Giller socket set box

[Stillgottimefor1]

Got this locally today and only found a name on it later. Even though it is kinda bent up someone skilled and patient could make it a lot better. So my question is, as usual: Is this something I should just clean and use or does it need a better home? Not trying to sell it here, just don’t know if it should put together as a set.

 

[JjKk40]

I'd clean it with a good degreaser, stiff nylon brush, and hot water. Then I'd rub WD40 all over it nice and smooth then wipe it down on the inside. Then I'd line the inside with the black liners. Thats a nice Giller box .

 

[jabberwoki]

Yep restore it and filler up with the correct Giller tools.

 

[four.cycle]

looks like a box built for a 3/4" drive set. Giller's one and only account was the United States Department of Defense - they didn't build crappy boxes.
it's well worth cleaning up and repainting.

 

[quickfarms]

I will have to look but I think I have one or two loose Giller 3/4” drive sockets.

 

[bonneyman]

I agree with my forum members - restore and use it.

Here's a little incentive:

 

[jabberwoki]

I might have some Giller stuff ..i`ll have a look.

 

[four.cycle]

I have a mess of Giller but no 3/4" drive stuff.

 

[quickfarms]

3/4” drive 1 1/2” giller socket, this appears to be new, there are no marks in the drive or nut end but there is some scrapes on the side. It was still in cosmoline until a week ago

It’s an orphan to me do I would trade it for a Wright 6146 3/4” drive 1 7/16 socket

 

[Leviton]

looks like a box built for a 3/4" drive set. Giller's one and only account was the United States Department of Defense - they didn't build crappy boxes.
it's well worth cleaning up and repainting.

1) When you said: "Giller's one and only account was the United States Department of Defense" - was that referring to toolboxes or all Giller tools?

2) I have have two Giller wrenches, a DOE and a half moon obstruction DBE. Neither are marked with country of origin. Were all Giller tools made in USA?

Thanks

 

[four.cycle]

^ as far as anyone has been able to determine, all of Giller's product was made to fill government/military contracts.

as far as I've been able to determine, all of Giller's products were U.S. made.

I've seen all kinds of Thorsen branded product that was outsourced from out of country, but never any Giller.
Giller's sockets, ratchets, extensions, and wrenches all appear identical in design and markings to contemporaneously manufactured Thorsen, including the part numbering system(s)* used. The pliers appear similar to product made by Emporium Forging.
The gunmetal gray and potty-chair blue 1/4" drive spinners (model 80M) are rather enigmatic - no idea who made those.

As an outlier here, I have a 1/2" drive, 3/4" 12-point Giller socket that has a single cross-hatch band on the drive end - just to keep things interesting. :

* Although Thorsen later went to a five-digit part numbering system (at least on their double-end box wrenches), it does not appear (at least from those examples I own) that Giller followed suit in that respect. While I have Thorsen-branded double-end box wrenches with four-digit part numbers and five-digit part numbers and some dual-marked with both four-digit and five-digit part numbers, I have yet to see a Giller double-end box wrench with anything other than a four-digit part number stamped on it. If anyone has any examples of Giller product using a five-digit part number, I'd like to see it.

 

[Leviton]

^ as far as anyone has been able to determine, all of Giller's product was made to fill government/military contracts.

as far as I've been able to determine, all of Giller's products were U.S. made.

I've seen all kinds of Thorsen branded product that was outsourced from out of country, but never any Giller.
Giller's sockets, ratchets, extensions, and wrenches all appear identical in design and markings to contemporaneously manufactured Thorsen, including the part numbering system(s)* used. The pliers appear similar to product made by Emporium Forging.
The gunmetal gray and potty-chair blue 1/4" drive spinners (model 80M) are rather enigmatic - no idea who made those.

As an outlier here, I have a 1/2" drive, 3/4" 12-point Giller socket that has a single cross-hatch band on the drive end - just to keep things interesting. :

* Although Thorsen later went to a five-digit part numbering system (at least on their double-end box wrenches), it does not appear (at least from those examples I own) that Giller followed suit in that respect. While I have Thorsen-branded double-end box wrenches with four-digit part numbers and five-digit part numbers and some dual-marked with both four-digit and five-digit part numbers, I have yet to see a Giller double-end box wrench with anything other than a four-digit part number stamped on it. If anyone has any examples of Giller product using a five-digit part number, I'd like to see it.

four.cycle,
Thank you sharing your wealth of information on Thorsen/Giller! I stopped picking up Thorsen a while back when I found a had some Thorsen stuff that was not made in the US. I'll keep an eye out for more Giller stuff in the future though.

Looks like we don't have a general "Show Us Your Giller" thread, or a mention of Giller in the Sticky listings.

 

[four.cycle]

^ Mostly guesswork and putting 2 + 2 together and "process of elimination" stuff, combined with a healthy dose of Occam's Razor.
No catalogs or price lists for Giller exist, to my knowledge. It's documented that Giller was acquired by Thorsen at some point, but that's really about as much as we know.
The product seems to be most abundant in the second-hand market near Air Force bases, and although we have a huge one here (formerly McChord, now JBLM) I've never seen any Giller around here "in the wild".

MY interest in it is only because it was related to Thorsen, which was a line we sold at one point in our stores.

As far as "collector value" goes, it's a loser. Do not buy Giller as an "investment".

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Looks like we don't have a general "Show Us Your Giller" thread, or a mention of Giller in the Sticky listings.

I have some Giller sets, which I posted on the Thorsen thread.

As for the Sticky, I hit a character limit. It won't let me make any more additions to the A-Z list. I have a solution. If a Mod inserts a new page for between current post #2 and #3, I would move the 'P&C to ZIM' section of the list to that post. That will allow much more room for growth of that section as well as 'A.PLOMB to Gruber' and 'Hallowell to PEXTO'. I just haven't asked a Mod yet.

But I will tag this thread to be the Giller thread.

#Sticky Giller

 

[d42jeep]

I have very few Giller items. My blue box is all Giller 1/4” drive tools and my red box is a mix of Giller, Action and Thorsen tools all in a Giller box. I believe that the Giller box posted above was likely made before the relationship with Thorsen but it’s just a guess.
-Don

 

[IMCA38]

My Dad had a Giller 1/2” set that is mostly complete. He said that the ratchet failed a number of years ago and the 3/4“ socket is a replacement. This set is currently listed on their on-line auction.

 

[four.cycle]

There is another thread here but I don't know how much "information" it contains:
Giller / Giller Tool Co., 2527 Willowbrook Road, Dallas, TX 75220 / (see also Thorsen) / est. 1952 (?) / https://wrenchwiki.com/giller-tool-company/ / https://www.garagejournal.com/forum...-chicago-stamped-1967-anyone-have-one.494167/ / https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/giller-socket-set-box.490292/ /

^ And after just re-reading all that, I think Oily Rascal is correct; there was some relationship between Giller and NB early on - I own one of those single-crosshatch-knurled-band sockets exactly like the one in his photo, but it has a Giller part number on it.
I also have - somewhere here - a Giller branded 3/8" ratchet that's an NB-made Kilness patent RHFT, which is clearly much earlier production than the much later (presumably manufactured by National Hand Tools) Kilness-type, THORSEN branded ratchet that I shipped to @BlakeTheCarGuy for Christmas (that was part of a Thorsen set procured from an ebay seller in Oklahoma City