Tool Talk
Classic Power Tools => Classic Power Tools => Topic started by: stormking on August 20, 2012, 11:47:28 PM
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Picked this rotary tool up last weekend for my wife. Never seen this brand before but its very well built and runs smooth. I have a Dremel about the same vintage and I would say this is superior in my opinion. Anybody have one of these or know why they couldn't compete.
(http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/4356/dscn1552m.jpg)
By stormking3 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/stormking3) at 2012-08-20
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When a tool disappears from the market, once in awhile its the tool. Sometimes the tool becomes too expensive in its components to be competitive. But I think it's more often the marketing, or lack of, or the powers that be in the company don't understand what they have, and in a too usual corporate shift, delete that which should of been kept. If this wasn't the case, then we would have far fewer tool brands from the past to drool over now.
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I think your spot-on. The name recognition Dremel had would have been hard to overcome.
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From what I can see, there were quite a few competing brands, once upon a time. I have Casco ads from 1947 and '48, and at least one had a Dremel ad on an adjacent page; they were head-to-head back then. There were also similar tools from Handee, Dumore, Desco, Rolson (British?), Crafty (Sears brand), Warner, Dresco (NOT the same as Desco, above), Williams, Hobbi-Carve, and Whiz Tool. All of these were competing directly against Strader, Foredom, Butler, an unknown brand sold through Bachman's supply, Craftsman/Companion (Sears, Roebuck & Co.), Downey, Flex-O-Shaft, Holland Hardware, Stow, and a variety of other flexible-shaft machines. At least some companies made both flex-shaft and direct-drive tools in this category. I don't know how much name-recognition Dremel had in the late '40s; some of these tools were being offered by 1938, but WW II pretty much reshuffled the deck as far as what companies and products survived.
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Thank you for the Info Ron. Seems that quite often a better mouse trap loses out to one with a good marketing strategy.