"The mud-larks collect whatever they happen to find, such as coals, bits of old-iron, rope, bones, and copper nails that drop from ships while lying or repairing along shore. Copper nails are the most valuable of all the articles they find, but these they seldom obtain, as they are always driven from the neighborhood of a ship while being new sheathed....[on interviewing a nine year old boy] Some days he earned 1d. [one pence], and some days 4d.; he never earned 8d. in one day, that would have been a "jolly lot of money." He never found a saw or a hammer, he "only wished" he could, they would be glad to get hold of them at the dolly’s [junk shop].""

Excerpt from "London Labor and The London Poor" Volume 2, pg. 156. By Henry Mayhew London 861. reprinted Dover Publications 1968. Henry Mayhew’s four volume opus was a compendium of articles detailing the poverty and misery of London’s poorer populations. The series was originally started and published in the Morning Chronicle (London) between 1849 and 1850 and completed in 1861 - 1862. His work was instrumental in starting the reform movement. The excerpt was included to show the contemporary toward tools and property and how much they were held in value. Tools like most things of the period were essentially hand made and consequently were expensive and treasured.

Suggested further reading:

• The Tool Shed Treasury
• Collecting Antique Tools, Pollak & Kean
• Dictionary of Woodworking Tools, R. Salaman