Post Office Tool Case No. 3

Let me introduce you to the British Post Office Tool Case No. 3.

These tool cases have been around I'm told for over 50 years, I have two of them, one of them is about 40 years old, the other celebrates its 30th birthday this year! Whilst I didn't work for the 'Post Office' or British Telecom as it would now be or BT for short, I did work for a government organisation with close ties to the GPO, PO, BT etc.

So here are the two cases I have.

The older one is the one on the left and it's had a hard life! The only main differences between them is the ID pocket on the outside of the older one and the saddles on the handle strap are sewn to the case on the older one, where as they are riveted on the 'newer' one on the right.

Looking at the older one now in some more detail.

As you can see the leather is very soft and supple on this one. It's currently empty waiting for me to renew the zip on it. A job I did about 28 years ago as well as redoing some of the stitching. The leather hasn't had any special treatment since it was issued to me.

So opened out you can see the running loops running across the case for tools to slot in to, these can be varied in size and they tend to stay at the same tension all the time, no elastic is used, just leather.

The big pocket on the left is for small items and it is held shut with big press studs.

And moving on to the 'newer' one.

As you can see from the stitching the design is the same with only a few minor differences. Not quite a supple as the older one, but it is gradually getting there I guess, may be another 20 years and it will be as good.  It still has the original zip on this one, but the tag fell off some years ago and a cable tie has been serving that duty since!

And here is it fully populated with tools, some of the tools are the same age as the older case, still giving good service, no need to replace them. The side cutters are new though, these do become blunt or damaged with use. It didn't come with all of the tools you see, I added to it over the years, hence doubling up on the loops!

And again inside the pocket are some additional hand tools, bits and bobs etc.

The remarkable thing about these tool cases is that you can still buy them, not cheap I give you that, but as you can see they will last a life time! They are available from this company Canford in UK sizing details are in their own PDF file.