"A Christmas present worth having" Stanley Christmas Promotions

Many companies, including tool manufacturers, have understood the importance of promoting their products at Christmas time, and Stanley is no exception. The earliest Stanley Christmas advertisement that has surfaced to date was used by Stanley in 1911, and it promoted its sixteenouncc claw hammer no. 14NM (Figure l). This hammer had a nickel-plated octagon poll head with a full claw and a hickory handle, which was available in natural finish or "mahoganizcd" (as shown in Figure 2). In this early advertisement, Stanley notes that "the custom of giving useful presents for Christmas is growing every year," which seems to indicate that the claw hammer was Stanley's entry into the Christmas market. The hammer continued to be advertised as the perfect holiday gift- one "that will last a long time and will serve as a continual reminder of the giver"-until about 1922.

As the 1920s progressed, Stanley began offering tool assortments to its line of tools, which led to a major change in its advertising emphasis. Now the company began promoting not only single tools as Christmas gifts, but a variety of tools made up in sets with a wide price range. In 1922, Stanley printed a four-color Christmas gift catalog touting its tool sets as the "Ideal Christmas Gift" (Figure S). The sets ranged in price from $2.15 to $95.00 and contained from four to forty-eight tools per set. Stanley's set no. 910, for example, contained four Stanley Four-Square tools (Figure 4). The importance of Christmas sales for Stanley is reflected in the company's full page, twocolor, front cover advertisement in Hardware age Magazine in the November 30, 1922, edition (Figure 5). The Hardware Age advertisement pushed the tool assortments as a Christmas profit item:

Display your stuck of Stanley Tool assortments and thereby reap the sales that are so easily coaxed through visual appeal. To see them means to buy them.

The promotion of tool sets was good business and Stanley repeated the promotion in 1923 with another advertisement on Hardware Age Magazine's front page on December 6, 1923, (illustrated on front cover). Sets continued to be popular through the 1920s.

One of the eighteen tool sets offered in Stanley's catalog was the no. 888 tool kit. The purchaser could choose one of four different tool assortments to complete the tool kit. Figure 6 illustrates a no. 888 assortment "D" tool kit containing twelve tools, which retailed for $1,5.00.

The Christmas market was good, and Stanley introduced different marketing techniques to make its product more attractive. In 1926, Stanley began promoting newly introduced tools in special single "gift wrap" boxes. Harris J. Cook's patented socket chisel no. 440, offered in an attractive box printed with holly paper, appears to be the first time Stanley offered giftwrap boxes (Figure 7).

In its 1933 Christmas promotion, Stanley offered one of its new "100 Plus" hammers in a special chromium-plated model with a multi-colored, brush finished hickory handle (Figure 8). It was the only year the unique handle was offered.

Tool sets continued to be promoted in the 1930s but the company's emphasis started to turn to individual tools in gift wrap boxes. In 1936, some of the individual tools were the 220 block plane, pull-push rules, screw drivers, and the 100 Plus hammers. The boxes were decorated with stars and with stylized trees with stars (Figures 9 and 10).

Beginning in 1937, Stanley added the prefix "X" before the standard model number to indicate that it was a Christmas selection with a special gift box. The boxes were printed in green and had a simulated wavy fabric look with a clear cellophane window (Figure 11). A variety of tools were sold in the Christmas packaging, including a hand drill, block plane, chisels, hammer, level, square, and a pull-push rule (Figure 12).

"Birchcraft" gift boxes were introduced in the 1940 Christmas line. An advertising brochure of the time illustrates the various available tools (Figure 13). A no. 4 bench plane and a Yankee screwdriver, are examples of two of the tools that were offered in birehcraft boxes (Figure 14). The birchcraft gift boxes were popular and apparently were used during and after the second World War, up to 1949.

In the 1950s, no package design took hold and Stanley experimented with different gift boxes. In 1950, the birchcraft look was over, and the new gift box was a wood grain design with green stripes and a globe with the words, "Stanley - The Tool Box of the World" on the lid of the box and a red bottom. Stanley's 100 Plus hand drill no. 610 was one of the tools offered in a gift box (Figure 15). That gift box changed a little in 1951. The globe was removed and the left side of the lid had a green diagonal swath with the red Stanley logo and the "Tool Rox of the World" motto printed in red. The Stanley Yankee screwdriver was among the tools available in the box (Figure 16). The announcement flyer in 1952 shows that once again the design of the gift box changed. It was a red paper with the legend "Season's Greetings" in the center of the lid (Figure 17). Fifteen high selling tools were offered in these boxes, which were, the flyer noted, "selected by popular vote." The flyer indicates that the gift box was simply a special sleeve that went over a stock box.

The next year (1953) the number of tools offered in holiday wrap increased to twenty-one. That season also introduced another new, attractive gift box with a green Christmas tree decoration (Figure 18). The flyer distributed to dealers noted that the "attractive gift cover (with small identification sticker) fits over regular stock box." Dealers need not worry about being stuck with excess Christmas-wrapped tools at the end of the shopping season. Tools included for the first time as special Christmas features were a no. 5 bench plane and the new "Featherlite" tape rule. The no. x4 bench plane and the x220 block plane were among the tools offered in the 1953 gift wrap (Figure 19).

A red box with gold snowflakes replaced the Christmas trees in 1954 (Figure 20). Eighteen tools were offered and a company advertisement that year was no doubt meant to appeal to the busy housewife who could save time wrapping gifts (Figure 21).

The Christmas promotion for 1956 took a different tack (Figure 22). This year the gift packaging was a polyethylene stocking that would hold the gift tool, except, that the flyer notes, "Colorful Santa Claus gift display cards are included with four tools, too heavy for stockings." The store display included a giant forty-four-inch stocking filled with an assortment of sixteen tools. Each was offered in a giant polyethylene stocking (Figures 22 and 23).

Stanley continued to promote tools tor the Christmas season into the 1960s and beyond, but the Christmas boxes gave way to other promotions such as the 1973 "Gifts for the sport" promotion with "tool kits" packed in shaped themed boxes, such as the "Motorcycle Tool Kit" in a motorcycle shaped box and the "Trailer Tool Kit" in a box shaped like an RV (Figure 24).

It is interesting to note that in 1911, the idea of giving "useful presents" took off and over the years increased in popularity and has continued to the present.

Walter Jacob publishes a regular column on Stanley tools in The Chronicle.

Copyright Early American Industries Association Dec 2004
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