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General Tools and Instruments was founded in New York City in 1922 as the General Hardware Manufacturing Company. Abe and Lilian Rosenberg were the founders, and Abe came up with his own tool ideas which he had made by various machine shops. In 1937, they began to offer tools under their own company name and they were among the first to manufacture die-cast tools. Their success ultimately led them to make tools for Sears, where in 1946 they became charter members of the Sears 100 Club of Craftsman tool suppliers. The company remains in business today as General Tools. In 2014 the family sold their interests to High Road Capital Partners of New York City, a private equity firm, where it is still listed in their portfolio. However, it is also now a brand under the flag of the Innovak Group out of Montreal, Quebec.
Any idea how old this particular one might be? I have one of these, identical to the one in the photo; I acquired it at least 30 years ago from my dad. I have used it mainly as an aid to model-building but also now and again in some general carpentry tasks. For most of the time I have owned it, the suction cup feature worked poorly at best, and it finally stopped working at all. I recently removed the rubber cup entirely, and filled the bottom cavity with JB Weld, using a bunch of screws as miniature rebar (for added strength, as well as a method to reduce the amount of JB Weld needed; even with that, it required five pairs of tubes of the epoxy). I plan to bond it (using yet more JB Weld) to a metal plate so I can bolt it to a workbench and continue to use it.
ReplyDeleteBy the font of the label, I'd estimate early-mid fifties, but it could have been manufactured without changes for a long time afterwards.
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