Craftool S Stamps - Not The Hd Saddle Stamps

[WyomingSlick]

I recently aquired a set of nine 50's era Craftools that have a "S" after the tool number. These are not part of the heavy duty Saddle Stamps series that were made later on in the 70's and 80s. See pic 1.

These S tools are much the same as the regular craftools of the same number except for some differances.

The veiners and shells are the same except that the lines are somewhat finer - Pic 2.

When it comes to the bevelers;there are two significant differances. As seen in Pic 3; the beveling angle is steeper on the S tools than on the normal Craftools. In addition to that, the checkering on both of the "S" checkered bevelers is finer than on the regular Craftools of the same number.

In pic 4, I show a comparison between a regular Craftool beveler (c.50's), a Craftool S beveler (c.50's), a Barry King Sheridan beveler (c.2005), and a CraftJapan Stainless Steel Sheridan beveler (c.2007).

Now, I have quite a lot of old catalogs and leather magazines showing Craftools back to the late 40's; and have never run across any showing these for sale. Also I have never seen these "S" tools mentioned or shown in any old Doodle pages. I did run across a mention of them once in a discussion on the IILG site which only said that they were finer cut than the regular Craftools.

So........does anybody know how many of these were made, what numbers, etc??????? I would appreciate it if anyone has other numbers and could post pictures. Or if anyone has any advertising on these.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Is here any way to contact Craftool and see what information that they may have?

[whinewine]

Is here any way to contact Craftool and see what information that they may have?

You could try them, although, [1] unless they have them listed in their archives, and, [2] someone is actually willing to search through them, they may simply tell one what she/he wishes to hear, whether or not it is accurate** (or, more likely, the response would be "there is nothing in our archives"). It is entirely possible that production records of each individual tool designation might not have been kept.

{Concerning ** on # [2] above, for example, on Tandy's blog, a question was asked about the old ruby blades & stropping, & the answer given was that they needed to be stropped as often as steel blades... that is totally wrong :wtf: . Ruby is the second hardest substance, after diamond- steel doesn't compare in hardness. But this is one of the inaccuracies one gets from some of the corporate people who really don't know.) But enough- Good luck!

[WyomingSlick]

Is here any way to contact Craftool and see what information that they may have?

Pretty much a waste of time to contact Craftool about any historical info on tools. These tools would be from that period of time before Tandy bought Craftool and basically - the corporate folks don't know squat about those days. Very few of them could even tell you who Dick Gehan or Lou Roth were.