Vintage Park Cantilever Steel Tackle Box, Green Crinkle, c. 1950–1970
La Rue Tool & Supply Co
The Piece
A cantilever box in formed and riveted steel, the kind that opens like a set of stairs. Lift the lid and four trays swing up and outward on their linkages to sit clear of the deep well beneath. The two outer trays are divided by pressed ribs into a row of narrow bays each, the small sorted compartments a fisherman wants for hooks, swivels, sinkers and spinners; the two inner trays are longer open runs for pliers, spools and larger plugs; and the well below takes the reels and the bulk.
The finish is green crinkle enamel, the pebbled texture still crisp across most of the shell. Somebody later brushed the box over in gloss black, inside and in patches outside, and that overpaint is now worn and flaking away in broad islands to show the original green underneath. The result is a two colour map that no finish could be made to imitate. A nickel plated bail handle arches over the lid and a nickel drawbolt latch closes it, over a full length piano hinge.
Riveted to the lid front is the original printed label: PARK in black on orange, reg. trade mark beneath, and PARK MFG. CO., GRANT PARK, ILL. alongside a boxed field for the model. That field was left blank, so the box carries its maker and its town but never its model number.
History & Provenance
Park Manufacturing Co. worked out of Grant Park, Illinois, a village in Kankakee County an hour south of Chicago. The firm was advertising in Hardware Age in July 1952 and issued its own illustrated catalogue in 1959 under the title Park Quality Tool and Tackle Boxes, both of which survive in the trade literature. That title is the point: Park built one cantilever shell and sold it to the man at the bench and the man at the lake alike, changing the tray dividers to suit. This one was fitted out for fishing.
The cantilever box was the format the firm sold on. A plain box makes you unpack it to reach the bottom; a cantilever box does the unpacking for you, and every bay stays visible while you work a bank or a boat. It is a mechanism rather than a container, which is why these survive when plain boxes were thrown out.
Product Details
| Era | c. 1950–1970. Park Manufacturing Co. is documented advertising in Hardware Age in July 1952 and publishing its own tool and tackle catalogue in 1959; the crinkle enamel, the printed foil label with its blank model field and the nickel drawbolt latch all belong to that production period, and no later branding is present |
| Maker | Park Mfg. Co., Grant Park, Illinois |
| Form | Cantilever tackle box, four swing out trays over a deep well, the outer pair divided into narrow sorted bays |
| Materials | Formed and riveted steel, green crinkle enamel, nickel plated bail handle and drawbolt latch, full length piano hinge |
| Marks | Riveted printed label to the lid front: PARK, reg. trade mark, PARK MFG. CO., GRANT PARK, ILL. The boxed model field is blank |
| Dimensions | Approximately 20 in. wide by 8.5 in. deep by 9.5 in. high, closed |
| Condition | Good honest working condition. Original green crinkle sound across most of the shell. Later gloss black overpaint to the interior and in patches outside, now worn and flaking to reveal the green beneath. Handle and latch sound with plating wear. Hinge sound and the cantilever linkages operate freely through their full travel. Label intact and legible. Light surface rust in places. Used, and it looks used. |
Why It Belongs in Your Home
Open it and leave it open. The cantilever action is the whole argument: a stepped array of sorted bays that turns a closed box into a piece of sculpture and a set of shelves at the same time. Those narrow compartments were sized for tackle, which makes them just right for brushes and nibs on a studio bench, spools and bobbins in a sewing room, screws and washers on a workbench, or keys and coins by a back door. Closed it is a green rectangle with a nickel handle and an orange label, which is a good enough object to leave on a shelf and never open at all.
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