Tinsmith Museum of America

Preserving the Past in the Present for the Future

  • Jiles Mabe

  • May & Co

    From the 1853 Massachusette Register One of our first acquisitions was this piece from Samuel May & Co. They were a company in Boston MA that sold A W Whitney Machines. The cast iron top is stamped A W Whitney and the MAY & CO BOSTON is on the handle near the journal or box.…

  • World Wide Pandemic

    Covid has hit us hard. We were in talks with a local sheet metal shop to rent out a small portion of their building. Max had made plans for the renovation but due to the shutdown we will postpone that brick and mortar opening.

  • Robin Hood tinware

    This pair of sconces were made by Robin Hood from Rockbridge, Ohio. Visit their store at http://www.robinhoodtinware.com/ordering-Information.html    

  • Ned James

    At Saratoga County Museum

  • Charles Hartwell

    Charles Hartwell died February 5, 2019. He was born April 18, 1934. He was the tinsmith and collector of curious objects at Pioneer Arizona. He was making reflector ovens in Arizona and shipping them to Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. He was the author of “Simple Things” about Shaker tinware and was a tinsmith at…

  • The Postcard

    To be immortalized on a postcard was like going viral in the modern days. This is Bruce Panek from the Ohio Village Tinshop in 1982. This is a teapot he made that is stamped B PANEK COLUMBUS O.

  • Circle Cutter

    for #numbers The Waugh patent circle cutter has numbers 2 to 7 at 1 inch apart so it is the radius and the Newton circle cutter has numbers from 3 to 14 every half inch so it is not a ruler but rather the diameter of a circle.

  • Our Most Valuable Object

    For the keyword #valuable. While most tools can be found on eBay for about $100 this is something worth more. A stock certificate from Roys & Wilcox Company for 6 shares. It dates from 1855. $48 dollars in 1855 is worth $3325.43 today. We don’t have anything else worth that.

  • Our Favorite Objects

    Our favorite objects are Tin Snips. In our collection of brand marked pre-1870 snips we only have one pair that are duplicates. Some day we would like to deaccession the extra pair in trade for something we do not have.  

Got any tool recommendations?