[Cray Brothers, Cleveland]

The Dutton Mower Knife Grinder - 1886 - Advertising circular

The Dutton Mower-Knife Grinder. Cleveland: Cray Brothers, 1886. Advertising circular printed on goldenrod stock, folded to four pages (6.25 × 10 inches), then twice again to fit the original 12mo mailing envelope (≈6 × 3.5 inches; present, opened with closed tears).

Ornamental border and wood-engraved scene on the front with the slogan “A LONG NEEDED WANT AT LAST SUPPLIED” and caption “A PERFECT Mowing Machine Knife Grinder.” Inside left gives the technical description (weight “only 19 pounds,” water-kept wheel, clamps to any mower wheel, grinds both bevels “in one-half the time”), headed by fair awards dated 1885 and a patent/territory notice.

The facing pages print unsolicited testimonials dated 1885–86 from across the U.S., including trade press notices (“The New England Homestead,” July 1885; “The South Side Observer,” Rockville Centre, L.I., Oct. 2, 1885), state-fair reports (Wheeling, W.Va., 1886), and dealers/farmers from Florida, Montana, Texas, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Vermont, etc.; back page opens with a letter on Deere, Mansur & Co. letterhead (St. Louis, June 24, 1886) seeking territory rights.

Condition: bright paper, gentle handling and original folds; clean impressions; envelope unmailed. - The scan of the inside is not a true color - see scans of the outside

Issued the same year Rufus Dutton received his U.S. patent for a “Machine for Grinding Mowing-Machine Knives” (No. 342,290, May 18, 1886), this circular reflects the first wave of dealer-level promotion of Dutton’s then-new water-cooled, two-bevel knife-grinding design—features widely cited in later trade adoption. Surviving 19th-century dealer pieces for specific farm-implement innovations are scarce, and this Cleveland-imprinted example documents the grinder at its patent-era introduction. 

This patent-year circular captures the moment American mowing shifted from grindstone improvisation to a portable, purpose-built system: Dutton’s water-kept wheel and clamp-on mechanism let a single hand true both bevels in half the time, reducing downtime in the field. The piece documents real-time market traction—awards from 1885 fairs lead the text, and the testimonials (1885–86) culminate in a June 24, 1886 letter from Deere, Mansur & Co. seeking territory rights across the Midwest and South. With the original Cray Brothers (Cleveland) envelope present, it is an unusually complete survival of dealer-level promotion at the very start of the grinder’s commercial adoption.

Subjects: Rufus Dutton; Dutton mower-knife grinder; U.S. Patent 342,290 (1886); Mower-knife sharpening; Farm implement dealers (Cleveland, Ohio); Cray Brothers; Water-cooled grinding; Nineteenth-century American agriculture, Advertising ephemera; Trade catalog literature; Agricultural machinery; Industrial design (tools).

Item #21082

Price: $125.00