ParadiseRoad
Member
...we have a Winchester hatchet that my wife inherited from her Grandfather...
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...Winchester's Diversified Product Line From Long Ago...
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Jack Flash
SWCA Member
I really need a pair of Winchester roller skates! 
Sadly, there are still a lot of products with the Winchester name, but they are cheap junk. Example: cheap knives at Walmart. Apparently, Winchester sold the rights to its name to some organization that pumps out junk.
Sadly, there are still a lot of products with the Winchester name, but they are cheap junk. Example: cheap knives at Walmart. Apparently, Winchester sold the rights to its name to some organization that pumps out junk.
LoboGunLeather
US Veteran
Somewhere around here I have an old brass-bodied padlock with the Winchester trademark on it. Probably pre-WW2. Never had the key, but I figured out that it is a 3-pin lever-lock type and I can open it with my old lockpick set if I have a few minutes to play at it.
My mom had a Winchester flashlight. She knew nothing about guns, I think she picked the flashlight up at a "rummage sale" at church. But I thought it was cool when I was a kid. She still had it when she passed away, and I think one of my boys has it now. Not very efficient by modern flashlight standards, but has a lot of sentimental value.
Best Regards, Les
Best Regards, Les
DWalt
Member
After WWI, Winchester got into the retail hardware store chain business in a big way, and that's where all those Winchester tools, skates, and flashlights came from. Unfortunately, it was a financial disaster and very nearly torpedoed the company. Laura Trevelyan's book "The Winchester - The Gun That Built An American Dynasty" covers that ill-fated venture in considerable detail. It also provides the true story of the Sara Winchester house. Most everything you have ever read or heard about Sara Winchester and her mystery house is much more myth than fact. Laura Trevelyan, the author, was Oliver Winchester's great-great-great granddaughter.
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Valmet
Member
Very cool Paradiseroad. My uncle, who collects Winchester Model 61s has a handful of old Winchester fishing gear. Vintage outdoors stuff is just cool any way you look at it.
kalei
Member
I toured the Winchester house back in 1946, I was 10 and the place fascinated me.
OP
ParadiseRoad
Member
...I've been there too...
...I checked out the gun collection while my wife toured the house...
There is a book on the Winchester Company. It isn't a easy read but I forced myself to read it. It goes heavy into diversification moves that Win made. They bought up companies and tried a string of Win Hardware stores and tried to force other stores to handle their products or not get Win guns. Also the weird in house bidding by employees to build contract lots of guns. I have come across a lot of Win items at yard sales. I'm not into collecting that stuff so I clean it up and put it in with my stuff at gun auction. It always brings good money. I've had axes I paid $1 for bring $150 at auction. A lot of the Win tools are laying around in yard sales and they are just a $1 rusty wrench. It's one of the few things that are still sleepers.
ACORN
Member
Somewhere I have a Winchester clay bird thrower
DWalt
Member
"Also the weird in house bidding by employees to build contract lots of guns."
Not weird at the time. The so-called "inside contracting" model was common across the manufacturing industries (not just guns) in the USA for quite a while in the 19th and early 20th centuries. S&W also used it.
Basically, a manufacturing company such as Winchester contracted with someone like a foreman, who then hired, paid, and supervised his own production crew to work inside the company's plant. There could be, and often were, different contractors (or subcontractors) for each department of the plant (e.g., woodworking shop, metal finishing shop, assembly shop, etc). Few, if any, of the production workers were actually employed by the company itself, and the workers were paid on a piecework basis by the "foreman" who was in turn paid by the company based on the output of his crew. So the "foreman" had to keep close track of each day's production and how much output each of his workers produced. He was the absolute ruler of his crew. The needle trades were notorious for their brutal inside contracting practices and terrible working conditions, as most workers were poor immigrant women who had no rights or power at all. The early pre-union meatpacking industry was even worse (see Upton Sinclair's 1906 book The Jungle). Modern employment concepts such as a minimum wage, job security, fringe benefits, medical coverage, sick days, and vacations were virtually unheard of at the time for most production workers in most companies. If you couldn't work for any reason, or couldn't reach your production quota, you were simply replaced immediately by someone who could, entirely at the whim of the contractor. It was a sink or swim world. The unionization movement pretty well stopped the practice. A brief Wiki article on the topic: Inside contracting - Wikipedia
Not weird at the time. The so-called "inside contracting" model was common across the manufacturing industries (not just guns) in the USA for quite a while in the 19th and early 20th centuries. S&W also used it.
Basically, a manufacturing company such as Winchester contracted with someone like a foreman, who then hired, paid, and supervised his own production crew to work inside the company's plant. There could be, and often were, different contractors (or subcontractors) for each department of the plant (e.g., woodworking shop, metal finishing shop, assembly shop, etc). Few, if any, of the production workers were actually employed by the company itself, and the workers were paid on a piecework basis by the "foreman" who was in turn paid by the company based on the output of his crew. So the "foreman" had to keep close track of each day's production and how much output each of his workers produced. He was the absolute ruler of his crew. The needle trades were notorious for their brutal inside contracting practices and terrible working conditions, as most workers were poor immigrant women who had no rights or power at all. The early pre-union meatpacking industry was even worse (see Upton Sinclair's 1906 book The Jungle). Modern employment concepts such as a minimum wage, job security, fringe benefits, medical coverage, sick days, and vacations were virtually unheard of at the time for most production workers in most companies. If you couldn't work for any reason, or couldn't reach your production quota, you were simply replaced immediately by someone who could, entirely at the whim of the contractor. It was a sink or swim world. The unionization movement pretty well stopped the practice. A brief Wiki article on the topic: Inside contracting - Wikipedia
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An era that has passed and will never be understood by younger generations! Sad!
I bought a Winchester iron at an estate auction here in town years ago. the cord is a little frayed so I've never ironed with it. lee
Farmer17
Member
In the 1960s I got a Winchester target pellet pistol for Christmas and it was one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten in my life. It was extremely accurate and had a very light trigger and I was an incredible shot with it, I would love to have another one.
