Friday, April 7, 2017

Vanished Tool Makers: Hapewe, West Germany





Below, a small SAE combination wrench made by this company.   It's of indifferent quality compared to most other German-made wrenches I've encountered.  The company seems to have specialized in pliers for Porsche and VW tool kits.    Beyond that, I can find little other information.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

HAPEWE, as a brand, was filed for registration on the 12th of January 1965 and successfully registered by DPMA (German Patent Authority) on the 15th of February 1966. And, if we call the brand owner name - Harry P. Will, Werkzeugfabrik, GmbH, we'd clearly see, what HAPEWE stands for.
Harry P. Will - HPW, or, if we spell it out in German: Ha-Pe-We. So, this brand was bound with the name of the legendary german tools manufacturer famous for his WILL hand tools. I'd stress it, just with his name, but not with him personally.
The matter is, that he immigrated to Toronto Canada in early 1950-s having left his enterprise to his business partner Richard Gies. (By the way, in Canada and the USA Harry P. Will was well-known under the name "Plier-King".)
In 1962 Harry P. Will, Werkzeugfabrik, GmbH was bought up by the Still family, so, when HAPEWE brand appeared, Harry P. Will didn't have any personal connection to the issue.
As to my knowledge, HAPEWE brand was cancelled on the 15th of November 2005 in the result of "deletion of proprietor". Harry P. Will, Werkzeugfabrik, GmbH was on the way to insolvency those days. In 2006 KNIPEX Group bought the sinking enterprise out of bankruptcy. Orbis-Werk (that was taken over by KNIPEX in 2003) and Will Werkzeuge merged in 2008. The renamed company - OrbisWill GmbH + Co. KG is alive.

The Duke said...

Thanks for this information! I had wondered if Harry P. Will and Hapewa were the same. See my post on Harry P. Will: https://progress-is-fine.blogspot.ca/2015/02/gripping-tales-harry-p-will-gmbh.html

Unknown said...

Thank you for the link! I did miss it. So, it looks like all the details tile in place.