I have a Blackhawk 3/4" drive socket wrench set that I inherited from my dad. It was sold to him by a friend sometime between 1930 and 1935 and was several years old at that time. Dad was a diesel mechanic who worked on heavy equipment from about 1930 until his retirement in 1972 and used these wrenches almost daily.
Now I know that in recent years Stanley-Proto has begun selling a "Blackhawk" brand of tools, but I don't think that this set was made by them 'cause it's too old.
My questions are: What was the name of the company who made these tools? When was the company founded? And what happened to the company?
Back in the '60s, when I started wrenching for a living, Blackhawk tools were made by the New Britain Company of New Britain, Conn. At that time the tools were usually sold at auto parts stores (I remember that all the NAPA stores sold New Britain). I bought a 7 drawer Blackhawk top box with everything I needed to get started at my first job for $350.00 from the parts store about a mile from my house. After I moved to California I could not find Blackhawk tools, but I found that other than the name, New Britain tools were identical.
Whether the two were always connected, I have no idea. Recently, I bought a set of Blackhawk combination wrenches from the MAC tool dealer that comes around the shop (Stanley owns MAC too), and while they are decent quality, I think the older ones were better.
That makes a lot of sense. Dad had a number of New Britain tools (along with J.H. Williams, Bonney, SK, Snap-On, and Craftsman) and I'll betcha that New Britain was the one that made Blackhawk.
I worked for Dad in the summers when I was growing up and I remember that, with the exception of Craftsman, salesmen would come around the shop about once a month and sell/deliver tools to him. He could get 'most any tools at Sears or the parts stores, and the Snap-On guy also sold the J.H. Williams tools. And I remember the guys from SK and New Britain coming around, but I don't remember anybody selling Blackhawks. I've checked with SK and am pretty sure that they didn't make 'em, so I'm with you on New Britain. I'll dig into it.
Again, thanks. I appreciate it.
Scotty
P.S. - After work> Back in the '60s, when I started wrenching for a living, Blackhawk tools
Ok, now Rexarino, who used to wrench also, has to jump in. I too have some Blackhawk tools, mostly sockets, from my Dad. Some of these date back to the dairy farm in Snyder Colorado where my grandparents attempted to raise my father in the 1910-30 era. They are GREAT tools!
The interesting thing is, my dad had no loyalty to any tool company until Sears offered it's lifetime warranty, so I also have Cornwell, Armstrong Armaloy, Duro Chrome, and Ray sockets. Dad eventually became on a first name basis with the 2 regular clerks at Sears Cherry Creek in Denver... " Well George, looks like you broke another one!" ... "Yep, it just snapped in two without any warning" and out would come a replacement. That got his loyalty.
When I worked for NAPA in the 70's, I was told by a rep from New Britain who had grown up in the business that all the US made tools came from 3 factories, 2 of which were New Britain and OTC (Otrona Tool ?Corp or Company?). By the way, anybody else have 19/32, 25/32, and 31/32 sockets in
1/22 inch drive? How about a seven piece set of square sockets (yes, 4 sided)?
Rexarino just realized that he had a wee slip o' the brain; OTC is/was OWATONNA Tool Co. It says so right here on my inch and a quarter socket. It also says, MADE IN USA OWATONNA, MINN. NOT GUARENTEED (sic)
Otrona was a Boulder, Colorado based company that made some of the first electronic typewriters, with a memory bank and prolly(?) a 6800 Motorola processor. I built those after I quit wrenching.
The printing is big enough on the 1 1/4 inch socket that I can't claim I couldn't read it, so I'll go look in the garage for another excuse...
Yep. I've done a lot of diggin' on this both here on the internet and at the library, and your friend the New Britain rep was right. The current big three are: Stanley, Snap-On and Danaher. Stanley and Danaher have the biggest share with similar revenues (about $28 Billion - that's right, "Billion with a B," annually each) and Snap-On comes in a not-too-distant third. I'll get to Owatonna in a moment.
Up until about 1994, Craftsman was made by Stanley. But Stanley lost the Craftsman contract to Danaher. So, if you have any Craftsman tools that were made before 1994, they were made by Stanley at plants located in either Dallas or Wichita Falls, Texas, or in Sabina, Ohio. Stanley still makes MAC, Husky, Proto, and Blackhawk in their high-end Industrial Division, and a bunch of brands in their consumer divisions. MAC, Husky, Proto, and Blackhawk are all made in the same plants and forges, using the same materials. Proto, however, has higher quality control standards because of their contracts to NASA and the U.S. military. New Britain was acquired by Stanley years ago. Since then it has evolved into Husky.
Danaher makes Craftsman (since 1994), Matco, K-D, Allen, Armstrong, and lots of less well-known brands. And they probably make all of them in the same plants and out of the same steel.
Snap-On has sucked-up a number of their smaller competitors such as J.H. Williams and Bonney, and for a while they sold J.H. Williams as an independent brand, but I don't know if they still do. They also make Kobalt tools, which are sold by Lowe's. I read an article by one of their tool designers and he says that, although all their brands are made in the same plants, they use different tooling and materials for each.
There are other manufacturers besides these, though. The French company FACOM owns S-K (Sherman-Klove) tools, for example. And about a gazillion tool brands are made in Taiwan, (yep, gazillion is a number; it has a lot of zeros) particularly the bargain brands you see in the low-end hardware and convenience stores.
Dad had a couple of Owatonna wrenches, too (I think), and some Indestros, including a huge 1-7/16" Indestro combination wrench that's around 18" long and weighs about a ton. I've not learned what happened to either of these makers in my explorations, but I still have a lot of material to cover. I did find an Indestro ad in a heavy equipment trade journal that was dated 1957, so they were still in business at that time. Owatonna remains a mystery, but I'd bet it's now part of either Stanley or Danaher.
Don't have any of those odd-sized sockets you mention, though.
Meanwhile, the original Blackhawk brand eludes me. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a stand-alone company, but rather a trademark sold by a different outfit. And a visit to the U.S. Patent Office with a tradmark search reveals nothing 'cause it expired long ago. Besides, there are a LOT of "Blackhawk" trademarks still registered for everything from military combat gear to lava lamps. You and others from various newsgroups have suggested the New Britain Tool and Mfg. Co., so I'm pursuing that now. But there's not much history to be found about that company any more.
One particularly frustrating part of this search is that the Stanley Work's headquarters is in New Britain, Connecticut. So a search engine, either on the internet or at the library, produces thousands of hits for the phrase, "New Britain," and most all of them point at Stanley.
Those of us who live right here consider two different tool companies recent and past to have been very important... Herbrand from the fairly distant past, and Cal-Van from more recent times. It's fitting that both companies were located in Fremont, OH... the one time cutlery capital of the world.
Maybe if your library card has some life left, you can find something about these companies?
Thanks for the reply. The libray card's hangin' in there. For Herbrand, try this URL:
formatting link
As to Cal-Van, looks like they're still around. Type "Cal-Van Tools" in Google or some similar search engine and you'll get plenty of hits. Lots of folks are selling them.
If you'd like to know more about why I'm doing this insanity about Blackhawk, set your browser's date back about 3 or 4 weeks and read the beginning of this thread.
||my explorations, but I still have a lot of material to cover. I did find an ||Indestro ad in a heavy equipment trade journal that was dated 1957, so they ||were still in business at that time.
We handled Indestro in the late 1970's.
||Owatonna remains a mystery, but I'd bet ||it's now part of either Stanley or Danaher.
Their current catalogs say "A Division of SPX" Texas Parts Guy
To all who helped me with this and anyone else who's interested,
This is just a follow-up to let you all know that I found pretty much what I wanted to know about the origins of Blackhawk tools. My conjecture about Blackhawk being a trademark of a parent company was wrong. The firm was an independent, stand-alone forge and foundry company named the Blackhawk Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the original works are now defunct. I've been unable to determine when the company went out of business, but the wrenches that I was asking about in my dad's set were made circa 1932.
Apparently, the company was absorbed by another company long ago, most likely by New Britain but possibly others along the way as well, and as a result the trademark is now the property of the Industrial Tools Division of the Stanley Works.
Thank you very much and best wishes to you all for your help.
Yes they are 8 point. 12 point can drive either 4 or 6 nuts. However, 4 nut were generally pretty sloppy and would slip. Hence the need for either 4 or 8 point sockets.
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