In December 2011, I bought a collection of 8 rusty old pipe wrenches from the St. Catharines kijiji listings. I did so because the lot was only $20 and it included two wrenches from ETF - a defunct St. Catharines company I was re-searching at the time and that many of you have now read about in the thread "The story of ETF Tools of St. Catharines, Ontario".
But also included in the lot - among others - were two other wrenches by another long-defunct Canadian maker named A.B. Jardine & Company of Hespeler, Ontario. Hespeler is a now-dissolved town located about 90km from downtown Toronto in Southern Ontario that - in 1973 - was amalgamated with the City of Galt and the Town of Preston to form the City of Cambridge.
According to their catalogues, the A.B. Jardine Company got its start in 1870 when Andrew Bell Jardine - a Scottish immigrant to what was then "Canada West" (Ontario) founded a company that would go on to manufacture a large number of blacksmith-related items. The company survived until sometime shortly after the Second World War...
1901:
1905:
1917:
1927:
The foregoing information was taken from an article written by Andrew Bell Jardines' great-great-grandson Peter Jardine that can be read here:
http://hespelerproject.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/a-b-jardine-co/One of the claims in the article that was of great interest to me was the following sentence: "Around 1900 they made Ridgid pipe wrenches under license from Ridgid." As a visitor to the link above will notice, this struck me as unlikely given that the Ridge Tool Company was founded in 1923 and I replied questioning the date. Months passed before a reply was posted and more months passed before I again visited the page and saw the reply, which was: "My mistake on the Ridgid pipe wrench, sounds right. Ridgid licenced the shape of the wrench to A B Jardine. I have several."
To be quite honest, I had largely discounted the claim given the obvious dating error. I felt the information regarding the shape of the wrench was probably not reliable. I mean, let's face it; Ridgid invented the "Heavy-Duty"-pattern of the pipe wrench, so all wrenches built on that pattern look very much like Ridgids. Here are four of mine to demonstrate - from top to bottom NYE (also from that $20 lot), Ridgid, A.B. Jardine and National:
So, sure they all look largely alike, but if you take the time to really study the photo, differences are apparent. One of the most distinctive details on these "Heavy-Duty wrenches (and all other brands not shown) is the shape of the little unpainted feature just under the fixed jaw where the rivet passes. Then the end of the handle have slightly different shapes too; the Ridgid has a bit of a flare, the NYE has a little built-up part on the underside and the A.B. Jardine & National both just taper. The hanging holes are different sizes. You get the idea...
But the other night, when I was studying the evolution of the Ridgid wrenches (yes, I do things like that), I noticed something. I think most members here are at least aware that the features of the Ridgid wrenches have changed somewhat over the decades. It's not readily apparent since the current pattern has been unchanged for almost 50 years, and the version prior to that (like the one in my photo above) was nearly identical.
I don't know why (it's obvious in retrospect), but it never occurred to me that it was the Ridgids that had changed! Remember that the A.B. Jardine Company disappeared after WWII; we'd need to look at older Ridgid examples to check the story...
Here are two of my 10" wrenches. This Ridgid is older than the one above and still features the "Trade Mark" verbiage and the patent number:
Closer. The handle shape & hanging hole is the same, and the end of the hook jaws are both square. But that little unpainted feature just under the fixed jaw on the Ridgid is still the same as the current model.
But if you go back to 1931, we see:
Even earlier Ridgids lacked the little unpainted feature just under the fixed jaw altogether as late as 1927, so we can say for certain that the A.B. Jardine contract occurred sometime after 1927!
Cool.
