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What is Apex Tool Group and Crescent doing with the Wiss tool brand?
In 2017, Apex Tool Group (ATG) consolidated many of their brands under Crescent Tools, and Wiss became Crescent Wiss. I think we’re seeing signs that the Wiss brand is in danger of being eliminated entirely.
Home Depot has featured Wiss tin snips in their Black Friday deals center for quite a few years now.
After not finding any Wiss or Crescent Wiss tools in promotional displays at my local Home Depot stores, I thought to look for them in the main tool aisle.
Here’s what I found when searching for Wiss aviation snip deals at Home Depot.
Crescent redesigned the tools’ retail packaging cards, with the Wiss branding now so small that I initially thought it had already been eliminated.
I then noticed something else.
In this display of Wiss aviation snips at Home Depot’s 2015 holiday tool deals gift center, what do you see?
It had “USA Made” on the packaging, along with a “USA” marking on the pivot bolt.
Fast forward to 2021, and the Crescent Wiss snips still had a front-facing label that said Made in USA with Global Components.
Also take note of the font size difference between Crescent and Wiss brand names.
The new Crescent packaging at Home Depot doesn’t have this. The tool no longer appears to be labeled as being made in the USA – at least not that I have seen – and there’s no declaration of this on the front of the packaging card.
I checked the back, and it says “Made in USA with Global Components.”
Interestingly, Crescent also updated their advertising claims. The prior packaging said that the Wiss straight-cutting snips deliver “10X cut life,” and the new packaging says they deliver “15X cut life.”
Did Crescent upgrade the tools in some way? What’s responsible for the change from 10X to 15X cut life?
Let’s check this Crescent Wiss 3pc set, which doesn’t have any country of origin information on the front of the packaging card either.
The individual Crescent snips have updated peg cards where 1) the Wiss branding has been greatly minimized, 2) the “made in USA with global components” declaration had been dropped from the front and moved to the back, and 3) the advertised claim went from saying “10X cut life” to “15X cut life.”
The 3pc set of Crescent Wiss aviation snips are marked with: “Designed, Engineered, Tested in the USA,” and “Product of China/Assembled in USA.”
Is there a difference between “Product of China/Assembled in USA” for the Crescent Wiss snips in the 3pc set, and the Crescent snips sold separately that are marked on the back as being “Made in USA with Global Components”?
This all brings me back to the title question: What is Apex Tool Group and Crescent Tools doing to Wiss?
Are they phasing out the brand? What about USA production?
Sometimes a customer-facing retail packaging card is just a piece of card stock. But here, I’m worried we’re seeing signs of deeper implications and further changes.
Read Also: Bain Capital Tried to Sell Apex Tool Group (Gearwrench and Crescent)
