Manufactum hand shovel forged

In the past a skilled artisan valued his tools in three ways: firstly – and obviously – they had to do the job; secondly, the materials they were made of had to be familiar and trustworthy – good wood, good metal; thirdly, they had to possess a certain aesthetic quality beyond mere functionality (we are thinking of course of a very old tradition in France and England, embodied in the 19th century by, for example, William Morris ). A collector of historic garden tools that we know has gone through piles of old implements and catalogues, and helped us make a selection. Here are the very first results – four garden tools, made specially for us in the old style by the Dutch toolsmiths' firm Sneeboer & Co . The tool heads are made of forged, waxed carbon steel and the handles of ashwood treated with linseed oil, with decorative engraving round the tip. Forks and trowel heads are attached to the handles with a brass ring. Hand-rakes and hoes have heads with sturdy necks that fit on to their longer handles.

There were times when the appreciation for tools was still expressed in the fact that they were not only made of excellent material, but also decorated with special effort. In search of such functional as well as beautiful tools, we sifted through old stocks with a collector of historical garden tools. The result of this work: a hand shovel and a hand hoe, made for us according to historical models at the tool smithy Sneeboer in North Holland.
The tool heads are made of forged and waxed carbon steel, the handles of ash wood treated with linseed oil. In the case of the shovel, the heads are held by a brass ferrule; a sturdy grommet encloses the slightly longer handle of the hoe. Garden tools like these were still being made in England until the 1930s.