-K

You forget just how far it went with what they offered back then.

I have that riding mower on the top left!
8 hp Briggs engine with electric and pull start (a car battery goes in under the hood).
When you raise or lower the deck,engine and deck goes up or down together!
Mike.

[midniteblues]

Heres my '71 montgomery wards t555 trailmaster

[davischevy]

Originally Posted by 100%Chevy

I have that riding mower on the top left!
8 hp Briggs engine with electric and pull start (a car battery goes in under the hood).
When you raise or lower the deck,engine and deck goes up or down together!
Mike.

I don't know the date of that catalog, but at $529.00 I know now why we mowed moved with a push mower.

[special-K]

You just reminded me of my younger days at home with the folks. I did the mowing like many kids did back then. No pay, it was what I did to help because you help your family. Anyway, what I remember other than that work teaching me responsibility, is all we ever had were crapped out hand me down mowers I had to get going and keep going. I guess that's where I first started mechanics. I used to stand by watching and helping my dad. I always think of that as my entering into mechanics, but getting the mower running was a job I did by myself when dad wasn't around. I remember what it was like the first time we got one with an automatic start chord, long after all mowers were sold that way. Even mowers that had that, by the time we got it that was pulled off and started by rope you hung on the bars

[1976gmc20]

started by rope you hung on the bars

Yeah, I remember mowers that you had to stick the knot in the slot and wind around the pulley.

I had a Cat pony motor that started that way!

[davischevy]

Cat pony motor. Now there is a memory.

[1976gmc20]

Originally Posted by davischevy

Cat pony motor. Now there is a memory.

Yeah, mostly bad ones

Finally traded it off for a big ole 1958 Chevy boom truck with a huge PTO winch.

[davischevy]

I never actually started a Cat with a pony motor, but when I was kid my dad had some land cleared by our house. The old guy would come in the cool mornings and go through the "ritual" of starting that Caterpillar. I stood hanging on the fence watching for all that smoke.

[A1971Blazer]

Got this old buzz box from an estate...basically free

plugged it and flipped the switch...welds like a pro...

[Liz]

Originally Posted by davischevy

Riverside stuck a chord immediately. It was the Wal Mart of the fifties and sixties. The store was on the west side of the town square here. They had an open shed out in the alley where they mounted tires.

I don't have any Monkey Ward items. Interesting how fast things are forgotten.

We did not have any on Long island a bit after that. When I was 13, my uncle from Va sent me a gift card for MW. I had no idea what it even was. Had to call, get a catalog sent and order that way. Not tool related but kinda neat how long it survived

[special-K]

I remember only big cities had Sears and Montgomery Wards. Small cities got catalog stores. A place to go order. They'd have a showroom with a sampling of products. Some of the first mail order I guess. Many houses on Main St. in Mt. Airy are Sears house packages. It's a whistle stop town, so railway delivery right down the street. I just did work on a 1925 Sears vacation cabin this summer. These places sold pretty much everything

[Liz]

We had Sears and the catalog store lol. When I lived in Fayetteville in the 90s we had a catalog store too.

[100%Chevy]

Last Sears we had was a catalog order center with displays.Gone now.
There were a lot of small chain stores back then trying to compete with Sears and J.C.Penny.
Western Auto,Whites and W.T. Grant were all around here at the same time.
I believe Western Auto is still in business.
I got my first tool box and football uniform at Western Auto on their Lay-A-Way program.
Mike.

[1976gmc20]

Sears terminated their catalog sales/stores somewhere around 1993.

There had been a Sears catalog store for decades in the western slope town where we used to live. The folks down on the corner from us bought the franchise store from the previous owners who were retiring I suppose. About a month or two later, Sears shut down all the catalog stores and they were left holding the bag for a loan on a business that no longer existed. Somehow they scrambled and got a Coast to Coast franchise and then later were able to build a new building.

I don't know what happened after we left, but their "new" building is something else now - maybe a paint store?

[davischevy]

Originally Posted by Liz

We did not have any on Long island a bit after that. When I was 13, my uncle from Va sent me a gift card for MW. I had no idea what it even was. Had to call, get a catalog sent and order that way. Not tool related but kinda neat how long it survived

MW had nothing to do with it, but I had a 1970 Chevelle SS for 18 years. I did a frame off restoration on it and sold it in 1988 to a collector, it went through a couple of auction's and ended up on Long Island.