JC Penney made in USA socket

[nickelTwin]

I came across a socket from Penneys today. Made in USA.
Kind of neat.

 

[FOCUS.FREAK]

My dad's got a couple in his box. Cook to see

 

[SMKS]

There are several threads on these here.

Many of them were made by SK and are quite nice. I personally have seen and bought JC Penny ratchets/wrenches that were clearly made by SK.

I think I saw a thread recently with a pic of a non-SK JC Penny ratchet, but I don't remember right now.

 

[Jeremy77]

I've got a single U.S. Made JCP flat head screwdriver. The shaft is slightly bent and I hear that their tools were lifetime warranty, maybe I should take it in and see how they warranty it.........JK but I do hang onto it because I think it's kind of neat.

 

[woody 73]

I would love to see the face of the person at the JCP store when you guys want to turn in your old broken tools, I bet it would be priceless!

 

[Bob Hall]

I would love to see the face of the person at the JCP store when you guys want to turn in your old broken tools, I bet it would be priceless!

Indeed! I bought my first shotgun at JC Pennys. They had an outdoors dept., a good tool dept. lawn and garden, (Big a** garden tractors branded JC Pennys) all in the very same store that is still in our local mall right now. They also had a large auto service center. The outdoors and all of the hardware areas are now shoes and kids clothing and the service center accross the parking lot is a steak house. Pretty good chance that no one working there was there in those days. The store opened as one the four anchor stores when our mall was new in about 1974.

 

[MShaw]

In the early 1970s the PennCraft tools were made by New Britain. Husky, Sparta and penncraft were the "lower cost" brands.

How do I know? I worked there in that time frame as a manufacturing engineer in charge of wrench production.

 

[Scooterfish]

As a Penncraft/ New Britain fan. Thanks for what you contribute to their history here.

 

[BFBOB]

Penncraft branded tools were the earlier line and as MShaw said, made by New Britain. The later line was branded JCPenney and made by S-K. I have a set of Penncrafts I bought new to work on my first car in about 1970, still have and use them, and have expanded the set.

MShaw, do you perhaps know whether some of the wrenches I've been unable to find were ever made? : 16 & 18mm, 20mm and up, 8mm and down, 1 3/16, and combos under 3/8. In sockets I've found the small metrics down to 4mm, but not 16, 18 or 20 and up. Other than that, my sets are pretty complete.

I like them for sentimental reasons, but mainly because they're good tools. As for the lifetime guarantee, the last time I broke a ratchet, some years ago,(a rare occurrence) they were honoring it by giving a voucher for an equivalent Craftsman tool. Interesting note- New Britain also made some Craftsman tools.

 

[jd_1138]

Indeed! I bought my first shotgun at JC Pennys. They had an outdoors dept., a good tool dept. lawn and garden, (Big a** garden tractors branded JC Pennys) all in the very same store that is still in our local mall right now. They also had a large auto service center. The outdoors and all of the hardware areas are now shoes and kids clothing and the service center accross the parking lot is a steak house. Pretty good chance that no one working there was there in those days. The store opened as one the four anchor stores when our mall was new in about 1974.

That's awesome. If you watch the zombie film "Dawn of the Dead" (1979) they use a Penny's in a lot of the action scenes. The SWAT officer character actually grabs a screwdriver off a shelf to stick into a zombie's head to get it off of him.

In 2015, you'd have to grab a kid's shoe and try to beat the zombie off of ya.

In 2001 when I married my wife and moved to Eastern Ohio we did a road trip over to that mall where Dawn of the Dead was filmed. The Penny's is still there.

I inherited a full set of Powr-Kraft (Montgomery Ward's) from my stepdad. It is all USA made and the sockets go up to 3 inches even.

 

[MShaw]

In the Husky pattern New Britain made metric wrenches to, at least, 32 MM as I have them. I am not sure if the larger sizes were ever Penncraft branded. This is because the Husky style tools went to the warehouse unstamped. They were stamped to the sales order, (Sparta, Husky, Penncraft), and the size.

 

[eliwhit]

When I was teenager in the 70's my Mom work at JCP and she bought me a 3/8s socket set and a set of open ended wrenches. JCP wanted to compete with Sears and offered the same lifetime warranty. I'm still using them today!

 

[Norcal]

JC Penney also sold a Penney's branded Baldor bench grinder.

 

[WilburFrances]

JC Penney its best brand in Usa, love to buy JCPenney Products.