BTW, there is a difference between an overstitch wheel and a pricking wheel, though some in the UK seem to use the terms interchangeably and that can cause a lot of confusion.
An overstitch wheel has somewhat sharp points all around the diameter. A few people I ran into back in the 70's informed me the overstitch wheel was not only to impress the points into the leather for spacing, but also to run over the stitches to "clean them up or make them more uniform" after the stitches were done. I am pretty sure the latter was not true as the points could damage the thread of the stitches and good stitching does not need a wheel to make them look better.
The true Pricking Wheel has angled chisels all around the diameter of the wheel, like the chisels on the Pricking Iron. Since most of them have a feature to change wheels for different stitches per inch, it may seem like a very handy tool to have. However, the cost of such tools from Dixon, Blanchard, etc. are very high and well beyond the reach of most folks who are not full time leather workers. Further, the Pricking Wheels are made to be used on curved pieces of leather where even the two chisel Pricking Iron would take too long to use. Saddlers and some others who often work with large curved pieces of leather will find good use for Pricking Wheels, but for most of the rest of us, the use of the tool does not justify the cost.
However, the U.S. Cavalry issued Pricking Wheels in their Saddler's Repair Kits that were used into the early 20th century, as long as they still primarily used horses. I mention this because I found a U.S. marked Pricking Wheel at an old tool shop years ago and at the time, did not truly understand what it was. I thought it was a overstitch wheel and bought it mainly for the U.S. marking, but also because it was in a different spacing than wheels I had and because it was relatively cheap. However, much to my surprise and delight, the rear end of the wood grip unscrewed and there were more wheels of different spacing in there, that were tied together with a very old piece of string. While I was examining the wheels, I noticed they had chisel points instead of regular points and have to confess at the time I did not realize what I had. It actually took me a number of years before I ran across someone who knew what it was, back in the days before the Internet.
While a Pricking Wheel won't cut as deeply into the leather as a Pricking Iron and is harder to use than a Pricking Iron on straight rows of stitching, it is very handy on curved lines of stitching.
So anyone interested in leather work may keep an eye out at antique shops and flea markets for old tools and especially one of the U.S. marked Pricking Wheels that were often used little or not at all.
Gus
