‘Secret museum’ collection hammers home hardware store owner’s love of tools
With hundreds of items spanning two centuries, it is a private collection that could be a real wrench for the owner to put on public display.
Former hardware shop owner Val Pearson has stored the tools in a “secret museum” since he started collecting them 15 years ago.
The 74-year-old, from Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire, keeps them in a room upstairs at Bill’s Tool Store near the Barras in Glasgow.
The hammers, wrenches and more, some dating back as far as the 1850s, has only been seen by business associates, friends and family so far.
The collection includes tools from the old Czechoslovakia, Russia and Poland.
Mr Pearson had owned the store after it was passed down from his father Bill, who first helped start his love of tools.
The father-of-three still works twice a week at the shop, which is now owned by his son 50-year-old Paul.
Mr Pearson said: “I’ve always been interested in the tool game, I just find it interesting to find out what people used years ago when it came to fixing things.
“I noticed I had quite a lot of old tools and we wanted to gather them together. I just get the tools from literally everywhere. Just tool shops everywhere and sometimes customers come and sell me tools.
“You would think it’s some sort of secret museum but it’s really a collection of old tools stored upstairs in a room in the building which not many have seen.
“My tools date back to about the 1850s until now. I have no idea how much they would be worth these days.”
One of the oldest tools Mr Pearson has obtained is a Mathieson wood-working plane which dates back to at least 150 years ago.
Although most are stored in the upstairs space, some items are scattered around the shop. But Mr Pearson said that he would like the tools to go on public display one day.
He added: “It would be nice to have them put in a museum as they are now taking up a lot of space.
“When the collection was much smaller I spoke to Kelvin Hall and the People’s Palace at Glasgow Green to see how we could go about it.
“They had mentioned everything would have togo through the council but I would love to see them displayed somewhere. I have all kinds of tools – everything under the sun – hammers, adjustable wrenches and screwdrivers. There are many tool firms and a lot of young people have never seen some of these.”
COMMENT “I’ve always been interested in the tool game, I just find it interesting to find out what people used years ago when it came to fixing things”
VAL PEARSON