What is it? Set 505

I'm with you on the size though not on its purpose.

It's a dead ringer for something I saw on a relative's bar in the 70's.

They do seem short for a fireplace, but most all of the ones that I've found on the web say they are fireplace tools. I looked for an old advertisement but didn't find one.

The photo was shot in an antique mall, where numerous small items are displayed on any flat surface available, so I don't think the knight is related to the Tappan stove, it just happened to be placed there.

I didn't see any similar knights with bar tools, maybe someone re-purposed one for their bar.

Knight-04092012.htm

Thanks, that's an excellent link! I just added it to my answer.

Except in two places, the article says Bilston Knights was a brand name for a coal grate. The first time, it's undocumented hearsay that the knights were called Bilston Knights. The second time, an expert said lots of companies produced knights for hearths. He called a particular one a Bilston knight because it was produced at a Bilston Ltd. factory that ran from the 1940s to 1958. That knight is not pictured.

The article says the three knights purchased in the 1960s were sold new as knickknacks without tools. Ebay shows a knight identical to the mystery item, with the tools. UK residents would understand the purpose of the tools. Americans might not.

In New England, fireplaces were for wood. In North Carolina, my

19th-century house has four rooms with coal fireplaces. Several other houses around here, including one built in the 1940s, are like that. An open coal fire would heat a room in this climate. I suppose New Englanders relied on stoves or central heat. Tools that would fit in the knight would be too small for a wood fire but would probably be just right for a coal grate.

I agree that the shorter tools would be better for a coal fire than wood, though as mbuck mentioned, the ad does say the grate is for "all types of fuel". Besides wood, peat, and coal, I don't know what other fuel they would burn. I would guess that coal would be the main fuel for the Bilston Knight grate, but the word coal is not found once in the entire article. I suppose the bottom line is that the tools are better suited for a small fire of any type as opposed to a large wood fire.

Coal isn't mentioned in the article because it's British. The British take it for granted that you must drive on the wrong side of the road and burn coal in a fireplace.

I don't see how one could build an all-night wood fire on something as small as the Bilston Knight grate. It takes a big load of wood to produce coals for a long fire. The fireplaces needs a big throat for the draft necessary to burn off the volatiles. The big throat sucks so much air that in Massachusetts and Vermont, using the fireplace made houses colder. I guess that's why the houses down here were built with coal fireplaces even though plenty of firewood was available.

(I changed my name to The Other J Burns because in another group I was confused with another J Burns.)

Sounds good, I'm convinced, looks like you nailed this one.

Rob

2948 valve grinding tool (automotive)