Herbrand hand tools

Vintage Herbrand Ignition Wrench 53M 4. Up for auction today is a vintage Herbrand spud wrench. The spud is in good used condition. It shows some rust. Minor pitting, staining, and wear from use.

The handle appears to have a slight bend in it. Please see photos to best determine condition and ask questions. Winning bidder agrees to pay 7. I thank you for viewing my item and good luck with your bid. I will do this by providing a description and pictures to the best of my ability. The pictures are an important part of the description so please look carefully.

If you have information about this item in contrary to If I have one. I will state the history of the item as conveyed to me. Since all the items I sell were purchased used and may have had many owners, I will never know all the history as far as the environment they were kept in. The items I sell are vintage or older and normal wear is to be expected.

And will often enhance its beauty and value. Communication and understanding is essential to ensure a mutually satisfying transaction. So please e-mail me for any clarification of description needed or more photos.

All items are sold as is with no returns. Please be certain of what you are bidding on before you bid. Please look at my feedback and know you can bid with confidence. Payment is expected with PayPal within 5 days of auction close. If payment is not received within this period.

You will forfeit the item to the backup bidder unless we make other arrangements. All items will be shipped within 3 business days of receipt of payment. This item is sold AS-IS. Please note that all sales are final. Look closely at the images provided and other details to ensure that the items are. In fact, the ones you want. If you are not in the continental United States. Please email an inquiry about shipping costs. In the email. Please note We are not specialist on everything.

If something is listed wrong and you know what it is. See pictures. Here is a very large combo wrench. It is from the Van Herbrand company.

As you can see it has some pitting of the chrome. But still appears to be in good shape for the age. International shipping will be more. This item has been fully tested by our tech department and is in good working condition. Item is guaranteed non-DOA and is covered under our day return policy. Item comes to you exactly as pictured- nothing more. Nothing less. This vintage Herbrand open end wrench is in great condition for it's age. O, USA and This thing is heavy duty. The trademark was issued as 75, on September 28, In the Herbrand Company filed a trademark application for the H-Diamond logo, a design with in "H" inside a diamond shape.

The applicable products were listed as wrenches, screwdrivers, and hammers, and the first use date was given as July 1, The trademark was issued as , on April 27, In Herbrand filed an application for another variant of the Herbrand script logo, with the illustration showing an open underline stroke very similar to the marking used on tools.

The first use date was given as November 1, , and the applicable products were listed as wrenches all kinds , pliers, hammers, screwdrivers, and chisels. The trademark was issued as , on May 29, In the Herbrand Company filed an application for the "Van Chrome" trademark, with the products described as "wrenches of all kinds" and with the first use date listed as The trademark was issued as , on January 28, This trademark was renewed by the Bingham-Herbrand Corporation in In and the Bingham-Herbrand Corporation filed a flurry of trademark applications with first-use dates occurring 15 or more years earlier.

These included the new trademarks "Obstructo", "Multihex", "Multiflex", and "Multitype", along with variants of existing trademarks. Of these late trademarks, the "Multiflex" application is known to have an incorrect first-use date, as this brand appeared in an early catalog along with "Obstructo" and "Multihex". Herbrand tools are generally easy to identify, except possibly for some tools made as a contract manufacturer. Most Herbrand tools will be marked with the company name, either in block letters or in script form as a logo, in the latter case with "Fremont, O U.

Earlier Herbrand tools were frequently marked with the H-Diamond logo, and the company name may or may not have been marked as well. Herbrand tools made with chrome-vanadium steel were commonly marked with the well-known "Van-Chrome" trademark, although a substantial number of presumably alloy tools can be found without the trademark.

For a while this omission seemed a puzzling anomaly, since most tool companies are very consistent in the use of their trademarks. Eventually though we discovered a likely explanation by examination of certain other markings on their tools. Herbrand tools will occasionally be found with a four-digit number forged into the shank, with "" appearing to be the most common combination, but other numbers such as "" or "" also noted. A search of various sources found that these numbers appear in tables of AISI or SAE alloy steel types, and a check of the specific properties of AISI steel showed it to be suitable for hand tools.

Thus these forged-in numbers are almost certainly an indication of the specific steel used to make the tools. And at least on the examples found so far, the forged-in numbers appear on tools without a "Van-Chrome" marking.

So how does this relate to the missing "Van-Chrome" mark? A quick check of Machinery's Handbook for the composition of AISI steel showed a medium-carbon triple alloy steel with nickel, chromium, and molybdenum, but no vanadium. The and steels are very similar. Thus when Herbrand substituted nickel-chrome-moly steel for their standard chrome-vanadium alloy, they apparently felt obliged to omit the trademark that promised vanadium.

One can appreciate the value of trademarks such as Armstrong's Armaloy or Barcalo's Barcaloy that suggest alloyed goodness without a specific composition. Herbrand tools were generally not marked with any type of date code, so the estimation of manufacturing dates must be based on other factors.

In this section we'll try to develop guidelines for estimating the manufacturing dates. The following list of observations may be helpful in determining the manufacturing date for some tools. H-Diamond Trademark. The trademark document gives the first use date for the H-Diamond logo as This mark is frequently found on older tools and remained in use into the s or later. Herbrand Script Trademark. The Herbrand script logo with an open underline was registered as a trademark and was first used on tools in Early tappet wrenches have been found marked with "Vanadium Motor Tappet" forged into a panel.

These likely date from the early s or possibly earlier, and may be the source of the use date claimed in the Van-Chrome trademark. Van-Chrome Trademark. The Van-Chrome trademark was filed in with a first use claimed in However, we have been unable to find public documents supporting this early use date.

The presence of a stamped or forged-in "Van-Chrome" probably indicates production in or later. Herbrand Script Logo with "Since ". Herbrand tools were frequently marked with the fancy script logo, with "Fremont, O. A small number of tools have been found with the "U. We now believe that the change in markings may have been done just in , in order to mark the 50th anniversary of the company's founding.

End Broaching for S Flex Handles. Cadmium Plating. Nickel or chrome plating was standard for most Herbrand tools from the mid s onward, but cadmium finishes were substituted during the wartime years Fremont Marking. Herbrand was founded in Fremont, Ohio in and remained there until Triangle Marking.

Late production under Triangle Tool management and later was sometimes marked with a small triangle symbol. Herbrand produced sockets in three different design styles, and the production dates for these can be estimated based on catalog illustrations. The earliest style is identified by a band of parallel knurled lines around the center and was in production from the early s until around The second style used a cross-hatched knurled band instead of the simple parallel knurling of the previous style.

This style was produced from about until sometime in the early to mid s. The third style dropped the knurled band in favor of a simple polished finish, and this remained in production from the mid s onward.

For all three of the design styles, the socket format and construction remained similar. Herbrand preferred sockets with turned-down bases for the larger sizes and a reduced upper diameter for the smaller sizes.

Photographs and observations of particular tools are based on items in the Alloy Artifacts collection. Information on particular steels was obtained from Machinery's Handbook, Revised 21st Edition , published in and many other editions by Industrial Press Inc.

New York. We are fortunate to have a number of Herbrand catalogs covering the s decade, a time when the company's tool business was in transition. However, a number of these catalogs were published without copyright dates, making it somewhat difficult to estimate the publication date. In addition, Herbrand catalog numbers don't bear any obvious association with calendar years, suggesting that the company wasn't publishing on a strict calendar year basis anyway.

Since knowing the publication date for a catalog is very helpful in interpreting the contents, we spent some time going through the catalogs with a magnifying glass literally!

Sometimes these were obvious, as in the case of the scan in Fig. This unambiguously establishes that catalog M applies to , regardless of the exact publication date. For cases without obvious dates, we looked for things like statements about the company's history Herbrand was founded in , trademarks mentioned, and even specialty tools applying to specific model years of automobiles. In this latter category, we found that Chevrolet main bearing wrenches changed several times over the course of a few years, resulting in four different tools to cover model years The various clues gathered from the catalogs have been added to the "Notes" column of the table below.

To demonstrate how these clues can be analyzed to provide an estimated publication date, let's consider the case of catalog M. Since Herbrand was founded in , the statement "Over 50 years progress The catalog listings include both "Multihex" and "Obstructo", later filed as trademarks with a first use date of August 1, This first use date could reasonably be claimed if the catalog illustrations were being prepared on August 1, The No.

The above considerations all point to a printing date for catalog M in late summer of As Herbrand's tool business became more focused on automotive service tools, it would have been natural to synchronize its catalogs with the auto makers' model year schedule. Herbrand's tool designers would have needed to work with automobile company engineers in advance, to ensure that any needed specialty tools would be available when the new autos went on sale.

And once a new specialty tool had been developed, there would have been an incentive to offer it at the earliest possible date. Similar arguments can be made for the other catalogs in the table below, leading us to conclude that Herbrand followed the auto industry "model year" schedule for its catalogs, at least during this formative period in the early to mid s.

The catalogs were generally printed in late summer or early fall and were intended to apply through the following summer. Usually the distinction between the "model year" and calendar year for catalogs won't really matter, but in a few cases we may need to refer to the slightly earlier printing date. Catalog M may be a special case, as the clues and sequential number would be consistent with model year , but the "" copyright date added by the printing company would suggest model year One reasonable explanation would be that the product line was relatively unchanged, so that the catalog was simply reprinted for the model year.

And our copy happens to be from the second printing. Another special case likely occurred for our copy of catalog M, for which a second printing in May of was needed to update the bound-in price list.

This pattern seems to continue after , as new catalog editions become less frequent and catalogs are reprinted to update prices as needed. The interpretation of the Herbrand catalogs as covering a "model year" schedule raises an interesting possibility for the nominal catalog M. With a likely printing date in late summer of , it's possible that the undated insert announcing "Multitype" combination wrenches could have come in late or early , making Herbrand the first-mover in combination wrenches.

There is some evidence against this, as the later trademark filing for "Multitype" gave November 1, as the first use date. But this same date in the "Multiflex" filing is known to be incorrect, and first use claims in trademarks filed much later are sometimes inaccurate. See the Trademark Table above for more information. At this point we don't enough information to settle the argument, but for those who delight in overturning the "conventional wisdom", it would be an interesting area to explore.

Herbrand product information was also found in catalogs from various industrial and automotive tools distributors. Marwedel The catalog No. The catalog may have more listings for Herbrand, but doesn't include a manufacturer's index. Beckley-Ralston A Beckley-Ralston catalog shows Herbrand tappet wrenches, not mentioned by name but identified by the model numbers H-1 through H Western Auto Supply The , , and Western Auto catalogs list a number of Herbrand products by name, in some cases showing the Herbrand script, and mentioning the Van-Chrome, Multihex, and Obstructo brands.

Tappet wrenches are also listed, but without clear identification of the maker. Thorsen Tools More surprisingly, a catalog for Thorsen Tools devotes almost half of its pages to listings of Herbrand products, clearly showing the Herbrand script and Van-Chrome logos. It appears that Thorsen at this time was as much a tool retailer as manufacturer.

In this section we'll look at examples of Herbrand's early tool production, spanning the period from the early s to the late s. Some examples may be from later periods if the tools were substantially the same as their earlier counterparts. The use of the Herbrand script logo indicates production in or later, and the use of the older U.

The use of the Herbrand script logo indicates production in or later, and the forged-in H-Diamond marking suggests production in the s or earlier. The use of the Herbrand script logo indicates production in or later. The absence of the forged-in H-Diamond logo suggests production in the late s or later.

The shank is marked with the model number forged into the front, with the H-Diamond logo forged into the reverse nto shown. The reverse has a number forged into the shank, possibly "" but difficult to read. The use of the forged-in H-Diamond marking without the Herbrand script logo suggests production before The use of the Herbrand script logo indicates production in or later, and the use of fractional sizes suggests production in or later.

Currently we don't have a catalog reference for this model, but it is believed to have been a spark plug wrench. The wrench is marked with "Spark Plug and Oil Reservoir Drain Plug Wrench" forged into the shank, with the "" model number and the H-Diamond logo forged into the reverse. The forged-in markings on the shank have the text "Herbrand Co. Did any of our sharp-eyed readers notice anything odd in the markings on this wrench?

The "N" letters in Herbrand and Fremont are inverted, as apparently the incised markings in the forging die were done by hand and the mistake went unnoticed. The markings are forged into the shank and include the text "Herbrand Co. Although this wrench is not marked with a model number, an early Herbrand catalog page shows a very similar tool as a No.

The catalog notes that the wrench was " The wrench is stamped "Fremont, O. The next two figures show examples of the Herbrand wrench, a popular tool for Model T service.

The wrench is marked "Fremont, O. This wrench is listed in an early Herbrand catalog as a "Ford No. The distinctive bend in the shank was designed for clearance when servicing the notorious fourth connecting rod. As with the previous example, the wrench is marked with the H-Diamond logo and the model number forged into the shank, shown as a close-up in the middle left inset. This wrench was important in helping to identify the "CFT" marking as a secondary brand for Herbrand.

See the section on CFT Tools for more information and examples. The wrench is marked with the model number and H-Diamond logo forged into the shank, and with a faint "EE" code at the right see inset. The model number on this wrench indicates that it was made as an official Ford service tool. The 5Z wrench was introduced in late as a successor to the earlier 3Z connecting rod clamp bolt wrench.

The wrench is stamped with the Ford script logo and model number, followed by the Herbrand H-Diamond logo. The Ford script logo and model number on this wrench indicate that it was made as an official Ford service tool. The 5Z wrench was introduced in late as a successor to the earlier 3Z flywheel capscrew wrench. The socket is stamped with Herbrand script logo and size, as shown in the lower right inset.

The brace has an overall length of The finish is plain steel. The reverse face is stamped with the fractional size not shown. The overall length is 7.

A faint forged-in number "" inverted in the photograph can be seen on the handle just before the offset. This is a reference to AISI steel, a medium-carbon steel with some manganese content. This type of "spud handle" wrench is frequently used for construction jobs such as steel erection, for which the pointed handle is useful for lining up holes.

The next two figures show similar check-nut wrenches that were recently identified as contract production for the Delta Machinery Company, specifically for their 11 inch "Double Duty Lathe" and the No. A later parts list shows the DDL wrench as being the same as the tool. Thanks to a diligent reader for sending us this information! This suggests that the initial production used the number, and that later production by used the DDL number.

It's interesting to note that both tools include the forged-in H-Diamond marking, an early Herbrand trademark. These tools show that this early trademark remained in use for contract production into the s and beyond.

The DDL number had superseded the number by , suggesting production from the late s onward. The handles have a distinctive gripping pattern consisting of three rows of raised diamonds within a depressed panel. The top inset shows a side view of the pliers.

Note the clearly visible marks from the trimming operation, suggesting that these pliers are of relatively early production. The lower inset shows the only marking on the tool, the H-Diamond logo stamped on the underside of the handles.

These pliers have a fairly rough finish, with a plainly visible ridge left after the trimming operation, as seen in the upper inset. The overall length is These Herbrand pliers are similar to the McKaig-Hatch Chain Repair Pliers shown elsewhare on this site, but have a slightly different jaw design. A later example of chain repair pliers can be seen as the Herbrand Chain Repair Pliers. Auto wrenches were an early style of adjustable wrench and were popular for working on autos, motorcycles, and machinery.

These tools were considered to be essential for servicing early autos, and most of the automobile and motorcycle tool kits of the time included an auto wrench. The catalog offered auto wrenches in sizes 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 18, and 24 inches.

The wrenches were available in several finishes. For example, the 7 inch model wrench was available in a black, mottled, black nickel, or nickel plated finish. The larger sizes typically had fewer finish options.