They
were located in Cronenberg which is located in an area in Germany with a
reputation for tool manufacturing much like Sheffield in England. They claim to
have been established in 1876. Meister and Schlingensiepen 1928 Tool Catalog
This 1928 German tool and hardware catalog is written in English.
It appears to have been a catalog to aid in marketing M&S's tools to English
speaking countries.
They
were located in Cronenberg which is located in an area in Germany with a
reputation for tool manufacturing much like Sheffield in England. They claim to
have been established in 1876.
Although Meister and Schlingensiepen billed themselves as manufacturers it is obvious that many of the items were not manufactured by them. Goodell-Pratt drills are seen as well as Stanley style tools. I have seen at least a few hand drills marked "Germany" but having the Goodell Pratt heart shape in the frame offered in the old tools market. A miter square marked "ANGLUS" is also noted as a "Stanley model". It appears to be a Stanley #16. Also listed are a "Spofford style" brace, "Crescent style" and "King Dick" wrenches and Disston model hand saws.
It was not uncommon for tool designs to be copied by manufacturers in any country. You will see many examples here of tools noted as English, French, American and German style or pattern. Some trowels are noted as Egyptian, Grecian and Mexican models.
Tools that are shown with markings most often have
M&S's logo which is the head of an adjustable wrench. I could hypothesize from
this that they were definitely manufacturers of wrenches. The volume of pliers
and tap and die sets seem to point to these as core items that they
manufactured. But like much on
this page that is speculation. The catalogs title
page lists 3 registered trademarks: the aforementioned wrench head, the
acronym "POT" ??? and the phrase "Meister-Quality". I checked the online patent
records and could find no European patents assigned to this company.
One curiosity is the fact that many of the modern 1928 tools look very early to eyes used to American tool catalogs and history. One example is the coach wrenches. Another is the Archimedean style drills.
Although I had initially planned to show only important sections (i.e. planes and drills) I finally decided to present the entire 184 page catalog. I hope there is value to people other than tool collectors such as myself. I am not a html whiz and may have missed some better ways to show this catalog. I am always interested in input whether positive or negative. I can find no modern connection or mention of this company. I am assuming there are no copyright conflicts but if I am wrong please advise me and I will remove this immediately. Please respect the time I have spent scanning and posting this catalog. You have my permission to take advantage of my efforts by reposting this in part or complete in any non commercial venue. At first this was scanned into a PDF file but the download time of the 148 MB files was prohibitive. I reformatted the pages to gif files with an HTML structure. I retyped the index pages and hyperlinked to the page numbers. I hope to someday structure the individual pages so a person can advance or return from page to page.
Got to the M&S index page to access the pages by tool type. Use your browsers back button to return to the index.
Index of Meister & Schlingensiepen Catalog
