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• Seattle's Best Hardware Store
• It's the Heart of Hardware Heaven
• Hardwick's
• Obscure Is the Rule With Swap Shop's Tools
• See Saws

Seattle's Best Hardware Store

Seattle Weekly readers are the wisest of the wise in all other matters. But again and again, more years than not, they exalt Eagle Hardware. Of course, Eagle is great- if you like tramping half a mile in a vain search for an employee who can tell the difference between a straightedge and a street L or a rugosa and a raspberry (or, for that matter, any employee at all). Finally, you'll discover that what you need isn't stocked in all those acres of aisles anyway. If you insist on the warehouse-store experience, Home Depot at least has some more expert help, and the actual inventory and selection to justify its acres. But Seattle's best hardware store is still its most cluttered (after Ballard Hardware, another best contender): Hardwick's Swap Shop (4214 Roosevelt Way NE, 632-1203). One good sign: This family operation has been run since the Depression by three generations of Deans (two of them brothers). Another good sign: the bewildering and beguiling apparent jumble of tools- new and old, common and esoteric- massed along its elbow-width aisles. Here, chuck to trowel, are secondhand bargains cheap enough to use just once, alongside rare, exquisite implements of master craftsmanship, an unbeatable selection of cabinet hardwares, and types, not just models, of tools and fittings they've never heard of, let alone stocked, at the shiny pseudo-warehouses. Once you figure out the order (yes, there is one) at Hardwick's, you're an initiate, and hooked. Once, five or so years ago, in a burst of illumination, the readers picked it as Best Hardware. But Eagle has advertised a lot since then.

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It's the Heart of Hardware Heaven

John Hahn

Hardwick's Swap Shop is where casehardened hardware and tool freaks like me want to go when we die: 10,000 square feet of imported and domestic, new and used and reconditioned furniture, hand and garden tools, plumbing, electrical and hardware, items, and parts.

It's like one of those new gigantic warehouse hardware operations and several second-hand stores all smooshed into a down-the-block, neighborhood-sized store. Their "gift certificates" are drawn by hand on grocery sacks from QFC or Albertson's that proclaim "Genuine Used Paper Bag." The fact they don't advertise hasn't kept customers away from Canada, Alaska and most states west of the Mississippi.

"That place has got tools they haven't even invented yet!" said a carpenter friend of mine. "I needed one strange bolt to fix an old gate, and I finally found one store where the guy said: 'I can get it for you, but you'll hafta buy a box of 12.' I went to Hardwick's and told the guy what I wanted and he said: 'Oh, sure… two aisles over and down about halfway, in a bank of small brown drawers, third drawer down from the top on the right.' Damned if they didn't have it, and I only had to buy the one I needed!"

You can find the latest eight-ampere Milwaukee Super Sawzall or an imported Japanese handsaw or just a part for an old Stanley plane. About the only thing you might not find is a parking spot near 4214 Roosevelt Way NE, where the Hardwick's have done business for three generations.

"My brother John and I grew up washing Cosmoline (grease) off genuine 'war surplus' shovels and metal tools out in back", said William Hardwick, 48. John, 46, now is a dentist, which leaves William, a University of Washington chemistry graduate, and Dean, 38, former UW pharmacy student, to run the operation grandpa Charles Hardwick started as a one-room second-hand store when his real estate business went belly up in 1932 during the Depression.

Grandpa Hardwick watched the store when Father Dean Hardwick served in the Quartermaster Corps and Army Air Corps in World War II. William was a couple weeks out of his own Army service in the early 1970s and on his way, he thought, to graduate school when his father had a heart attack. "I told him not to worry, that I'd run the business temporarily." That was more than 20 years ago. Every working day since "has been a lot of fun… every one sort of different."

The emphasis and most of the stock shifted to tools and hardware when the Milwaukee Road and Union Pacific sources of "damaged freight" goods and other "Factory Second" sources dried up. "We still handle 'Student Grade' furniture, new and used, but it's commingled with standard and hard-to-find tools and hardware items," William said.

"Commingled" is an understatement. They don't have just 10,000 square feet. They have new and used items going up to, and hanging from, the 12-foot ceilings. Probably enough axe and peavey handles for every pickup truck gun rack in town and replacement parts for tools that haven't been made since William was born.

"Take a look at this blade," said Dean, hefting a traditional Japanese hand saw with a handcrafted and polished lustre. "0.03 thick, and it cuts on the back stroke, so you hardly notice the kerf (cut) it makes," he said.

Brother William noted: "We've always carried a wide variety, low-end to high-end tools, but we've got a reputation for carrying hard-to-find items…unusual and slow-moving things.

"Our grandfather used to say that anything and everything will sell in at least seven years, but we've picked up some things that have been here a lot longer than that. Like that hand-cranked centrifuge in the back.

"We'll have something sit around for years and then someone will buy it one day and 30 minutes later, or the very next day, someone will walk in and ask for one."

That someone will probably have looked all over town until another someone advised: "Go to Hardwick's. If they don't have it, no one does."

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Hardwick's

University District's original swap shop hasn't changed a bit- and doesn't intend to

Brian Doherty

A three-legged Dutch oven gathers dust next to June Cleaver's version of an antique lamp in the neglected windows of Hardwick's Swap Shop. You'd expect these windows to be the home of a one -eyed cat, sleeping among the ton of massive cast-iron vises stacked in their blue and red enamel coats.

But inside the scarred doors of this University District store no old cat would last long. The aisles are narrow and tanglefooted with pumps, jacks, anvils and small motors. The shelves balance mounds of parts and tools. And into this mix of sharp edges tramp the boots of contractors, homeowners and mechanics hot on the solution to their latest headache.

"Either I'm getting shorter and fatter or they're getting a lot more stuff in here," said a round-faced man on tiptoes, pulling some mystery off a top shelf.

Third-generation owners, brothers Dean and Bill Hardwick, wouldn't have it any other way. Somewhere between the row of used vacuum cleaners and the display case of hundreds of exotic files is the answer to all problems this side of Dear Abby.

"We go for a wide mix of tools and hardware rather than being like an Ernst and just going for the best-selling, profitable items," said Dean Hardwick, who went into business full-time in 1974. Brother Bill got conscripted into the Swap Shop in 1971, after serving in the Army as a radar expert in Vietnam.

For those out to gorge, saw, slice, route, drill or otherwise torture any substance, Hardwick's has the tool--somewhere.

Unlike the large chain hardware stores, a visit to Hardwick's is an adventure in finding things you weren't looking for. A man in experienced tan coveralls asks one of Hardwick's 11 employees where they keep their new measuring tape inserts. Longtime customers never ask if they have such-and-such, but only "Where is it?"

The curly-haired contractor hustles down one tight aisle only to have to press his body against a display of what looks like hundreds of mounted hinges. Two oncoming men squeeze by the contractor doing a patented Swap Shop snake dance speaking their pardon-me's.

The contractor glances down at his feet and stands straight up in the aisle again and starts eyeballing the hinges- trapped in a Hardwick's moment. Nearby is another display of drawer handles mounted on the plywood doors of the case that holds the boxed goods. The size of the handles increases until at the bottom of the display you see large leather suitcase handles. You think of Harry Truman.

Brass recessed pull rings for a boat's deck hatches stand next to steel recessed trapdoor handles. Nearby a box loaded with thousands of plastic pastel drawer handles await a gauche eye.

"We've developed a niche, we get customers coming down from the San Juans, Port Townsend and throughout the Northwest," Dean Hardwick.

Dressed in a white T-shirt that carries no messages and old jeans, Dean works in the back room in this sunny morning readying merchandise for the shop. Standing at a work bench and wearing red kneepads, the younger Hardwick slices extraneous material off merchandise packaging and prices each piece. He uses a plastic slide rule, reading down the scale, to price a number of different items at once.

When the pricing is done he will take the things into the outer shop and set them up-somewhere. But before that starts the laconic Dean gets quizzed by an employee about where to put an order of wet/dry sandpaper and what to price it at. Since the sandpaper deal was made over the phone some time ago there is no invoice and pricing is an issue, which gets settled when the employee recalls that they paid $80 for the two stacks.

Then Dean gets called to the phone to talk to a supplier, one of the estimated 130 they use to stock the tool and hardware section of the Swap Shop. Fifteen years ago, he said, they used about 20 suppliers when the ration of old goods to new goods was much higher.

Materials sold at the original store, started in 1932 by grandfather Charles Dean Hardwick after his real estate business went broke in the Great Depression, came from buying from the public, salvage and a deal with the Union Pacific Railroad to pick up freight-damaged items.

To that was added wholesale furniture from Harris Pine Mills in Auburn.

In 1938 Dean's father, Dean Ernest Hardwick, and Grandfather Hardwick moved what was then called a junk shop from Northeast 72nd Street down Roosevelt Way to its present site at 4214 Roosevelt Way Northeast. Business was great and University District residents of that late Depression era recall the Hardwick family as being well off.

Grandfather Hardwick once again ran the store alone when Dean Ernest went off to fight in World War II. After Dean Ernest returned, military surplus items were added to the growing menu, but are now rare.

In the 1950s and 1960s the furniture section of the store was a big money-maker and two annexes were built to handle the trade. As the 1960s progressed demographic changes- from many small families in the University District to many single students- cut the furniture business "from ten chest of drawers sold each Saturday to one sold now," Dean Hardwick related.

And that change continues today as Dean's area of the store, specialty tools and hardware, slowly spreads and swallows up Bill's furniture section. But the work Bill loses in furniture is more than made up in his responsibility as store accountant.

But the store may never end its furniture and housewares business. The sons are following a hide-bound Hardwick success formula that pulled the family through the Depression and now helps them avoid retailing trends.

The beauty of the Swap Shop is that its comfortable junkiness is "not a conscious ambiance; its just sheer economics, we try to offer better prices than other places," Dean said.

When most other similar stores have gone into franchises or become campy used boutiques or hardware salons, Hardwick's remains dark and crowded and practical. Log handling gear and chains and lag bolts and axes and saws and steel line make some parts of the shop look like houseboater's heaven.

"We Pay Cash," reads the neon by the door.

They are still a real swap shop and will buy from the public with cash or merchandise trades. They will also pick up salesman's samples and factory closeouts if they fit the store's formula.

Heavy cast iron hand-crank meat grinders perch on an overhead ledge. And a few aisles north grim reaper scythes hang high on a bar. Making you worry about earthquakes.

One thing the brothers aren't is a pawn shop. Stereos, cameras, weapons, and guitars won't be bought here.

"We hate to quit buying- that's our lifeblood," Dean said, admitting for right now they are overstocked. Under the overhang of the annex sit used wheelbarrows, pickup truck utility boxes, a row of push and power lawn mowers, buckets, rakes, and shovels. Many of the items have old-time quality not available anywhere else but used, and nowhere else at Hardwick prices.

One sturdy steel and wood leaf rake, for $1.50, is waiting to outlive its next owner.

The Hardwicks feel their prices for new or used items are so good that they won't negotiate. For one reason they don't have the time; last week Dean spent 90 hours at the Swap Shop. And the other reason is the wisdom passed down from Grandfather Hardwick that "everything will sell in seven years."

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Obscure is the rule with swap shop's tools

Tom Brown

Need a bit with a six-foot shaft that'll drill around corners?

How about a drift-pin hammer, a Japanese hand saw or a part for a kerosene lamp? Or maybe a kitschy 1950s chandelier or a cheap bookcase for your daughter, the college student?

If it's a tool- especially an obscure one- an item that's hard to find or something that's used or cheap, Hardwick's Swap Shop is a good place to look.

This rambling warren of narrow aisles spread through 10,000 square feet of floor space in three adjoining buildings in the 4200 block of Roosevelt Way Northeast is no Eagle Hardware.

William Hardwick, co-owner of the store with his brother, Dean, wants to underscore that point. It's more like a huge garage sale, except that much of the merchandise is new.

"We never wash the windows," Hardwick says with what sounds like a trace of pride. "And we sweep the floors about once a month."

Pushing a broom is the first task of new employees, who are supposed to use it as an opportunity to figure out where everything is.

"After that, they're on their own," Hardwick says. "It's pretty stressful for them at first. But they catch on; we haven't had many total failures."

Inventory control is just as casual. Dean keeps lists of some items. William tends to wander through the store and order what seems to be in short supply. Surprises turn up in the warehouse, such as the recent discovery of a dozen mirrors that were manufactured in June 1952.

But though it may not be apparent to the casual eye, there's a method at work here. While many stores that were once neighborhood institutions have folded, Hardwick's has changed with the times and continues to prosper despite all the competition from high-tech megastores.

Hardwick's began as two Depression-era second-hand shops. In 1932, grandfather Charles Hardwick, a real estate broker whose business went belly-up in the market crash, opened a used furniture store with his own office furniture as the original stock.

In 1936, Dean Hardwick, father of current owners William and Dean, dropped out of college and started a second store. While Dean was in the military during World War II, Grandpa Hardwick combined the two businesses at the current location.

William, and the younger Dean began working at the store as children.

William, now 48, and Dean, 38, operated the store as a partnership after their grandfather and father died, in the 1970s, and incorporated the business about 10 years ago. The store, which was once a two- or three- person operation, now employs 14.

Initially, furniture was the mainstay. It was mostly used or purchased as damaged freight from railroads or factory seconds and sold to university students or neighborhood residents.

Over the years, the neighborhood has changed dramatically- many college students are better off and most of the single-family homes have been displaced by office buildings, auto dealerships, restaurants and University of Washington sprawl.

That dictated a gradual, but major change in what the store sells.

"Now we concentrate on new and used tools and hardware, and dabble in furniture, housewares, plumbing and electrical supplies," says William Hardwick.

And in several lines of goods the store carries a lot more variety than its competitors. While a hardware store or lumber yard might carry a half-dozen kinds of hammers, Hardwick's stocks about 50, ranging from small ball peens to 20-pound sledges.

The store claims to sell more hand planes than others in the area, Hardwick says. It stocks about 30 types of Japanese hand saws and carries a huge variety of wood clamps and handscrews.

Sixty years later, there is still a certain Depression-era sensibility about Hardwick's. For one thing, its prices for some items, such as new hand tools, are as low as those of most mail-order outlets. For another, the only advertising Hardwick's does is to buy used goods.

"There's a low supply and a large demand for used stuff," William says. "People come in and want to know where it is. It's here-- you just have to look for it," he says, pulling a handful of used air couplers from a small drawer.

"We're the original recyclers," William Hardwick says. "We're frugal and so are our customers."

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See Saws

Best Old-Fashioned Hardware Store

Tool lovers and champagne tinkerers with beer budgets have always known Hardwick's (4214 Roosevelt Way NE, 632-1203) is the place to go for bargain-priced standard hardware, cheaper used items, and rarities like fine Swedish chisels, finer Japanese handsaws, the odd-size obsolete saw blades that no one else carries, and even gnarled brass nardkins to match the ones on your 1923 cupboard door. Now, the good people of Seattle have come to their senses and recognized this inimitable swap shop as the town's finest hardware store, period. Maybe we've finally overdosed on stadium-size warehouses packed with tons of the same standard merchandise- the B. Daltons or, at best, Barnes & Nobles of hardware. Hardwick's is the Shorey's of hardware stores: a ceiling-high assortment of new, old, and in-between goods, a museum of steel and brass, a palpable education in handicraft, a scrounger's dream.

It's also a living, breathing family tradition. Charles Dean Hardwick, the grandfather of the current proprietors and a real-estate broker clobbered by the Depression, started a swap shop 30 blocks to the north in 1932. It thrived (secondhand deals were what people needed then), and his son Dean Ernest Hardwick started another shop on the current site. The two shops merged during World War II, while Dean was in the service. His sons, Dean James and William Dean Hardwick (pictured above), took over in the 70's and run the shop today. (A third brother, who didn't get named Dean, became a dentist instead.) As the tool and fastener selection expands, it's pushing back the other swap goods. But the current Dean Hardwick vows to keep selling used furniture to the U-District's movers and squatters. The only change he hopes to make: organize the merchandise- "slowly." Wade Purcell (the big, droll fellow with the beard who knows where everything is) will continue to round up the stray shoppers at closing time with a trail-boss bellow that could send the whole herd back to the corral.

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