SOLD KTC Standard Open End Wrench 5-piece Set (1 Viewer)

[dmamj]

Location

United States

KTC (Kyoto Tool Company) has manufactured the open-end wrenches in Toyota tool kits since the early 1950's, all in metric sizes. This is a vintage standard set from late 60s to the early-mid 70s that was available from KTC directly or from KTC retailers/distributors. You can date them to the 60’s or 70’s by the double Marukyo logo in the center of the wrenches ("double", meaning two circles enclose the character in the middle). These are strictly KTC - they don't have Toyota anywhere on them. Incidentally, the "S" to the right of the JIS symols indicates these are "spear" type wrenches if I'm not mistaken. $35 for the set, which includes shipping to the US.

 

[Denscustom1]

I'll take those sweethearts! Thanks, Dennis

 

[dmamj]

Sale pending.

 

[swamp-thing]

seems like a great deal for some cool tools, please put me 2nd in line or if you score another set i’m your huckleberry!

 

[dmamj]

Sold, thanks.

 

[middlecalf]

Curious as to what the number after vanadium indicates?

 

[dmamj]

Similar to the Toyota wrenches, it's a mystery. A Japanese contact actually asked KTC about those and they were pretty close-lipped. Year of manufacture was speculated, but that is likely not the case. Maybe forging machine number? Batch number? Any other speculation?

 

[Denscustom1]

Just a guess after being around the foundry business a bit. Perhaps the year of the mold? It would make sense as they wore out and were replaced.....
If true, the 5/8-3/4 mold was a survivor!

 

[dmamj]

@Denscustom1 Dennis, that's about as logical of a hypothesis I've heard. But then you see other KTC spanners such as these with stamped numbers 29 & 17, so year of mold, at least in these cases, wouldn't hold true. But you might be onto something though. Maybe they are just the numbers of the different molds themselves? If so, you would expect to see slight variantions in the tools, as it would be reasonable to assume there would be slight variations in the molds. The second picture is of the front side of the wrenches in the first picture. There is a clear difference in letters and the spacing between the letters. Hmmm…