It’s a warm afternoon in Tempe, and a former Arizona State University professor is showing off his collection of antique hand tools.
DUANE ROEN: We’re looking at over a hundred handsaws here, I’ve restored most of them, some of them still need to be restored, like, some of them date back to the 1800s.
The saws are mounted on the garage wall, and what stands out about them are their carved wooden handles. A lot of them have these ornamental flourishes — at the top, there’s this rounded piece of wood that juts out. It sort of looks like a bull’s horn. It’s technically there to brace the saw against your hand while you’re sawing something. But it also makes it easy to hang the saws on hooks…