Image courtesy of Brian Szafranski

By 1854, Andrew H. Frank was in business making woodworking machinery, including mortisers, tenoners, and window-blind machinery; he operated as A. H. Frank. By 1872 Frank had taken a partner, George Spire, and they were operating as Frank & Co.

Frank & Co. specialized in small, inexpensive industrial machines, especially planers. Their smallest planer had a capacity of 12.5" x 4" and cost $50 in 1876. They also made planer-matchers, which became fairly heavy duty in their later years. Beginning in 1875 they made bandsaws as well.

Many machines were exported to Canada and to South America. An 1886 article features a Frank & Co. table saw with a "National Saw Guard"—a splitter with an anti-kickback pawl—which was surely one of the earliest examples of that important safety device.

On March 15, 1888, three men bought the business from A. H. Frank. Two of the three, Fred A. Parmenter and J. Frederick Strohocker, had been with the company for many years (Parmenter in the business department and Strohocker as foreman and superintendent). The third man was Philip Steingoetter. Sometime during the 1890s the company name changed to Frank Machinery Co. Machines from this era were marked "FMCO".

No. 1 Self-Feed Rip Saw, from August 1889 article

Advertisement from August 1905 "Engineering" magazine

During World War I the company changed its name to Victory Foundry & Machine Co., Inc., perhaps because the "Frank" name was considered too Germanic. In any event, the company survived only a few more years after the war before disappearing in the early 1920s.

Information Sources

• From numerous 1872-1893 articles and 1875-1884 ads in Manufacturer & Builder. An 1879 article says that they have been making bandsaws for the past four years.
• Batory lists an April 1, 1922 brochure from Victory Foundry & Machine Co., Inc., for a "Light Economist Planer and Matcher, Single Surface". Batory's catalog cross-references Frank & Co. to this entry, which suggests that Frank & Co. became Victory at some point. The name itself suggests that the changed occurred during World War I.
• An online bookseller listed an undated flyer from "Victory Machine & Lumber Co." for "a light hand planer and jointer".
• George Whitcomb's Buffalo Directory for 1893 lists Frank & Co. and various workers for that firm.
• The 1899 New York edition of Seeger and Guernsey's Cyclopædia of the Manufactures and Products of the United States lists Frank Machinery Co. as a maker of hangers, pulleys, shafting, resawing machines, rip-saw machines, cut-off saw machines, swing cut-off saws, wood-turning lathes, pattern-makers lathes, lath mills, scroll saws, wood shapers, sash door & blind machines, saw benches, matchers, mortising machines, pony planers, glue jointers, vertical boring machines, buzz planers, tenoning machines, tonguing and grooving machines, band saw machines, horizontal boring machines, moulding machines, circular saw mandrels,
• July 1901 Carpentry and Building.

  The Frank Machinery Company of 50 to 54 Mechanic street, Buffalo, N. Y., have just issued a very attractive catalogue of 96 pages. illustrating and describing the leading lines of wood working machinery which they manufacture. The catalogue is known as No. 20, and is printed in two colors, making with the embossed paper covers of dark brown an exceedingly attractive appearance. Among the early pages of the catalogue are to be found a number of suggestions to customers, and it is pointed out that some of the machines which were considered the best of their kind upon the market at the time previous editions of the catalogue were issued have been replaced by still better ones, while all of the company's product has been improved wherever an opportunity for improvement has occurred. Attention is given to planers and matchers, molding machines, shapers, mortisers, sanders, resawing machines, lath mills, grinding machines, scroll saws, planer, matcher and molding knives, band saw blades, combined rip and cut-off saws, cutter heads, vertical and horizontal wood boring machines, exhaust fans, saw sharpeners, shafting, hangers, &c. Accompanying the illustrations is to be found ample descriptive particulars calling attention to the salient features of construction. There are also given rules for determining the size and speed of pulleys, as well as an index alphabetically arranged.

• A 1907 Buffalo City Directory lists Frank Machinery Co.
• The September 1912 issue of Wood Craft lists Frank Machinery Co. as a maker of band saws, box makers machinery, cut-off saws, jointers, pattern-shop machinery, planing mill machinery, rip-sawing machines, saw tables, shapers, and swing saws.
• Google Books listing for a "192?" "Trade catalogs on woodworking machinery; planers, band saws, re-sawing machines", from "Washington Iron Works, Inc. (Buffalo, N.Y.), Frank Machinery Co, Victory Foundry & Machine Co, Victory Machine & Lumber Co, J. Frank & Co."