A Holt Sander From 1939, And It Still Works

Brian Franklin's estate sale find­­-a 1939 Holt sander.

Brian Franklin has been hunting for valuable and overlooked antiques since the 1980s, so he knew he'd found something when he came across a 1939 Holt sander at an estate sale in Oregon. Even if it didn't work, Franklin said he knew the parts alone would be worth more than the $35 price tag. 

"That's not much of a gamble," said Franklin, 51, who remodels foreclosed homes with his company, Jasper Liquidators, in Springfield, Ore. 

Franklin made a few easy fixes, but he was held up by the belts. Belts today have five-digit product numbers that make them easy to find and match to a sander, but Depression-era belt product numbers were three digits. 

Franklin made one unsuccessful call after another to belt retailers until he piqued the interest of Grainger Industrial Supply in Lake Forest, Ill. Grainger staff found a company that had a listing for three-digit numbers, and not long after, a package arrived on Franklin's doorstep containing belts the likes of which he'd never seen. "They were bizarre," he said. "They're different than a normal belt, they're a funky sticky fabric." 

The funky belts did the trick: He uses the sander all the time, especially for jobs that require an aggressive touch. "It has no quirks. It works really well," he says.