Occasionally we all run into some odd vintage tool brands for which there is little or no organized web references. One of these is Precision-Bilt tools. It's already been established on this board that Precision-Bilt was the house-brand tools sold in the Spiegel catalog at one time. Reference to a 1942 war-time Spiegel catalog listing Precision-Bilt tools plus photos of a ratchet appearing to be a New Britain-made contract item can be seen in this thread:
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31127
In another thread, Private Lugnutz shows us a nice find of a Precision-Bilt Spiegel 1/4" socket set in original case that pretty much cinches the drive tools as having been made by New Britain, especially the inclusion of Mustang branded sockets in the set (BTW, nice find, Lugz!):
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=363163
The attached photos show a Precision-Bilt DBE long wrench alongside a period Lectrolite (LC). These are pre-war wrenches based on the style and the ".05 Chrome .05 Vanadium" marking. These are the hexagonal handle profile LC and are built like battleships.
As an interesting side note, the extra-heavy hexagonal handle was apparently intended to be the premium LC 4000 series offering over their standard thickness 3000 series. But as I've mentioned before, and can be seen on the AA site, the 1930s was kind of a Lectrolite Lottery with all kinds of design and marking variations, and with premium models sometimes marked as the budget models and vice versa. Here we have the heavy premium model with the proper 4000 series number on the contract Precision-Bilt (where one would expect the contract wrench to be of a lower grade than the mfr's flagship model), with the same premium LC being numbered and labeled as the budget LC 3000 series Tru-Fit model. This lottery was to eventually evolve post-war into the famous SK raised panel wrenches. If you can find any of these hexagonals, grab 'em--they're one heck of a wrench.
In any event, this helps (in lieu of finding rare period Spiegel catalogs) to show that, while NB was making the drive tools for Spiegel Precision-Bilt, LC was making the end wrenches, and that these prove the brand was being offered in Spiegel catalogs as early as the 1930s.
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31127
In another thread, Private Lugnutz shows us a nice find of a Precision-Bilt Spiegel 1/4" socket set in original case that pretty much cinches the drive tools as having been made by New Britain, especially the inclusion of Mustang branded sockets in the set (BTW, nice find, Lugz!):
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=363163
The attached photos show a Precision-Bilt DBE long wrench alongside a period Lectrolite (LC). These are pre-war wrenches based on the style and the ".05 Chrome .05 Vanadium" marking. These are the hexagonal handle profile LC and are built like battleships.
As an interesting side note, the extra-heavy hexagonal handle was apparently intended to be the premium LC 4000 series offering over their standard thickness 3000 series. But as I've mentioned before, and can be seen on the AA site, the 1930s was kind of a Lectrolite Lottery with all kinds of design and marking variations, and with premium models sometimes marked as the budget models and vice versa. Here we have the heavy premium model with the proper 4000 series number on the contract Precision-Bilt (where one would expect the contract wrench to be of a lower grade than the mfr's flagship model), with the same premium LC being numbered and labeled as the budget LC 3000 series Tru-Fit model. This lottery was to eventually evolve post-war into the famous SK raised panel wrenches. If you can find any of these hexagonals, grab 'em--they're one heck of a wrench.
In any event, this helps (in lieu of finding rare period Spiegel catalogs) to show that, while NB was making the drive tools for Spiegel Precision-Bilt, LC was making the end wrenches, and that these prove the brand was being offered in Spiegel catalogs as early as the 1930s.
