The company manufactured iron blacksmith vises circa 1891-1903. The company's officers were Franz Krein, Charles E. Nixdorff, and Max Littmann. St. Louis was a hardware center for the South and West, and this company would have had a number of possible outlets for their vises. However, catalogs of the era generally treated blacksmith vises as generic products, and manufacturers were not identified.
From a survey of later references, this company was a major manufacturer of chain and wagon and truck hardware, and may have survived in some form until recently. We were unable to find a website.
Information Sources
- The Age of Steel, Vol. 77, No. 1, Jan 5, 1893, Pg. 39.
- Directory of Iron and Steel Works of the United States and Canada: Supplement, 1903, Pg. 141.
- Hardware Age, Vol. 168, No. 2, July 26, 1951, Pg. 615.