William Marples and Sons Ltd …..a study still in progress
This site is dedicated to what was the foremost tool manufacturing firm in Sheffield, England for over 200 years.
I will endeavour to explore for you the tools, catalogues, marks and history of this Company, due to my 50 years total interest in this firm and its wares .
BUT, please be advised that this site will not present as a slick professional ‘computer expert’ type site. There will never be any flashing adverts to endure that try to induce you to buy ‘whatever rubbish’; no cunning use of colour to dazzle your brain and certainly no links to any Facebook, Twitter, Twatter, etc, or any other foolish ‘modern’ contrivances.
Here you will only have to endure just plain old facts, figures, much talk and many photographs pertaining to that great firm. And occasionally my inane banter!
Of necessity I will be limiting my research and reporting only to Woodworking Tools provisionally, but you may still find small amounts of MARPLES information that cross the boundaries with other categories of hand tools.
I have collected almost every catalogue that MARPLES issued and I therefore now have the ability to research and produce studies about most MARPLES tools. This collection of catalogues has taken me so many years to acquire and a good deal of my hard earned income and now pension. But I still search today for those that I do not possess and from which I can draw information in order to further my reporting to this site.
So if you have a MARPLES Catalogue to sell, please contact me first and I will pay you the best price that you may receive for it.
See the ‘Catalogues‘ section/page.
Always contact me using the ‘Contact’ page at the top of the screen. I am most diligent at answering emails