'Worthless' Tools you'd be gutted to lose...

Go to a charity shop and you can probably pick them up 3 for a £1

Can't have been soaked in the sink much as the rust gets to the handle then they drop off although the blade will be ss

The three chain linked and a quick link that have been joined together to make a valve core removal tool.

Made from junk so worthless but in practice absolutely priceless.

In a similar vein to the OP.

The pickle spoon. So called because my dad thought it was for getting pickles out of a jar but in reality is a sundae spoon with a handle just the right shape for cleaning gunge from the door seals on coin op washing machines. To be handed down through the generations as no other will ever be quite the same 😀

Not so much worthless but I picked up lots of tools and gardening implements when my grandad passed away sixteen years ago.

Picking up a hammer, screwdriver or garden fork gives me a real connection to him, I pause briefly for thought every time. I really cannot think of any other items that come close to linking to long gone relatives.

The Thor softface hammer that my grandad stole from the RAF when he demobbed after ww2 and I in turn stole from him. It's not just a tool or a heirloom, it's an Artifact- head is absolutely black with oxidisation, handle has 75 years of oil and sweat embedded in it.

An old chisel I found in the bushes behind a house I used to live in. It's now my bodging chisel, used for all manner of scraping, prying, gouging and smashing tasks for which using my proper chisels would be sacrilege. Occasionally gets ground roughly sharp when something needs an actual edge, then promptly gets duffed up.

A bradawl I somehow acquired from my late father in law. It does the making holes thing and many delicate prying and separating and clearing out cleat bolt heads as well. It seems to be made of proper steel that doesn't bend or chip no matter how much I abuse it.

Like jp-t853, my late fathers tools. He died in '96.  I think of him each time I use them. Particularly fond of a Wade & Butcher sheath knife from the 50's.  Its lost its tip and been reground. Its still a heavy thing and very sharp. I use it every day in the winter to split kindling. We also found a William Rodgers stiletto of commando fame when clearing his stuff. Its a non military version with wooden handle.  He had it as a kid in London in the early 40's, which is a bit random,  but thats kept tucked away in the heirloom box.

An old chisel I found in the bushes behind a house I used to live in.

Pretty sure I saw that on Crimewatch

My mate Dave. Known him for donkeys year and had a great driving holiday down to Venice with him last year. A week spent in a 2 seater just driving with no radio is a good test of friendship. Even though I hadn't seen him for a few years or spent more than a day together for a couple of decades it was an enjoyable week.

Here he is trying to get the exhaust back onto the hanger having driven right over the top of a raised stone mini-roundabout.
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He is a worthless tool but I guess I would miss him.

My Bahco 1/4 socket set all bits still intact and I've had it for years , probably 90% of use is the 10mm socket ratchet and extension

Such a well made bit of kit with a proper snappy tight box, think I paid £20 almost twenty years ago

Swiss army knife keeps going AWOL but turns up eventually lying in one of my motors, in the shed maybe somewhere in the house

It just wanders off like a tom cat but I still have it

Two bits of Eclipse blade from a reciprocating saw that was used in an apprentice school metal store .
I won't name names,but some trainees ,were occasionally,not at one with the demands of these unforgiving machines.
After one shattering experience ,the instructer picked up the remains and said "Never mind laddie,grind the teeth off and you'll have a gid couple O scrapers"
He was right,that 'daft laddie' still has them,and after 40yrs,they are still awesome as scrapers (and tin openers). 😆 🤣

I’ve got a bent bit of spoke with a v-brake rubber boot as a handle that is PERFECT for scraping crud from cassettes, jockey wheels and chainrings. <br />I’d be bereft if I lost it.

I have a screwdriver that came from my 1985 Mk 2 VW Golf Gti that I owned in the late 80’s, one of those with a plastic handle and a reversible Philips/ flat shank. I still use it most weeks for various jobs as its useful to pick it when I’m not sure what the screw head I might encounter on a job is. It’s got scars and the plating on the shank is going but it still works.

My grandfathers hammer.

It's pulled enough nails that the v is pretty much useless.

It still gets used on bikes most months.

My grand dad was tight with money and would absolutely approve of the hammer continuing on while costing nowt

My Mercedes-Benz(Matador) small spanner. Sizes 8mm and 10mm, I found just lying in the gutter when cycling along, maybe 10 years or so ago.

I've serviced loads of old Hope brakes, and 8mm and 10mm are the sizes you need for that. The banjo,hose etc

Be lost without it.

Ditto to above.

Some of my dad's old tools.

A real connection and memories. 

Some tools I remember helping my dad with when I was a kid.

Handing them to him trying to help.

I kinda want to see these handmade notepads. @the-muffin-man

one of those with a plastic handle and a reversible Philips/ flat shank.

I have one of those but mine came with a Suzuki RM80 back in the 70's.
Really handy and lives in the kitchen cupboard along with some side cutters and needle nosed pliers that belonged to my grandad.
Amazing what i can do with those three tools when faced with not being arsed to go out to the garage for proper tools.

@jimw

Me to. Carry it in the bike bag all the time.

Found mine in an abandoned/stolen car when the chavs throw all the bits out then burn them.

Not quite a tool, but found and still use today an Alpaca Poncho (Made in Peru). Same car.

^As above.

Tomcat Swiss Army Knife.

Come to think of it everything I own is Tomcat like.

What makes me a bit sad, is when using a really old tool such as my Granddad's then Dad's and then realise I have no one to pass them onto 🙁

Does not matter in any grand scheme, but makes me ponder.

When you realise the tool will easily out last you and probably who finds it next.

Some of my father’s tools. A spirit level, a surform from when they were new and a pair of long nose pliers. I’m 17 years older than him. And he’s had no use of them for 50 years.

I too have some old broken bits of reciprocating saw blades, used as scrapers, chisels, block paving weed scrapers, paint tin openers and a million other uses. Also a set of orange handled screwdrivers bought at a market donkeys years ago. Cheap as chips but absolutely made of the correct steel, completely bombproof. I am an ex-instrument maker and have an engineers chest of tools, many specially ground widgets and all my tools of the trade. I look at tool stalls on markets and occasionally see an old tool chest just like mine, in it is a guys entire working life with tools just like mine and I always feel a twinge of sadness. I don’t have kids but hope someone in my close circle will take them on and use them before I end up on a market stall!

got a little pair of scissors that are blunt and the blades don't meet very solidly - very useful for stripping the sheath from electrical wires.

used an old teaspoon that I had in the shoecare box from years ago (army cadet days) that has wrapping around the handle ready for heating up for treating leather - rescued an expensize Selle Italia SLR Kit Carbanio flow saddle that was looking pretty poor and scuffed up after soaking it with polish, and working it in with the hot spoon.

First screwdriver we reach for without going to a tool box.

It was my grandfather's who was a clock and watch repairer and lived in his blazer pocket most of his life.

I had my van broken into a few years ago, my bike and my toolbox were both stolen. The bike was worth more, but 25 years of accumulated tools was the real emotional kicker. A lot of those things had unique and individual histories that connected to to many many memories. Places I've worked, family who have passed, and friends with whom I have lost contact. Some were gifts, a couple were acquired without really meaning to take them.

Now I have replaced with new and matching sets, I can do the same stuff, and they look fancier, but I don't have the same connection to them. Even now I'll go looking in the bottom of my toolbox for something, catch myself, and have to think hard as to whether I still have it or not 😥

A heavy duty steel pin for knocking in pegs in hard ground.

Been a lifeline at work and helping mark out bike routes / put in pegs for event organisers!

My pokey stick.

An old barbecue utensil, whose business end fell off years ago,  that I use to poke the charcoal around.

I have a case knife, basically a Stanley-knife-lite. It came from a mate where he was working in the warehouse in Morrisons as a student, it's maybe 32 years old, the "WM Morrisons" branding a long distant memory. Still the single best box cutter in existence.

My grandfathers hammer.

Four people, four places, all regularly used

Loving that Thor hammer

My tool I would be gutted to lose is

My Spearhead and Jackson leather handled brick trowel I brought in 1990 cost me £25 ( I was on £40 a week YTS) so it was really expensive....so far it is the tool that has  made me the most money 33 years later the blade worn down , half the handle is missing.but I love it...I can buy it new these days for £40.....I would love it if I can pass it on to my son when I retire in 20 years time...if I live that long

What makes me a bit sad, is when using a really old tool such as my Granddad’s then Dad’s and then realise I have no one to pass them onto

When my Father passed away, I inherited all the tools I thought I'd lost.

I lent Junior my car and a couple of days later he phoned "the battery's flat, I left the lights on and I can't find any jump leads in the car" - "errrrrrrrr, I lent them to you last year for the rally".