Vintage Hamilton Tool Company Advertising Alum Tag Dealer Sign 6x4 equipment

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Vintage Hamilton Tool Company Advertising Alum Tag Dealer Sign 6x4 equipment believe this was something you hung in the office, maybe the dealer or a sales rep had it ?? or they put a serial number on it & put it on the equipment....looks brand new.. just a neat piece of history....  some info about company below...

History of Hamilton Tool Co. is a bit confusing because there was more than one company by that name. Our interest is in the one established in 1926, which made made a sensitive drilling machine, a machine specialized for drilling small holes at high speed, and with a delicate touch so that the operator could avoid breaking the tiny drill bits.

In 1892 Adolph Muehmatt of Cincinnati, Ohio, who had emigrated from Switzerland only the year before, began manufacturing engravers' supplies. He soon began manufacturing a clever ball vise of his own design. A 1922 ad claims that he had been manufacturing sensitive drilling machines since 1892 but we have found no independent corroboration of that claim. However, in 1920 he introduced an improved sensitive drilling machine, for which a patent was issued in 1924. This drill was quite successful for Mr. Muehlmatt.

Meanwhile, in 1922-3 Oscar E. Schlichter, of Hamilton, Ohio, had patented a meat and vegetable slicer similar in design to the ubiquitous hand-cranked meat grinder that clamped to the edge of a table or counter. In 1926 he established a new company, the Hamilton Tool Co., to manufacture his slicer and make dies and tooling for the regional market. He obtained permission from the receivers of the recently bankrupted Hamilton Machine Tool Co. to use the similar name. In any event, Schlichter's new company seems to have done quite well and developed a diverse product line.

In 1937 Muehlmatt died. The assets of his business were acquired by Hamilton Tool Co., which organized it as the A. Muehlmatt Division of Hamilton Tool Co., and continued manufacture of his line of drill presses. They improved upon Meuehlmatt's design in Frederick Schlichter's patent of 1942 which added variable speed control. We have reports of engine lathes and larger upright drills bearing the Hamilton Tool Co. name. We suspect that these products were from the Hamilton Machine Tool Co., which was for a time known as the Hamilton Tool Co. (not to mention that people are often not careful to accurately transcribe makers' names).

After the war the Hamilton Tool Co.'s Muehlmatt Division continued to manufacture the sensitive drill but the focus of the rest of the company shifted to products for the printing and graphic-arts industries. In 1960 Muehlmatt Division obtained a patent for a set of improvements to the 1942 patent, aimed at improving drilling accuracy and making the machine easier to build and maintain.

At some point, likely in the early 1960s, the drilling machine—and perhaps the entire Muehlmatt Division—became, in whole or in part, the Precision Drilling Machine Co. of Yadkinville, North Carolina. By the 1980s the drilling machine was being manufactured by REBB Industries of Yadkinville, which, as of last report, was still able to provide some parts and service for these sensitive drilling machines.