£218 Shovel!

[Rhyolith]

Found another addition to my growing collection of Spear & Jackson "Neverbend" stuff. This time a shovel in really nice condition, it only needed a quick go over with the power brush, buffer and some linseed oil.

Spear & Jackson Shovel "Neverbend" No.2 by Rhyolith, on Flickr
Spear & Jackson Shovel "Neverbend" No.2 by Rhyolith, on Flickr
Spear & Jackson Shovel "Neverbend" No.2 by Rhyolith, on Flickr

Andy helpfully provided a link to a S&J 1923 catalog in my other thread about the spade (nice-old-s-j-spade-t105270.html), so I was able to find it listed there! I think its either a London or Navvy pattern, but only the london one is pictured (looks right to be this one).

Assuming it is the London Pattern, it cost 83/6 in 1923. Now I tried to do some maths (hammer) 83/6 = £4.175 which using this converter: http://inflation.stephenmorley.org comes out as £218 (rounded up)! Now I expected it to be expensive, but like £80... I consider myself a poor mathematician so maybe I have made a mistake? Or maybe it really is that expensive.

 

[MrTeroo]

£218 sounds there or thereabouts (I make 83/6 to be around £4.18?)

http://inflation.stephenmorley.org/

 

[Cheshirechappie]

A lot of the old catalogues were intended for retailers, so quoted wholesale prices, and often gave the price per dozen. Checking the S&J catalogue, it does indeed price per dozen (indicated by the 'doz' at the end of the line of prices), which would make the wholesale price about £18.16 apiece. Allowing something like a 100% mark-up for the retailer, that would price them at something like £36 to the final buyer - which is not far off today's price for a good quality shovel!

 

[NazNomad]

Let me use it for a day, I reckon I'll bend it. :-D

 

[nabs]

garden tools may be the last frontier of the truly astonishing old tool bargains - you can still get top of the range S&J, brades, Elwell etc for far less than a much lower quality equivalent from B&Q.

Once I cottoned on to this I eventually replaced my entire gardening set with Elwell tools (which are the best , natch!) and they have survived years of garden and allotment abuse and still look as good as new - they will see out another 5 or 6 generations I think!.

 

[Rhyolith]

Let me use it for a day, I reckon I'll bend it. :-D

I would test them like they show in the catalog if they were't so irreplacable. From what I have seen though (mainly bent & abused spades for sale at car boots) this range does live up to its name, though I have only see 3 of them (all of which, I bought).

garden tools may be the last frontier of the truly astonishing old tool bargains - you can still get top of the range S&J, brades, Elwell etc for far less than a much lower quality equivalent from B&Q.

Once I cottoned on to this I eventually replaced my entire gardening set with Elwell tools (which are the best , natch!) and they have survived years of garden and allotment abuse and still look as good as new - they will see out another 5 or 6 generations I think!.

A lot of people talk highly of Elwell, I know their axes are good. I have a shovel similar to this and a small spade that need cleaning up, will see how they compared to the S&J Neverbends once I get round to them.

I got this shovel for £1, so you might be right!

 

[Tom K]

Man maths at its best ! 83/6 for a dozen means it was 7/- or 35p wholesale, I don't think goods were marked up 100% something in the back of my mind says 33% was standard but I could have made that up. Plus purchase tax I expect.