SPEED-HED and Quali-Kraft Wrenches

[Yadda]

Ratcheting wrench set from last weekend's estate sale.  The 9/16 wrench is a Thorsen Speed-Hed wrench. Alloy Artifacts points out Spped-Hed wrenches bear a stocking resemblance to  Vlchek wrenches. The others are Quali-Kraft, a Montgomery Ward tool brand.  They were manufactured in Japan.  Also, per Alloy Artifacts, the Thorsen Speed-Hed wrench is from the mid 50's making it close to 70 years old.  The Quali-Kraft wrenches could be from as late as the 90's.

[four.cycle]

Yes. The Thorsen "Speed-Hed" was a 1950s experiment.
The "Quali-Kraft" stuff was manufactured for Petersen. Originally they were producing product in country, and later went offshore and outsourced it.

Quali-Kraft / adjustable wrench see Petersen Tool Co., El Dorado, KS / first production run was U.S. made / https://www.datamp.org/patents/displayPatent.php?number=3555939&typeCode=0 /

The Thorsen ad is from 1952

[d42jeep]

A few wrenches and some more ads.
-Don

[Yadda]

Cool, thanks for rhe info.

[four.cycle]

Don's images don't show a year. That first one I posted is 1952. This one is from 1953. Curiously, they do not show up in any of the "catalog" pages I was able to round up from the 1950s.

[Bill Houghton]

Trying to figure out what the half-dressed lady has to do with wrenches.   

[Yadda]

I'm sure her mechanical aptitude is very high.

[four.cycle]

Trying to figure out what the half-dressed lady has to do with wrenches

Using scantily clad young women in advertising is certainly nothing new. It's gone out of favor in some circles. Still very much alive and well in others.

[Yadda]

These ladies are dressed conservatively compared to the many tool co calendars I recall seeing in the 70's and 80's.