They sell a lot of stuff under their own name, but they also supply a lot of their stuff to the tool trucks who in turn sell it at a substantial mark-up. They started out selling horse powered drilling machines, but eventually turned their focus to the automotive specialty tool market. Lisle Corporation has been around since 1903. It is not about items that are shared across lines owned by the same parent company like Snap-On/Williams, Matco/Armstrong (kinda), Mac/Proto, etc., it is solely about items bought from one manufacturer and sold by another. We couldn’t possibly cover every re-branded item in 10 articles, much less one, but this article is an attempt to turn you onto some commonly re-branded items with wildly varying prices. While “re-branding” may be a completely normal practice, knowing who makes what for whom may be the difference in paying $30 for something, or paying $100 for the same, exact, item. Some items available in a Craftsman version, has a genetically identical Husky twin, and so on.
A lot of times the answer is no, leading many companies to simply re-brand items some other manufacturer produced. If you’re a tool manufacturer you have to ask yourself if there is really enough demand to support another company (or 10) making a specific specialty tool to justify the huge cost of setting up production for it. When you think about it, the notion that each individual company would manufacture their own, patented, brand specific, version of everything, is pretty impractical. There are some instances where you can walk in a store like Sears or Home Depot and get the EXACT same tool you can get on the tool truck, for a fraction of the cost. From tool trucks to big box stores, EVERY major tool company in America re-brands products someone else made.
As we’ve touched on in various articles in the past like our “ 10 Hand Tool Brands That Don’t Get The Love They Deserve“, when it comes to tools, things aren’t always as they appear.
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