good luck, snap on tools didnt hold more than a year warranty until the later 30's. I showed one to my dealer, his first reaction was "what the hell is that huge thing?".
that site is ok (and the guy who runs it has a set that I want BAD, but wont budge, its not even shown on the site), but alloy-artifacts is more extensive, even just the snap on portion, and collectingsnapon.com does have a few inaccuracies.
I'd love to start a website sharing my collection sometime soon, its on the list of things to do, but that list is getting kind of long. I took a web/graphics class in my senior year of high school (only 6 years ago, but man time flies), but unfortunately, due to not using what I learned enough, ive lost a lot of the information. Maybe I'll start working on something soon. I have been planning on setting up a nice photo booth for taking better pics of the tools. I have a good camera, and in the right outdoor conditions, will take great pics, but inside, proper lighting is my biggest problem.
I noticed the collectingsnapon guy delineates the various sized ratchets over the years: 9/32, 5/8, 7/8, etc. I wonder why these didn't last? Is it just that 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 is more evenly spaced and "rational" to a tool engineer or user, or did other lines like Craftsman (that presumably was among the best selling brands ever), go with the, say, 1/4 or 9/32 ??
His site seems to bring up the idea that WW II in particular, had the effect of a need to standardize manufacturing for the war effort; he cites this as the reason for the abandonment of many of the different drive sizes (too many to produce!). I believe Snapon was one of the major tool suppliers to the military and war effort production; so to make more tools and increase output through the simplification of tool standards just makes good sense. Who knows... it sounds like a possibility. I do know that many military vehicles used similar power plants etc. to make the whole production process easier, cheaper and through interchangability increase productivity. This could carry over to tools and produce similar results.