Spreading the Bonney affliction!

[Private Lugnutz]

Are they Bonney?

Yes. Everything in that chest is Bonney. I can see why you'd be interested with that Ford V8 main bearing wrench peeking out! I stow most of my routine Bonney tools in a later Bonney carry box, and I keep the older or unique pieces in the chest. They're all keepers for now, though.

 

[Ricky Joe]

Yes. Everything in that chest is Bonney. I can see why you'd be interested with that Ford V8 main bearing wrench peeking out! I stow most of my routine Bonney tools in a later Bonney carry box, and I keep the older or unique pieces in the chest. They're all keepers for now, though.

You don’t have to worry about it. Keeping them is exactly what I would do with them!

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Here's a little bonney vise.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

An early 30s wd set.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Eventually Bonney was bought out by Cooper (who really only wanted the Utica pliers and torque wrench division) and let Bonney just stagnate till they closed it. They were profitable up until the end, but, when they needed some capital investment for tooling upgrades Cooper just shut them down. The Chinese imports by then just made US production noncompetitive.

I like bonney. The newer stuff before they went out of business seemed to rust easier.

That's when I found out Bonney was out of business, and my quest began.

Never really thought about it until the early 2000's when I lost a wrench and went to replace it (I don't like incomplete sets). That's when I found out Bonney was out of business, and my quest began.

Cooper production? I don't even know when they stopped using the name.

There is no "recent" Bonney production. Out of business since 1990's.

It also suffered the same issue as the neon tube burned out in mine in 1999 and since Bonney was out of business...

^ So, this sad subject - Bonney going out of business - has come up often here, but nobody has ever really put a hard date to it other than vague handwaving at an entire decade, as far as I can tell.

Even AA punts, ending their history section on Bonney with a vague "later" and an even vaguer "sometime" with this statement: "The Triangle Corporation was later acquired by the Cooper Tools conglomerate, and the Bonney operations were discontinued sometime in the early 1990s."

The proprietor of the Progress is Fine, but... blogspot, in the Bonney edition of his 'Vanished Tool Makers' running series, linked here, if you want to read the whole piece, wrote, "Triangle merged with Audits/Surveys Worldwide, and the tool side was sold to Cooper Tool Conglomerate in 1995. Bonney ceased as a name shortly thereafter."

The question was inadvertently reinvigorated recently, on this interesting thread...

Billings and Bonney Wrench Connection

Been meaning to post this for a little while - I picked up a Bonney combo wrench this summer that is clearly (at least to me) off a Billings forge/press. It has the same slightly tapered beam as Billings combos (see pic, I've never seen a similar Bonney before), and they both line up 95%...

www.garagejournal.com

...where @PowderKeg posted two combo wrenches, one Bonney and one Billings, that look an awful lot alike, and postulated the following...

I know Bonney supplied ratchets and sockets/drive tools at times for Billings, esp after they were united under one corporate head, but I'm pretty certain these wrenches long pre-date the merger.

The concept of Bonney and Billings "merging" or being "united" under one corporate banner was foreign to me. I think of Billings as being swallowed up by the Crescent-Niagara then Cooper conglomeration, and Bonney as being swallowed up by the Utica then Triangle conglomeration, and never the twain shall meet. I was aware that Cooper bought Triangle in the 1990's, but I don't think of that as uniting or merging anything, let alone producing any kind of active production of either the Billings or the Bonney brands.

But it did prompt some research.

I'll be back.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

In Google Books, I ran searches on a combination of "Bonney tools" and years, starting with "1999", just to see what would return.

Nothing until 1997, with a slew of actions by Cedar Investments, Inc., a Delaware company, to renew a slew of trademarks originally registered to Bonney Forge & Tool Works in 1957. The trademarks were all names for various welded pipe fittings, such as NIPOLET, FLANGOLET, SWEEPOLET, etc, that they were forging in the plant in Allentown as products for industry. With a little more research, I discovered that Cedar Investments (note: the Bonney factory was on Cedar Street) was a cover name for Bonney Forge, which Cedar Investments used as a domestic fictitious entity name, and later trademarked. This is only the forge operations that were separated from the tool works in the acquisition/conglomeration (KH, Triangle, Cooper) chain. Irrelevant, but just for the record...

.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I hit paydirt in 1993. This TM Index record shows that Bonney was still Triangle (the Utica Tools division included Bonney, Herbrand, and Utica) in 1993.



This TM, for a Wobble Drive Extension that Bonney Forge & Tool Works registered in 1952, was the key to everything. It opened up the entire sequence of re-assignments inside the Trademark Status and Document Retrieval database that the USPTO uses to keep track of TM ownership. When companies are bought and sold, everything conveys, including TM's!

Here is Bonney's original TM from 1952.



Here is the record in USPTO TSDR of the TM being conveyed from Bonney to Kelsey-Hayes in 1965.



Here is the TM being conveyed from Kelsey-Hayes to Utica Tools (part of Triangle, in Orangeburg, SC) in 1967.



Here is the TM being conveyed from Utica Tools to Cooper, Houston, TX, in 1993.



And here is the TM being conveyed from Cooper to Snap-On in 1996!

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Incredible research!

 

[ararat]

An early 30s wd set.

Really cool. Love that box.

 

[PowderKeg]

WOOF!!!!!!! That's a deep dive! And I noted your correctness on the Bonney-Billings wrench post, my steadily vaporizing brain cells conflated Billings, Bonney, and Herbrand...

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Well, technically, you were correct. Cooper did own them both for a very short time, which I hadn't ever given too much thought to, so thanks for the prompt!

 

[bonneyman]

It's just too bad Bonney still isn't made today. I'm sure they'd sell well considering the current tool environment.

 

[Mikeske]

As a side note on the entire Bonney being gone is the fact in 1992 I had 3 or 4 broken Bonney tools and went to Grainger and was given Bonney replacements. Someplace I do have the receipt if I could find it. A couple years later I went to get a broken socket and went back to Grainger to get a replacement socket that I had broken and all Bonney tools that Grainger had were on a deep clearance. I asked what happened and they stated that they were no longer being carried there and that Bonney had stopped production. So I kind of place the end of production in probably late 1994 or early in 1995. I never got the replacement socket but I did at that time score a new Utica/Bonney torque wrench for like 75% off. I did find the replacement socket after I retired on eBay and bought it then.


When I started at Boeing in 1987 the toolroom were packed to the gills with Bonney hand tools. I know as my boss saw my Bonney setup when I came into the company and immediately etch all my Bonney tools and told me that Bonney hand tools were what we had in the toolroom. I signed out the tool etcher and immediately went to work marring my tools with my initials and employee number. So the majority of my Bonney tools are marked and I know they lower the value of them but I don't care as they had me earn money to support my family for almost my entire career. Awesome tools comparable in the day to Snap-on or other truck brands. It is strange that Bonney never went into the trucks but always used jobbers.

 

[ararat]

A Bonney CV A series set of 1/2" sockets, with breaker bar. I found this ratchet that I think is from the same era. It won't fit in the box with the breaker bar though. I need to get it cleaned up and see if I can find them in a catalog to see what actually goes with the sockets. The spinner extension is also marked CV.

 

[bonneyman]

A Bonney CV A series set of 1/2" sockets, with breaker bar. I found this ratchet that I think is from the same era. It won't fit in the box with the breaker bar though. I need to get it cleaned up and see if I can find them in a catalog to see what actually goes with the sockets. The spinner extension is also marked CV.

Great find! Might not be the prettiest or lightest action but those tools will be among the little that survives the apokalypse - along with the roaches! lol

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Here's a 20s cv extension

 

[Private Lugnutz]

And here is the TM being conveyed from Cooper to Snap-On in 1996!

I'm a little surprise nobody has commented on this. I waited a few days to see if anyone would blink or throw up or question it.

Am I the only one who did not know that Cooper bought Triangle in 1993 and then sold it three years later to Snap-On!?

I quadruple checked it by looking up every single Bonney trademark in the USPTO TSDR database. The original antique jellybean Bonney, Bonney Tools inside the oval with the planes, trains, and automobiles surrounding it that we all know and love, plain BONNEY, and Bon-E-Con. Are you sitting down? They ALL got conveyed from Bonney Forge & Tool Works to Kelsey-Hayes in 1965, from K-H to Triangle in 1967, from Triangle to Cooper Industries in 1993, and... in 1996, they ALL got conveyed from Cooper Industries to Snap-On Technologies, Inc., Crystal Lake, Illinois.

WTF is Snap-On Technologies, Inc., in Crystal Lake, Illinois? you might wonder.

Some kind of holding company.

In 2004, ALL those Bonney TM's, the Loc-Rite TM, plus all the Blackhawk TM's, Porto-Power, Williams and dozens of other TM's Snap-On picked up in acquisitions, got conveyed from Snap-On Technologies, Crystal Lake, Illinois, to Snap-On, Incorporated, Kenosha, WI, in a "merger." You can see that record in TSDR here.

Cooper didn't kill Bonney. Snap-On killed Bonney! Snap-On bought the whole shebang from Cooper and discontinued the line and with it the name. We've had the wrong culprit for a looong time.

 

[Ricky Joe]

.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Apparently, they did both!

Yes, and it presents a real Sophie's Choice! Are we meant to interpret it as a kick in the teeth or a saving grace that they buried it? They did not bury the Williams or Blackhawk names. They are still using them today, as brand names for cheaper tools, some or all apparently made offshore. So, was it out of some kind of special reverence that they did not do that to Bonney? Or just neglect or dumb luck or a roll of the dice?

 

[Ricky Joe]

.

 

[four.cycle]

^ Kind of sounds like they were following Stanley's example.

 

[Ricky Joe]

.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Snap on sucked up a bunch of competitors. When they took over williams they scrapped everything and just kept the name

 

[Shelbylex]

Big corporations destroying everybody so they would get close to having the monopoly (which might eventually lead to decrease in quality and service (?anybody remembers old Snap On "Life time warranty")

 

[Raineman]

Gotta bury the biggest threat.

Locrite became Flank Drive

 

[Shelbylex]

Then a provocative question: if one corporation tries to destroy a lot of other good ones, do we continue to support it (and thus lead to having fewer companies competing) or do we make sure that we support several competitors as well?

Snap On owns names of Blackhawk, Bahco (I think at least partially), Williams... (https://www.snapon.com/EN/Our-Company/Our-Brands)
I was not aware of Snap On contribution to demise of Bonney tools (Bonney produces valves at this point...)

 

[Ricky Joe]

.

 

[Ricky Joe]

.

 

[3baygarage]

Blackhawk was part of Proto (Stanley) until? Are the hand tools done and gone for good?

 

[Ricky Joe]

.

 

[shanny19]

Two different Blackhawks being confused left and right here.
SnapOn’s Blackhawk makes collision repair stuff.
Proto’s Blackhawk made hardline hand tools and has been mostly sunsetted.

 

[four.cycle]

"I think Stanley cared more about marketing than the quality of the tool."

Go way back - back to rules and levels - and start counting the number of independent manufacturers that were acquired by Stanley and then subsequently shut down.
I would submit it had far more to do with eliminating the competition than "marketing".
Search my LIST - keywords "acquired by Stanley"

 

[Mikeske]

Gotta bury the biggest threat.

Locrite became Flank Drive

If I remember correctly the Flank Drive actually came out a few years prior and it was a obvious copy of the Loc-tite patent that Triangle Corp sue and won the lawsuit for patent infringement and Snap-on had to pay a royalty to Triangle for it. Then suddenly **** any mention was gone. It kind of explains what really happened.

 

[Raineman]

The last couple pages of this thread are a wealth of information. Thanks everyone for the history lessons and the work that went into finding it.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Sorry about the hazy Blackhawk reference, guys. In my fervor over the Bonney acquisition, I forgot about the split. All the Blackhawk TM's Snap-on bought are indeed hydraulic/body work related. That's a hot mess two different giants using the same name. My statement stands for Williams, though. Maybe they thought Williams had more name recognition for an econoline of tools, shelving the Bonney name.

If I remember correctly the Flank Drive actually came out a few years prior and it was a obvious copy of the Loc-tite patent

Loc-Rite (1964) came out earlier. For prior art, Knudsen (Snap-on) cited Kavalar (K-H) and a couple of Europeans in his patent application. Flank Drive was introduced in 1967, but not TM'ed as a name until 1980. You can read much, much more on wrenches with ratcheting or off radius openings in a deep dive I did on the Lugzsonian thread, including a very handy, colorful timeline chart, entering it here, in the 60's, and paging back or forward from there.

EDIT: Oh, hell, here's a teaser. Why work? It's Friday. Read my study instead!

 

[RTM]

EDIT: Oh, hell, here's a teaser. Why work? It's Friday. Read my study instead!

also good advice on a Monday, Tuesday,……

 

[humber2]

Would there be a reason why SO dropped dating FD tools but added their Patent # ?

 

[Ricky Joe]

.

 

[humber2]

Flank drive

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Sorry, I don't understand the question. Are you referring to markings? Probably best asked on the Snap-on thread.