Vanished Tool Makers: Oxwall Tools

Back in the day, everyone seemed to have a set of cheap stamped ignition wrenches from this company.  Their slogan was "Tools for Home Craftsmen The World Over," but in the interests of honesty it should have been "Truly Terrible Tools." They did start out with a plant in Oxford Township, Pennsylvania, and you can find ads for their tools in 1950's Popular Mechanics (above, from 1953). However, they seem to have been among the first American tool companies to start outsourcing tool manufacturing, initially to post-war occupied Germany and then to Japan.  (Did I hear you say, "cheap labour?") The history of their company reads like a history of many now-defunct American tool manufacturers: outsource your manufacturing and let your domestic plant decay. Then let the county take it over for taxes, sell it to a sleazy lawyer who strips it of its assets and then possibly commits arson and burns it down, leaving the remains as an ugly contaminated mess for the local taxpayers to deal with:

http://blog.pennlive.com/lvbreakingnews/2007/03/fire_destroys_historic_oxwall.html

And people wonder what's wrong with capitalism.  With a legacy like this, their departure from the marketplace is unlamented.