Thanks for the replies.

Hopper and Dc31k, I’ll follow up those leads, though in the case of G and M Tools the only handles I can see illustrated on their site are not the Python brand or type.

Michael, sadly, if you click on the individual sizes on the L&S page in your link it pictures very different file handles, all of which are captioned “ Not Python”.

Dave, I’m sorry to see your file handle appreciation acumen isn’t as sharp as other skills you have. I can find nothing remotely similar to the patented Python handle pictured on Amazon that isn’t actually a (currently unavailable) Python handle.

You appear to be overestimating the importance I attach to brand. In this case it is close to zero. What is important to me are the unique qualities of the Python handles: the patented spring steel safety ferrule, which not only keeps the wood at the end of the handle under constant compression, thereby ensuring a more solid hold on the file tang than with other types of handle, but protects the wood  against damage if you slip off the work and the leading part of the handle collides with the edge of the immovable metal object you’re filing.

The Python ferrules don’t need those punch indentations you typically see on the ferrules of most commercially made handles, which are to discourage the ferrule from loosening when the wood beneath shrinks. They don’t need them because the design of the Python ferrule actively compensates against loosening. I’m not saying they never loosen but I suspect the tendency to do so is far less than with conventionally-ferruled file handles. I also like the contours of the handles, which suit my hand better than any other commercially produced handle I’ve tried.

I have Python handles that are at least 60 years old. It said “patented” on them even then. If anyone has access to a full Buck and Hickman catalogue (the online digitised versions all now seem to be “partial preview” jobs) of say sixty years old, could you please see whether Python handles are in it?

Chris, I’ve seen the ones on ebay. I don’t think the prices are sensible. I also don’t think their being sold as new items means they’re necessarily still being made.

Thanks for the further replies.

Jason, that Draper/Presto style handle is more than half way to being what a Python is. I’ve got two of them already (bought around the same time as my ten size 2 Pythons, which cost me £12.95 delivered in 2018) and I’m reasonably happy with them. If only they were actually the same as Pythons!

The other snag with them is that they too appear to be going extinct, if recent Internet images of them are anything to go by:

Bill, sadly the product codes next to those images of Python handles are the same as for Faithfull-branded file handles, which just have standard ferrules like the Draper pictured above. I think we can be confident that what you see there is not what you’d get.

Michael, that looks like a case of a Chinese speaker not understanding (or just not caring) that Python is a brand of file handle, not merely a descriptive term for one. I wonder whether the younger generation over here still use Hoover interchangeably with vacuum cleaner as readily as people of my generation do. Given the number of competing brands out there now, I suspect not.

Dave, I can’t actually picture what the manufacturers meant when they said the Pythons have a “hidden spring inside the handle”. I’d always assumed it meant the ferrule has some sort of internal spring-steel prongs that embed themselves in the wood around the hole. I suppose there’s only one way to find out and that’s to chuck a Python in a fire and see what’s left behind after an hour or two; a reckless act, perhaps, given we now know the Python is an endangered species.

Bill, can you update us on what turns up when your order arrives, i.e. real no.3 Pythons or substitutes? Thanks.