Odd Wrench?

[grover26a]

I am new to the Forum, and being my first post, this topic may have already been discussed to death.....Please bear with me. A few years back I purchased through Ebay an XV-1214 3/8" x 7/16" box wrench. Upon arrival I was surprised to see that it was thinner, narrower, and shorter (about 6 3/4") than a 'normal' XV-1214. Manufacture date appears to be 1958. Can anyone enlighten me on this oddity?

[Oldtuleguy]

According to the 48 catalog it was 6.5" long, where as the 58 list it as 7 19/32 long, so yours must be earlier

[grover26a]

Thanks to Oldtuleguy, upon closer observation, with old eyes and magnifying glass, the manufacture date is 1948, not 1958 as I had thought. I had hastily ruled out 1948 as the '48 catalog showed the wrenches, at that time, being marketed as 'Blue-Point' and mine was a 'S.O.'...Never looked at the catalog info. regarding length. This leads to the question whether this shorter wrench was only a one year offering? Hard to determine without a 1947 and 1949 catalog. Nineteen-forty-six was still the old 'X' series. Forty-eight was XV-1214 @ 6 1/2" long (Blue Point). Nineteen-fifty was shown as XV-1214 @ 7 19/32", but still Blue Point, and by 1953 as Snap-on, and remained as such till end of the series somewhere around the mid. seventies. How mine from 1948 is marked 'Snap-on' when the catalog showed the wrenches carrying the 'Blue-Point' logo to at least 1950 is still unexplained. I can see Snap-on using previous catalog layouts to save costs, but, the catalog never showed the shorter wrench as being a 'Snap-on'??

[snapmom]

Snap on started to convert the Blue Point wrenches to the Snap on name in about 1948. The cats are not always right. The 50 cat shows BP too, but with the longer length. [/url]http://collectingsnapon.com/catalogs/ca ... gPage=1123