Did Mitutoyo have an alias?

Hello All:

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I have had a set of six telescoping gauges for many years made by Suzuki. I also have, from the same vintage, three Mitutoyo gauges of the three smaller ranges, and I noticed they look identical, right down to the red plastic case and gold lettering .

I got curious and had a look under a loupe and apart from the logo stamped in, I can't tell the difference, all other markings are the same, font and all.

They have the same feel, finish and action, I put a mic on the nice shiny bits and they matched to around a tenth or two! A good copy is one thing, but this seems extreme.

I'm wondering if any old hands here know the history of Mitutoyo. Did they also market under a different name or did other companies make some of their earlier product?

IIRC, these were bought just around the time that Mitutoyo was first making a move into the North American market, so I wonder if it was a marketing thing.

Thanks for any info, cheers.

P.

Pragma said:

I'm wondering if any old hands here know the history of

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Well covered. Try Wikipedia. Your gauges were probably house-branded by Mitutoyo for Suzuki, not the other way 'round.

thermite said:

Well covered. Try Wikipedia. Your gauges were probably house-branded by Mitutoyo for Suzuki, not the other way 'round.

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Thanks, that's what I'm thinking too. I did look at Wikipedia and Mitutoyo's own history page, but it seemed to just touch on the high points. Their quality was so well established, it's unlikely that they would use a third party, now that I think about it.

It's funny because I remember at the time, starting out, that I couldn't afford to buy all Mitutoyu, so I went with lesser known brands on some items. No wonder they have served me well. Since then I found another Suzuki entry. A used small hole gauge set, which was listed as made by Mitutoyo.

Cheers,

P.

Pragma said:

Thanks, that's what I'm thinking too. I did look at Wikipedia and Mitutoyo's own history page, but it seemed to just touch on the high points. Their quality was so well established, it's unlikely that they would use a third party, now that I think about it.

It's funny because I remember at the time, starting out, that I couldn't afford to buy all Mitutoyu, so I went with lesser known brands on some items. No wonder they have served me well. Since then I found another Suzuki entry. A used small hole gauge set, which was listed as made by Mitutoyo.

Cheers,

P.

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Mitutoyo was still an "unknown" in the USA when I bought my first 0-1" mic in a lovely satin chrome finish it still holds today. Early 1960's.

My several mentors- "Old timers" already in their 50's thru mid 70's in age, had disparaged the Starretts we had at school. They used Brown & Sharpe, Scherr-Tumico, Lufkin rule, Pratt & Whitney, and several German brands.

The Mitutoyo was "new to them", so it got passed around, closely scrutinized by experts, and earned appreciative comments that I had gotten good value for my NINE US Dollar spend!

The rest is, as they say "history", by now!

Give Mitutoyo did not long STAY "nine-dollar-cheap"?

Most of my metrology - yet today - remains USED B&S, newer ones "Hexagon", Scherr, Lufkin, P&W, Dorsey, Hamilton, Mahr, Etalon, Tesa/Weiler, and even old-banner "Mauser" - which AFAIK was actually just a branding exercise of a second-tier German competitor of Mahr (that name in my notes.. somewhere..).

I even have a lovely set of 0-6" with "B&S pattern" angular-not-Cee-shaped frames made by one of CHINA's firms that somehow got all the right boxes ticked - except the s**ty BOX itself!

BFD. I know how to work fine woods. Or even Bamboo... which is NOT a "wood". Uber grass, rather.



Good that I have that set put aside as a "high water" mark.

Next product I buy out of PRC may well await the next ice age.... so it can be delivered across a frozen Pacific by dog-sled, rather than containership.

Easier to test a team of Malemutes for virus than a containership krew, y'see..

"Hold a grudge"?

Meahh. The first five hundred years are the hardest...

Pragma said:

. . .
I'm wondering if any old hands here know the history of Mitutoyo. Did they also market under a different name or did other companies make some of their earlier product?

IIRC, these were bought just around the time that Mitutoyo was first making a move into the North American market, so I wonder if it was a marketing thing.

Thanks for any info, cheers.

P.

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Here's Mitutoyo's own version of it: https://www.mitutoyo.co.jp/eng/pdf/R257_Micro.pdf

There's another Mitutoyo self-published history out there as well, published in 1986.

NSK, which started producting micrometers even before Mitutoyo, ended up with a post-WWII version (distributed by Fowler in the US) with a spindle that looked identical to Mitutoyo. The cast micrometer frames, however, were a different; with Mitutoyo's a bit better finished and painted blue rather than gray. This similarity was the same for both the analog and mechanical digital spindles sold by NSK and Mitutoyo. Same spindle designs used by both companies. Maybe the same source?? Accuracy seemed the same for either - and Mitutoyo went on to make Japan's first electronic digital mic.

I suspect the corporate relations between companies like Mitutoyo, NSK, and Suziki might be more complicated that we'll know. "Zaibatsu" were associated Japanese companies up to WWII. After WWII, the Allies saw them as something like a manufacturing and finance mafia and had them (nominally) disbanded. They were followed by "keiretsu" and now trading companies. Lots of companies loosely associated, for mutual benefit. That's apparently even more the case with chaebol in South Korea.

We do the same, of course. Every Craftsman micrometer made by someone else (Scherr Tumico etc.) There's another thread noting how US companies got bought up by Danaher, then Danaher and Apex merge them, and then the whole thing bought up by a private equity firm (Bain Capital, headed up by Mitt Romney at the time).

Anyhow, could be Suzuki was part of a trading group or keiretsu with Mitutoyo associated with it??

I've been buying and fixing up microscopes recently to equip a kids' science program. Amazing how many current second tier brand names are actually owned by one parent company -- and how many in top tier of Japanese (2), German (1), and nominally US (1) companies have their lower end stuff made in China. As with hand tools, some of the best built microscopes were made decades ago - with current versions either greatly cost-reduced or sold at stunningly high prices at the high end to specialty users.

Then, there's MSC trying to buy up all its competition in an attempt (with Grainger, Fastenal, etc.) to turn MRO supplies into an oligopoly.

Be glad your Suziki gages come from a time when quality was still paramount.

FWIW, pretty sure Mauser made its own mics for a while. The Mahr and Mauser mics I've had look quite different and come from a time it was sort of a prestige thing to make mikes -- maybe like having an Internet-app is today. Recollection is that Stalin even wanted in on the act, with an eye to Germany's growing industrialization, with his own state-sponsored mic factory.

I have three interesting thread pitch gages. A probably rather old one is marked Brown and Sharpe. Then there are a couple of copies from 1970-1990 (forgot when I got them) marked PEC and Products Eng. Corp. USA and a very slightly different one marked Mitutoyo USA. I think this is the only USA Mitutoyo tool I have.

Mitutoyo had a plant in Brazil, probably because there are a lot of Japanese people who moved to Brazil years ago. So you may see a Brazilian Mitutoyo tool.

Larry

PeteM said:

FWIW, pretty sure Mauser made its own mics for a while.

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Only briefly. They (Lowe organization, initially - back when Mauser himself was only the designer) had a handicap as to metrology and had to chase after solutions.

After Wars, the armaments makers - in general - were forbidden to make.. would you believe? "arms".

Easy for Walther. They had been an established office & lab equipment & similar "mechanism" makers BEFORE they got into making military firearms!

Mauser had to bridge a hungry time before they were back into making sporting rifles. ISTR such workshops as still do that, yet today, are - or were - re-based under new ownership, and located in Switzerland, not Germany?

Not new. The Walther desk calculators had migrated to a "wink and a nod" informal knockoff out of a Swiss factory they did NOT own.. as far as we know - so Walther could make sidearms for the Third Reich, instead.

"Imperial Japan" was no different in organizing the resources of their industries.

See also the USA. Singer sewing machine making .45 ACP sidearms (rather GOOD ones, actually), Oldsmobile cannon (less so..) , Revlon lipstick tubes to .30-06 cartridge brass, GM's "Guide headlamp" the .45 "grease gun", auto and even rubber-tire companies making bombers and fighter planes, .. and many thousands more examples.

Coming OFF a War? Folks - and their companies - did what they could to earn a crust. Some found their new niche healthier - and never went back.

L Vanice said:

I have three interesting thread pitch gages. A probably rather old one is marked Brown and Sharpe. Then there are a couple of copies from 1970-1990 (forgot when I got them) marked PEC and Products Eng. Corp. USA and a very slightly different one marked Mitutoyo USA. I think this is the only USA Mitutoyo tool I have.

Mitutoyo had a plant in Brazil, probably because there are a lot of Japanese people who moved to Brazil years ago. So you may see a Brazilian Mitutoyo tool.

Larry

View attachment 287940 View attachment 287941

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Wonder if Mitutoyo would pay you handsomely to have that pitch gage disappear? Sure looks like PEC made it for them, dropped their own stamping, and laser engraved Mitutoyo. Probably wasn't worth their time to make them early on, since their own market and most of the rest of the world was metric?

FWIW, I've found P.E.C. tools to be consistently decent quality, at an affordable price.

PeteM said:

Wonder if Mitutoyo would pay you handsomely to have that pitch gage disappear? Sure looks like PEC made it for them, dropped their own stamping, and laser engraved Mitutoyo. Probably wasn't worth their time to make them early on, since their own market and most of the rest of the world was metric?

FWIW, I've found P.E.C. tools to be consistently decent quality, at an affordable price.

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"Disappear"? Too busy earning their crust to go blame-gamer paranoid. They aren't at all fussed.

AND it is just as likely PEC bought from Mits, or that BOTH bought from a third-party speciality outfit. Or neither.

Most of my extensive collection of PEC were bought as maker's "seconds" or "blems". The "blemish" involved? Not the measuring markings at all. The application of their own LOGO! What's THAT hint at?

Now compare them with goods from "iGAGING".

So long as either/both get the damned JOB done, I've been agnostic. Try to do actual day-to-day work with nought but "valuable heirlooms", yah tend to get less DONE for the extra effort of tippy-toe-ing about .. and/or cry real tears now and then.

All this stuff was considered consumable in use and in need of replacement now and then from the very outset... or the makers wuddna tooled it up for volume production!



"Back in the day" I'd get out-of-stock BMW parts from the larger and older Mercedes dealer's service department. Both were buying them from ATE, Bosch, Recaro and such.

US auto makers have been "aggregators" even longer.

See the seeds the Dodge Brothers had planted at actually CALLING their way of going at solving the complexity problem the "MOtor PARts Company AKA "MOPAR".

"Plant in BRAZIL"? One of Mitutoyo's earliest was planted right here in the USA.

They now have factories all over the planet.

PeteM said:

Wonder if Mitutoyo would pay you handsomely to have that pitch gage disappear? Sure looks like PEC made it for them, dropped their own stamping, and laser engraved Mitutoyo. Probably wasn't worth their time to make them early on, since their own market and most of the rest of the world was metric?

FWIW, I've found P.E.C. tools to be consistently decent quality, at an affordable price.

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All the Mitutoyo markings are stamped, not laser burned. There is some dirt in some of the stamped markings that makes it look different in places. The PEC frame looks like tumbled bare stainless. The Mitutoyo frame looks like satin (abrasive blasted) stainless or chrome. The slotted screw heads are shaped differently. I think they came out of the same plant, but some years apart.

Larry

L Vanice said:

All the Mitutoyo markings are stamped, not laser burned.

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I would submit electrochemically etched, possibly engraved only on OLD low-volume examples, and to superb quality, either way, as far the more likely.

I mean - given that avoiding stress on metrology goods more than most any other is generally a "Very Good Idea"?

Stamping is FAR too BRUTAL for all too many of the goods involved as well as hard to keep as consistent in appearance - as such things "almost always" are.

Horology, Metrology, Optics, and fine "film-era" camera lenses and bodies are/were "high art"... if not the highest-ever... for aesthetics, most makers - even "cheap seats".

thermite said:

Mitutoyo was still an "unknown" in the USA when I bought my first 0-1" mic in a lovely satin chrome finish it still holds today. Early 1960's.

My several mentors- "Old timers" already in their 50's thru mid 70's in age, had disparaged the Starretts we had at school. They used Brown & Sharpe, Scherr-Tumico, Lufkin rule, Pratt & Whitney, and several German brands.

The Mitutoyo was "new to them", so it got passed around, closely scrutinized by experts, and earned appreciative comments that I had gotten good value for my NINE US Dollar spend!

The rest is, as they say "history", by now!

Give Mitutoyo did not long STAY "nine-dollar-cheap"?

Click to expand...

LOL! The more things change, the more they remain the same. When I bought my 193-211 (couldn't afford Starret), all the machinists wrinkled their nose but quietly admitted that the Mitutoyo, with the digital readout and the carbide faces, was pretty damn good. It still is.

That was about 10 years after your purchase and if memory serves, I think I paid $19.00.

Now I see the quality in some of the better Chinese efforts, and the low prices, and think the wheel is taking another turn.

That said, a lot of people are now rethinking the whole global supply chain thing and, IMHO, none too soon.

Pragma said:

That said, a lot of people are now rethinking the whole global supply chain thing and, IMHO, none too soon.

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It runs in cycles. Rather longish ones. But yes.

One thing to be in a chronic low-grade pissing contest with ONE nation.

Gets harder edged when a f**k-up is brazenly piled on to.

CCP can't "win" at that sort of game whist every "customer" OR "supplier" OR even the most loyal of "fellow-travelers" on-planet has been butt-shagged and had corpses to bury - even Putinstan, Cuba, & DPRK.

No matter WHAT Governments do - or do NOT do - "officially", ordinary folk WILL "vote with their spend".

And there are rather a LOT of "ordinary folks", damned few among them "amused".

Anythings possible of course, but with what you've found so far I'd also lean heavily towards those telescoping gauges being built for / branded as Suzuki. At one time the Mitutoyo name wasn't as automatically associated with or as a high quality metrology company as they are today and they were probably hunting for any sales they could possibly get. It took a whole lot of years to change the average North American's perceptions about everything coming from Japan was cheap garbage because for a long time it mostly was.

For some added trivia, it can also work the other way with Mitutoyo. Even as that highly regarded metrology company they aren't above having others build measuring equipment and brand it with there corporate logo. I've got a 524-524 Mitutoyo Hicator bought from a reputable dealer that's clearly labeled with there brand, standard outside Mit. labeled orange cardboard box, Mit. item numbers etc. Yet in small print on the back of the indicator and that cardboard box it states Made in Germany by Mahr. I don't have the exact same Mahr indicator to compare it to, but any pictures I have seen I believe the exterior gauge face surround is the only difference between it and the exact same Mayr indicator. It's the only item I know of that Mitutoyo doesn't make with there name on it, but there might be or probably are others.

As an update to this thread - I had a chance to scan a copy of "The 50-year History of Mitutoyo" - covering the company from inception to 1985. Seems to be a vanity press thing, commissioned by Mitutoyo. Didn't see any aliases. Some highlights:

- The founder, Numata, grew up in Japan, but attended and graduated from Univ. of California Berkeley in 1925.
- Went into civil service after returning to Japan
- Wanted to make precision instruments - micrometers - and started up his own company in the late 30's.
- Bought a SIP bench model precision lathe early on for the spindles. First micrometers (circa 1937) didn't sell all that well.
- Shortly thereafter military orders from the Sino-Japanese war (the Chinese would surely call it something different) boosted sales
- Company name means something like three abundances in Buddhist tradition and the early logo has three lobes
- Then on to WWII
- Production facilities pretty much destroyed during WWII
- Made a bunch of stuff under occupation right after WWII - including something called a "cheese sorter" that looked to me like some sort of automated counting device.
- Got back to micrometers shortly, but was way behind. They had plain spindles, cut threads.
- Went to the US to learn how to properly grind spindle threads. Had an aim to become the best.
- Right after WWII there were more than a half dozen Japanese micrometer makers - mostly machine tool makers.
- he book says only two remained (around 1985). I'm guessing the other was NSK.
- They switched to cast frames. Could be NSK also got cast frames from the same or similar supplier?
- Head of company came to an ASTME trade show - booth with micrometers on a table -- in 1954. No one paid attention. Took another ten years to get a foothold
- Started with very small overseas sales force. Once had 10 regional US distributors. Then opened up MTI in the early 60's. Other overseas sales subsidiaries later in Europe.
- Brazil its first overseas factory

No mention of Suzuki. My guess is those regional US distributors might have had their way with the brand until MTI got better established in the 60's?

I bought a 106-102 0-1 mike with non-rotating spindle for $25.00 from the back of a co worker's trunk in the early 70s. Back then I wondered what the source was because he had a bunch of them brand new in boxes. Now it seems that they may not have had distribution then and it was a way to get discovered.

I bought another one being closed out at MSC for less than $100 a few years back, thought it would be nice to have a spare as they are so handy measuring threads over wires. The non rotating 8mm spindle is the cat's meow for thread measurement.

Anyone else see non traditional distribution in the old days?