The images below are courtesy of Uncle Larry's Watch Shop. If you need replacement parts for your Inverto set, your first stop should be Uncle Larry's. |
A very clean Inverto 17 set...it even has the latch key. Note the automatic riser block for holding the stakes and stumps. Based on the 1919 Jeweler's Circular ad, this dates the set to around 1920. Curious that tools branded Inverto 17 were still being sold at that late date given that the Inverto 18 was introduced in 1910. This set has a full tooling block: 126 long stakes and 10 short stakes. Inverto 17 and Inverto 18 sets contained 120 long finished (hardened) stakes as supplied. Early Inverto 18s had 12 annealed blanks as well. If there were originally 12 blanks with this set, they've long ago been made into custom stakes. Closer up pictures of the stakes are available below. |
Inverto 17 frame bottom. Addition of the original 1908 Inverto patent date confirms a date of manufacture after that date. The 1902 patent date refers to K&D's first patent for a frame with a spring-loaded stake retaining feature in top of the frame. This feature was likely incorporated into some of K&D's non-Inverto staking tools (e.g. the "Special" series), but I don't know much about those tools. |
Stakes & stumps, left side of tool block. Note the screw knocking punches in the top row. These are approximately 1/2 the length of a typical stake. Very few of the Inverto 17 and early Inverto 18 sets with the short screw knocking punches are found today with this many of the short punches intact. |
Detail of a screw knocking punch. Punch shank diameter is 3/16". Scaling from there, the major diameter of the tip is about 1/16". That would make the tip of this one about 0.050" The No. 316 sub-punch set with No. 120 holder that replaced this style of screw knocking punch contains 10 punches with tips from 0.005"-0.050" in 0.005" increments. A close look at the two pictures above shows that these punches have similar tip sizes. |
K&D jeweling reamers and holder found with this set. Probably equivalent to a No. 322B set. Looks like with a little TLC, these would be ready to go again for another century. |