Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
This is a late production (NLT 1926) Packer Auto Specialty Company “RAY” brand socket set.
Packer Auto started in 1912 in the wood box pressed steel era. Like most of the early Mossberg copycats, they didn’t bother improving the sockets, but concentrated on a new handle – in their case, a ratchet, and built the entire “RAY” set and line around that tool. It was a long tubular clutch-type reversible ratchet with a folding Tee handle and a hollow male drive end, patented by Eben S. Packer in 1913 (1,057,495), similar to the early Auto-Cle type ratchet in the early Mossberg sets, but different, with internalized teeth, a feature they hit hard in ads to distinguish themselves from the Auto-Cle type.
By 1921, they evolved, like Mossberg and so many other mfrgs, and started offering the set with a flat handled, pressed steel body, non-reversible female ratchet with a removeable drive plug.
I don’t know exactly when they went to heavy-walled hot-forged cold-broached sockets and hot-forged handles, such as my set. I can’t find this set in any vintage ads. But, it had to be after 1922, the last year they were advertising the pressed steel sets, and before 1927, when they merged with a couple of other small companies into Auto Accessories Corporation of America, joining forces in an effort to beat off the emergent 600-lb gorillas (that would be the likes of Walden, Blackhawk, and the fledgling Snap-on) in the automotive tools sector. It didn’t work. They folded soon thereafter.
Packer Auto started in 1912 in the wood box pressed steel era. Like most of the early Mossberg copycats, they didn’t bother improving the sockets, but concentrated on a new handle – in their case, a ratchet, and built the entire “RAY” set and line around that tool. It was a long tubular clutch-type reversible ratchet with a folding Tee handle and a hollow male drive end, patented by Eben S. Packer in 1913 (1,057,495), similar to the early Auto-Cle type ratchet in the early Mossberg sets, but different, with internalized teeth, a feature they hit hard in ads to distinguish themselves from the Auto-Cle type.
By 1921, they evolved, like Mossberg and so many other mfrgs, and started offering the set with a flat handled, pressed steel body, non-reversible female ratchet with a removeable drive plug.
I don’t know exactly when they went to heavy-walled hot-forged cold-broached sockets and hot-forged handles, such as my set. I can’t find this set in any vintage ads. But, it had to be after 1922, the last year they were advertising the pressed steel sets, and before 1927, when they merged with a couple of other small companies into Auto Accessories Corporation of America, joining forces in an effort to beat off the emergent 600-lb gorillas (that would be the likes of Walden, Blackhawk, and the fledgling Snap-on) in the automotive tools sector. It didn’t work. They folded soon thereafter.
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) I also posted links to additional "RAY" tools and sets that have popped up on various threads.
