The front page of the 1898 B.A.Hjorth catalogue (above) has long intrigued me. That catalogue features all 3 of the sub-divisions of Hjorth's offerings at that time. So it included not only the 'Cooking Equipment' stoves, but also the 'Soldering Equipment' section, which had some overlap with stove production, and finally the 'Tools and Machinery' section. Each section highlighted by the identifying logo which had been crafted and introduced in 1896. The first two of these logos are familiar to most stove collectors, but I have always wondered whether any tools were produced which were individually marked with the 'Tools and Machinery' logo: Photographs from a recent auction collection have now shown definitively that the answer is 'yes'. And the piece of evidence in question is very interesting in illuminating this other side of Berndt August Hjorth's business activity. The photographs found show an adjustable wrench marked with the 1896 logo in which it is featured: The other side of the wrench is even more interesting and is proof of a very early date: The manufacturer is given as Enköpings Mekaniska Verkstad. This was the tool manufacture business of engineer Johan Petter Johansson, the man who was to modern hand tools what Svensson and Lindqvist were to the Primus stove. And it was Hjorth's association with J.P.Johansson that had given Hjorth the business base from which he was able to take on the marketing of the Primus stoves in 1892. J.P.Johansson's inventions and business just pre-dated Svensson and Lindqvist's. Johansson had started his workshop at Enköpings in 1886, and took out his first patent, for a pipe wrench (rörtång) in 1888. (An excellent resource for Johansson's life and career can be found here. Johansson's second great invention was the adjustable wrench (skiftnyckel), for which he took out patents in 1891 and 1892, and it was that that had led to the marketing deal with Hjorth in 1890. The markings on the skiftnyckel shown above indicate that it must have been made between the introduction of the logo of crossed rörtång and skiftnyckel in 1896, and 1916 when Johansson sold all of his holdings in the manufacture to Hjorth. Below are photographs of a rörtång made between 1916 and 1954, when the company name was changed from 'AB B.A.Hjorth & Co' to 'AB Bahco', There does not seem to be any evidence of the 1896 'Tools and Machinery' logo being used on actual tools after 1916. But it did still appear in modified form in some advertising and on some other company materials until the 1954 change of company identity, for example in the case of this document binder: Further links: the Enköpings mekaniska verkstad, Fanna here, and re. Johansson here. @Christer Carlsson
Very interesting, thanks for posting this! I have a similar Bacho binder from the 50th anniversary 1939 featured here: https://classiccampstoves.com/threads/1939-bacho-primus-document-binder.39610/
The family Hjorth must have been prolific when making tools! I have a set of Hjorth spring winding tools for making coil springs, however, they were based out of Boston, MA. The maker of these were Hjorth Lathe and Tool, patented in 1907. US861283A - Wire-winding tool. - Google Patents Murph
