Description: Vintage Simonsen Chicago Tool Box: 19L x 7W x 9H (inv19) NO TRAY Labeled on the handle Simonsen Chicago 57, so it was made before 1963 when Zip Codes started. Edward H. Simonsen was born in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1891, the son of Danish immigrants. He moved to Chicago in his youth, enlisted in World War I but was exempted for a “deformed knee,” married his sweetheart Ethel Stapp in 1920, and got a job at the R.M. Eddy Brass Foundry—eventually working his way up to superintendent. In the machine shop, Simonsen showed a knack not only for metalwork, but for invention. His creations pulled in a number of patents for the R.M. Eddy Foundry Co. At the dawning of the Great Depression, the Simonsens had at least enough financial security to purchase a new home at 2201 N. Nagle Ave. Just shy of his 50th birthday, he founded the Simonsen Metal Products Company and purchased factory space at 4444 W. Chicago Ave—a building that has managed to survive to the present day. Through the 1940s and ‘50s on through Edward’s death in 1966, Simonsen Metal was a leading national name in quality toolboxes and tackle boxes, with some side work in industrial storage cabinets and film containers. The company employed a team of 200 workers during its postwar heyday in the early 1950s, and also operated a mail order wing known as Simonsen Industries, Inc., with offices at 1414 S. Michigan Avenue. The business was reluctantly sold to Sears/Craftsman shortly before Edward’s death in 1966. From there, the name seemed to survive as a Craftsman subsidiary for a while until finally fading into obscurity and out of circulation by the 1980s.
Price: 32 USD
Location: Skokie, Illinois
End Time: 2025-01-17T19:11:47.000Z
Shipping Cost: N/A USD
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Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Brand: Simonsen
