Tool-Champ, c. 1971

[Private Lugnutz]

I pulled this "TOOL-CHAMP" 10-in-1 set out of the top tray of an old working toolbox at the flea market this morning. As some of you know from past threads, I like to collect extreme economy brand tools, the junkier the better, especially if they're complete in their original packaging. Foreign (Globemaster, DeLuxe, etc) or domestic (Oxwall, Shelton, etc). It may seem counter-intuitive to the prestigious, rare, and highest quality well-made antique tools I primarily like to collect, but something about this segment appeals to me. It's a part of history. And there's a place for everything, I guess. I can appreciate both, for different reasons, and in an ironic way, they each help inform our impressions of the other. Yin and yang.

Besides, who could resist a name like "TOOL-CHAMP"!?


View attachment 1530574

 

[Private Lugnutz]

For a quirky almost unbelievable sense of that era and how things like this penetrated our market at that time, picture red-blooded American boys going door to door to sell them as fund-raising!

 

[four.cycle]

I love it.

This is exactly the same kind of stuff that filled box after box when we cleaned out my mother's house - my late step-father had a penchant for these kinds of low-end "handyman" sets.

I need to point out, however, that your unabashed and gleeful presentation here has an enabling effect on some of us, and it just compelled me to pull the trigger on a "Pilot Star" combination flashlight-and-16-useful-tools gizmo (complete with fake leatherette case!) that I've been vacillating about for the last couple weeks!

 

[RTM]

I had that set as a child. I swear my Grama bought it as a present. I had pieces of it still kicking around 15 years ago, but the case and overgrip were gone. The last usage, the handle fell off the shank, and they were gone. Still see them kicking around at GS, but never in the cardboard.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

...an enabling effect...

Cue the svengali music!

...but never in the cardboard.

That's usually the final piece of observational data in the near instantaneous decision-making algorithm of the tool collecting automaton. Box? BOX? Me want box!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

In classic when-it-rains-it-pours GJ Garage Sale thread fashion, I found another TOOL-CHAMP yesterday. Again, tucked neatly into the removable top tray of an old but obviously very respectable vintage mechanics' box filled with serious vintage high end tools. No cardboard box this time. I think guys just found them too useful to discard, no mater how "junky."

 

[shanny19]

Oh I definitely remember being given that to play with when I was at an age that today's moms would be horrified by the concept.
Pointy-*** awl and all.

Being also vintage 1971, I kind of feel that the box and I have weathered things about the same...................you can still kinda tell what we used to look like.

 

[four.cycle]

You've given me an excuse to use the word "serendipity" here.