The Early Company History That Created Vintage Snap-on Tools
It's hard to imagine that it's only been a little over 100 years since the first cars rolled off the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company. As we look around today at the dealerships, used car lots, gas stations, highways and automotive repair shops, it's not easy to imagine a time when the automobile was a novelty. In today's world should your car or break down it might be an expensive inconvenience but you would not have a problem finding a mechanic with the right tools to fix it. It has not always been that way.
In the year 1910 there were only about 450,000 car owners in the United States. A small toolkit may have been included with your car purchase. But unless you were a mechanic yourself finding someone to fix a problem with your car might have been a challenge. And the tools that were available to the mechanic were by and large very simple. Tools were not the main focus, selling automobiles was. Sometimes a different sized ranch was required for nearly every nut and bolt on an automobile. This was an expensive way to assemble a toolkit.
The story of how the Snap-on Tool Company was started is a fascinating one. Thanks to the imagination and hard work of two young entrepreneurs, today we have a booming market in antique Snap-on tools.
In the year 1919 there were only about 8 million cars driving the roads in the US. Joseph Johnson was an employee of the American Grinder Manufacturing Co. and his job was to manage the tool and wrench division for the company. He was not trained in in this because he had a background as an expediter and cost clerk. But he was smart, innovative, and must have been thinking "there must be a better way" as he did his job. He observed that every time a mechanic bought a wrench that they were essentially purchasing another handle.
Johnson had made friends with a man named William Seidemann who was also a manager at American Grinder. Johnson and Seidemann talked regularly, working out the details of their tool concept. In the end they decided that mechanics could use five different handles and change out ten socket sizes for each handle which would give a total combination of 50 unique wrenches.
What happened next must surely make any businessman cringe. Johnson discussed his idea with the management at American Grinder. Management felt like his concept of ten sockets and five handles would actually hurt their individual sales. They turned him down. Johnson had given a American Grinder the opportunity to take his idea and capitalize on it and since they decided it not to do it, Johnson and Seidemann could now move forward on their own.
The first company motto was "Five can do the work of 50", based on the math: Five handles multiplied times the ten sockets. After Johnson made the first set of handles, Seidemann helped Johnson with the creation of the sockets. They were made to "snap onto" the handles, and of course, this is where the company name came from.
Johnson and Seidemann's biggest problem was that they had very little money. They pooled their last few dollars and printed 2,000 promotional brochures which would be used to advertise their "snap-on" tool set. Everything was being done by hand because there were no production facilities, including the milling of the sockets from bar steel and the stamping of the stock numbers.
They only had the one, original, set of hand tools they had just created. They had no manufacturing and no sales force. They did manage to find a traveling tire salesman who covered only the state of Wisconsin. As he would visit each of the shops and he would demonstrate the one set of tools and leave behind a brochure for the mechanic. He collected over 500 COD orders and took these back to Johnson and Seidemann who were hard at work making a second set of tools.
Johnson and Seidemann found another salesman who would also be willing to represent their new tool line, and he was sent out with the #2 set that had been completed. The second salesman was similarly and enthusiastically received by the mechanics he met with, and came back with more COD orders. Now Johnson and Seidemann had a real problem - a great concept and a huge demand, but no products to sell. And they had no money.
They contacted an attorney who in turn found some local businessmen willing to invest in the new company. The Snap-On Wrench Company was incorporated on April 10, 1920. Johnson and Seidemann had to borrow $500 each so they could purchase stock in their own business. They rented a 2,500 square-foot shop, leased machinery and began production. The tools they created and which sold for only a few dollars back then are now considered to be vintage Snap-on Tools and are highly prized as collectibles.
Article Source: http://www.search-raven.com
About the Author
Sara Bondia has fun finding out information on vintage Snap-on Tools and she loves finding bargains and selling on eBay. Get more information on collecting antique Snap-on Tools and see some great deals at her Vintage Snap-on Tools website. Click over now and see what's available!
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by: SaraBondia
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