I was joywalking around Auburndale over the weekend and I found a box of old power tools in vintage Black & Decker boxes by the sidewalk. The tools were there for the taking but in the Age of Covid I didn’t want to touch anything unfamiliar. Besides, my mechanical ability is confined to changing lightbulbs, and I even have trouble with those little halogen bulbs that are mounted under shelves (those are devilishly tough for me to change). This isn’t even a New York centric item, but it is an iconographic item.
On the boxes are two different Black & Decker logos, plus two iterations of its hexagonal bolt logo, which the power tools company used between 1912 and 2014. The company was founded in 1911 by S. Duncan Black and Alonzo G. Decker in Baltimore. The company’s first power drill was marketed in 1917 and opened its first factory in Towson, MD the same year; B&D is still located there. After an acquisition by Stanley Works (best known for their original yellow tape measure) the company dropped the ampersand and replaced it with a plus sign, as in “Black + Decker.”
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
12/15/20
5 comments
Still proudly made by American craftsmen in the USA, and … wait, what? China, seriously?
Just about the only tools still made in this country are Snap-On and Matco, and these companies sell only to business customers.
I ‘d love to go on a FNY tour you would lead inside a Home Depot. BTW, there’s a brand new one almost opened on Maurice Avenue.
Jeez!
Next time you find something like that tell us where.I would grab that in a second
Whaddya mean Snap On “only sell to business customers”?
I’ve bought Snap On tools plenty of times off of their trucks.
Remember the old adage: “Money talks and Bullshit walks”
Large size Star Drills labeled on box , old school hand tool. Have a few fractured knuckles from using them 🙂