Founded in 1920 in Milwaukee, WI as Snap-On Wrench Co. with Motor Tool Specialty Co. as distributor, this automotive tool manufacturer has also sold a line of bench grinders and electric drills. Sold under its Blue-Point brand name, the bench grinders/valve refacers were introduced in the 1934 catalog, electric drills and a drill stand were added in 1937, and disc sanders in 1939.
Information Sources
- Images of scanned Snap-on catalogs at Collecting Snap-on
- A 1957 catalog of Blue-Point electrical tools shows several tools that are virtually identical to those from Mall Tool Co. Present-day Blue-Point tools are manufactured by Snap-On but in these earlier years many of the Blue-Point products were manufactured by others.
- Wikipedia article on Snap-on
- A detailed company history is at Alloy Artifacts: Snap-On Wrench Company and Bluepoint (1930-1959).
- Based solely on patent assignments we have the following corporate names and dates:
- 1923-1931 Snap-On Wrench Co.
- 1932-1940 Snap-On Tools, Inc.
- 1941-1994 Snap-On Tools Corp.
- 1994-2007 Snap-On, Inc.
- 1996-2003 Snap-On Technologies, Inc.
- 1997-2002 Snap-On Tools Co.