Marsland Pipe wrench
We've covered the Canadian company Marsland before, both as an electronics company but also their vise. These heavy tools seemed out of place in an electronics company product line but they had a division that supplied equipment for mining companies. It appears Marsland acquired the Whitehall Machine & Tools, Ltd of Hespeler and the A. B. Jardine companies of Galt in the 1940s. Jardine was making a pipe wrench under the Ridge tool patent and this must be the same product under the new name. Looks like it could last for centuries.
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2 comments:
Having sold literally a gazillion pipe wrenches over my 44 years of tool sales (okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it was lots of them) my first impression of the picture was it’s a Ridgid pipe wrench. Reading the caption and seeing the Ridge Tool connection, it’s my speculation that these handles were probably forged by Ridge and sent to Marsland. Forging handles like this is a pretty big deal and for a company that I have never heard of to produce these seems to be like a stretch. There is a lot of cross pollination in the tool industry and nobody makes everything they sell, so manufacturers will private label things for their competitors for the right price and volume.
Those were the days of tarifs and protectionism and maybe importing parts of a tool counted as raw material- or something. Googling Jardine wrench brings up a similar wrench. I can’t find out much on Jardine.
The product was aimed at the Canadian mining industry and maybe that was part of the agreement with Rudge tools. I’ll keep searching:-)
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