Jim Mau. Photo courtesty of Pat Mau.

The Hammer Museum is about to become a whole lot-heavier.

In September, Hammer Museum founder Dave Pahl received word of a large donation from a peer in the world of hammer collectors. Jim Mau, a tool and hammer collector from Phoenix, Arizona, died and his family wanted to donate 1,600 hammers and corresponding floor-to-ceiling stacks of reference material.

Pat Mau, 83, said her husband was aware of the Hammer Museum, but he never expressed interest in donating his collection to the museum. “I think Jim thought they thought they already had all the hammers anyone ever wanted,” Pat quipped.

A family friend, who had visited the museum, recommended during Mau’s funeral that they donate his collection to the Hammer Museum. The family contacted Pahl shortly after.

Pahl recently returned from Phoenix where he, Pat, and Mau’s son spent eight days packing the 5,000 pounds of hammers and papers into 70 boxes. The boon will more than quadruple the size of the museum’s collection. The reference material itself weighs as much or more than the hammers, Pahl said.

“There are some notebooks where Jim had gone through old catalogues and old scientific magazines, and he clipped pertinent hammer museum articles and put them all in page protectors, whole notebooks where every page has really great stuff,” Pahl said. “The patent information is extensive. He made repeated trips to the patent office (in Washington D.C.) He’s got information about patents that occurred as far back in 1790.”

Mau and Pahl both became interested in collecting tools, especially hammers, in the mid-1970s, Pahl said. They both belonged to the Mid West Tool Collectors Association, which with 3,500 members is the largest tool collector’s association in the world, according to its website.

Pat, who was married to Jim for 61 years, said her husband’s interest in tools began as a child when he received a subscription to Popular Mechanics as a Christmas gift. He later became an industrial arts teacher and became fascinated by the hammer because of its various forms that suited myriad applications and occupations.

“We lived in what was technically a four-bedroom house,” Pat said. “He and I each had a bedroom as an office. His office turned into a library of reference materials and then he took the guest bedroom and made a display. People don’t understand that, but if you know anything about tool collectors, you know they built special buildings for them.”

Mau held, as Pahl holds, a particular interest in David Maydole hammers. Maydole, who invented the adze-eye hammer, built his hammer manufacturing company in Norwich, New York in the 1840s. His company went on to become the largest hammer producer in the U.S. Mau kept a photo of Maydole’s gravestone in his collection. Pahl modeled the giant hammer in front of the museum after a 1923 Maydole hammer.

As Mau’s family picked through his collection, they found a letter Pahl wrote to him 15 years ago asking to share reference material. “There’s all different reasons why people collect hammers,” Pahl said. “Both him and I were into the history and the patent and the documentation.”

Pahl’s favorite hammer from the donation is a design that was patented in 1845 by Solomon Anderson. The carpenter’s hammer’s claws bend downward and wrap around the handle for extra strength. “In inserting the handle, it passes through this loop…and thence right on into the eye of the hammer,” Anderson’s 1845 patent says. “It is a great improvement in this invention, that in drawing nails or spikes, the handle is not in the least degree, loosened, but remains firm.”

“It’s a very sought-after hammer among hammer collectors,” Pahl said.

As excited as Pahl is about the new influx of hammers, he’s equally if not more eager to dig through Mau’s reference material. The mission of the Hammer Museum is to preserve the history of the hammer, man’s first tool and a first step in technological advancement, Pahl said. From constructing pyramids to lifting manhole covers and cobbling shoes, there are as many hammers, if not more, than the things they dismantle, shape and assemble.

“We probably have 40 different types of hammers just for making shoes,” Pahl said. “Nowadays, I don’t think they use a hammer at all. That’s why it’s important to preserve that history and it’s behind us now, to know what role the hammer played in developing civilization. It’s important to preserve that. All this reference material is going to be a big shot in the arm for that.”

Pahl is currently 200 pages into a book he’s writing about the history and application of hammer from the 1700s to the present day. He said he thought he was close to being done, until now. “I thought I was almost done with the book until this came around,” Pahl said. “I’ll be cherry picking Jim’s reference material all winter long.”

Pat said it was interesting to talk with Pahl about Alaska, and said she’s happy that people will get a chance to see Jim’s tools. “It was wonderful,” Pat said. “I wish I could come myself but I’m planning to have my son and my grandson come next summer to see their exhibit when they get it up and going.”

Mau’s collection should arrive in Haines in two to three weeks, Pahl said. He plans to feature Mau’s tools during First Friday events in the spring.

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