Alloy Artifacts  

Midwest Tool & Cutlery Company

Table of Contents

Introduction

Midwest Tool & Cutlery was founded in 1945 as a maker of tin snips and related tools.


Company History

Midwest Tool & Cutlery was founded in 1945 in Sturgis, Michigan as a maker of tin snips and related tools.

The company operates primarily as a contract manufacturer of private branded tools.

Production for Sears Roebuck

One of the company's major customers as a contract manufacturer was Sears Roebuck, and Midwest Tool supplied Craftsman-branded tin snips and aviation snips over a number of years.

Tin snips tend to have a fairly generic appearance to the point that it's difficult to identify the maker, but the aviation snips supplied by Midwest Tool had a distinctive design with raised "horns".

Later Operations


Patents

Midwest Tool & Cutlery: Issued and Licensed Patents
Patent No.InventorFiledIssuedNotes and Examples

Trademarks

Midwest Tool & Cutlery: Registered Trademarks
Text Mark or Logo Reg. No. First Use Date Filed Date Issued Notes
Midwest Snips 1,578,676 08/15/198812/19/1988 01/23/1990 Text "MIDWEST SNIPS" in design
SN 73-770,327. Pub. 10-31-89.

References and Resources

Photographs and observations of particular tools are based on items in the Alloy Artifacts Collection.

Catalog Resources


Industrial Distributors

We'll add references as time permits.


Selected Tools

Currently we don't have any examples of the company's own branded tools, but will show some examples of contract production.


Craftsman 4273 "X" Right-Cutting Compound-Leverage "Aviation" Snips

[Craftsman 4273 Right-Cutting Aviation Snips]
Fig. 1. Craftsman 4273 Right-Cutting "Aviation" Snips, with Insets for Side View and Marking Detail, ca. Late 1970s.

Fig. 1 shows a pair of Craftsman 4273 right-cutting "aviation" snips, stamped with "Craftsman" and the model number above "Made in U.S.A." and "Cuts Right".

The snips are also stamped with an "X" manufacturer's code to the left of the model number.

The top inset shows a side view of the snips.

The overall length is 10.0 inches, and the finish is polished chrome with plastic grips.

We purchased these snips from Sears in the late 1970s to build the plenum for a replacement furnace.

The distinctive plastic hand grips on these snips have the same design with raised "horns" as aviation snips made by Midwest Tool & Cutlery, allowing us to identify Midwest Tool as the maker.

Midwest Tool used "X" as its manufacturer's code, which has been observed on a number of other Craftsman snips.


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