Craftsman and Mac marked snap on date coded Lang

[Zrxrunner]

Recent mystery box buy. Have I never noticed this before, or are they not all like this? 2 Mac DBE ratcheting wrenches and one craftsman. Lang patents, made for a bunch of vendors. But all 3 of these have the distinctive snap on date code markings on them. What do you guys have? I have more craftsman ones like these for sure, just never noticed the date code stamps.

 

[cody1325]

Gotta check, but mine say "AMERICRAFT".

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I have more craftsman ones like these for sure, just never noticed the date code stamps.

Hey, Z, I don't have any postwar ratcheting DBE wrenches. That is to say, I don't have any that are new enough to be Lang patents to check for you, and I don't have any Snap-on tools from that era, either, so I am not as familiar with the date codes.

Are you sure those are Snap-on date codes? And have you checked to make sure they logically jibe with the award dates of the patent numbers shown?

If the answer to both of those questions is yes, ...

/ One conclusion might be that Snap-on was making them for Lang's company (A&E Mfg Co, in Racine, WI), truly 3rd party, as it were. In other words, Mac and Craftsman (and ostensibly many others) acquired them from Lang, but Lang was outsourcing some production to Snap-on.

/ Another conclusion might be that Lang was making them for Snap-on and simply used the same production process, including the date stamps, for other brands, intentionally (for their own customer contractual, warranty purposes) or unintentionally (routine).

I'd have to say I favor the second. Which is kind of cute, if you think about it. Snap-on has no actual trademark on the codes.

 

[Snaparxon]

The date codes are identical to Snap on, but I don't know the range of years. I have seen that style of ratcheting wrench stamped with many different brand names and have date codes also. Appears the date codes on the above wrenches are 1983 and 1987 and maybe 1992. Most codes I recall seeing were from the 80's - 90's but may include other decades.

 

[four.cycle]

Lang manufactured those ratcheting box wrenches for hundreds (if not thousands) of companies. Many of them private labeled. I've seen them on ebay with all manner of "brands" on them. (Lots of electrical supply houses did private label.)
I'd posit Lang just set the dies up to include as much information as possible and stamped them all out the same, which would reduce overall production costs.
The brand is on the other side.
The superfluous information (Snap-on's date codes, patent numbers, etc.) doesn't matter to the guy who's only looking at the CRAFTSMAN or MAC or (whatever) brand.

 

[Zrxrunner]

Lang patent was surprisingly early. Langs company A&E, 1950's i think, so all production dates would jive. My guess was the date codes were put into all of em just in case snappy wanted em, and brand name was last thing put on each one as they shipped to different vendors? Just thought it was odd I had never noticed it. These wrenches seem to be at almost every garage, estate sale and auction and now ive gotta make it a point to see how old of one i can find date stamped! Lol

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Lang patent was surprisingly early.

Patents, plural, 1950, and then again in 1988 (which is the one you have marked "4,748,875") and 1989 - .
Link to his patents on DATAMP here...

Patents for John W. Lang

AA doesn't say how they're validating this postulation...

/ Another conclusion might be that Lang was making them for Snap-on and simply used the same production process, including the date stamps, for other brands, intentionally (for their own customer contractual, warranty purposes) or unintentionally (routine).

I'd have to say I favor the second. Which is kind of cute, if you think about it. Snap-on has no actual trademark on the codes.

...but they state the same thing here...

A&E Manufacturing Company

An article on the A&E Manufacturing Company

alloy-artifacts.org

"As a side note, as the producer of ratcheting box wrenches for Snap-on, A&E has regularly included Snap-on style date codes on all of their production for several decades, thereby providing a date code for brands that normally don't mark the manufacturing date."

 

[d42jeep]

My Mac example may have been made in 1981.
-Don