Wizard Ratchet Tool

[smallengineshop]

This is a 52 tooth Wizard Ratchet, part #H2775, I stumbled across. It's made in USA, and Wizard Tool's were sold at Western Auto stores. Wizard started manufacturing tools in 1940 for Western Auto Supply Company. I don't know if Wizard tools were sold elsewhere, but they were considered a higher end tool at Western Auto stores or in catalogs for Western Auto Supply Company. Western Auto Supply Company was founded in 1909, and I think Western Auto stores disappeared in 1998. Whoever took them over is now known as Advanced Auto Parts.

From Wikipedia about Western Auto:
Western Auto Supply Company—known more widely as Western Auto—was a specialty retail chain of stores that supplied automobile parts and accessories. It operated approximately 1200 stores across the United States. It was started in 1909 in Kansas City, Missouri, by George Pepperdine and Don Abnor Davis. Pepperdine later founded Pepperdine University.[1] Western Auto was bought by Beneficial Corporation in 1961; Western Auto's management led a leveraged buyout in 1985, leading three years later to a sale to Sears. Sears sold most of the company to Advance Auto Parts in 1998, and by 2003, the resulting merger had led to the end of the Western Auto brand and its product distribution network.  


Click on image to enlarge. It's frustrating some of the photo's turned out blurry. Argh! My auto focus camera has seen better days.....