The Albany Hardware Specialty Manufacturing Co. (AHS Manufacturing Co.) was founded in 1898 by Henry Whitcomb. They are known to us from a lovely drill press with an ingenious variable-speed mechanism that was patented in 1908. The company is still in business but has not made the drill press for a great many years.
Information Sources
- We learned of this company via a posting to the OWWM forum that pointed to an eBay auction of a drill press from this company. The drill press was in excellent condition and sold for nearly $1700. The drill is labeled as "A.H.S. Mfg. Co. / Albany, Wisc."
- The above-mentioned drill had a patent date of "10-20-08" on it. A patent search turned up patent 901,635, granted to one Saxton Joseph Morgan. A witness on that patent, Harris Morgan Whitcomb, was co-inventor on some other patents granted to Morgan. A couple of later patents were explicitly assigned to Albany Hardware Specialty Manufacturing Co., which explains what "A.H.S." stands for.
- A 1912 Congressional committee report on metals manufacturing lists this firm as a maker of drilling machines.
- Listed as a maker of high-speed drills in the 1948 edition (published 1947) of Mechanical Engineers Catalog and Product Directory