It was written and published in 1928, unfortunately. An excellent, riveting read, though. Seriously. The stories and anecdotes are incredibly insightful, as much about our industrial history, especially business and labor practices, how tools were ordered, bought and sold, by who, and for what purposes, categorically, not only by profession, but the middle men, and hardware stores, as how they were made. There is a lot on forging, die making, etc, as well, but the narrative approach is about the people. A very good read. As a WWII tools buff, I often wish he had waited another 10 or 15 year to get the autobiography bug, but he died in 1947.
EDIT: AA has the 1934 and 1938 catalogs in their library, and they say that is when the drive tools were introduced and discontinued. As inventive and resourceful as Frank Vlchek and his team was in terms of toolmaking, it still strikes me as odd and unprecedented in terms of the cost and effort it would take for a manufacturer in business since the the late 1890's to tool up to enter that market at that time and then turn around and exit so abruptly. Less so if they were contracted, however.
Tangentially, how helpful would it be for us right now if we could examine the 1934 and 1938 catalogs themselves to see if we could collectively interpret something AA may have missed? And how helpful would it be for AA if they could examine the 1936 and 1941 catalogs - which are not included in their catalog library, and therefore, not included in their analyses, for the same reason? I know there are people that say that I am unfairly harsh on them about this, but not publishing catalogs in the open hurts collective, community-wide research efforts.
