- Joined
- Aug 28, 2010
- Messages
- 5,431
Looks like Snow & Nealley doesn't even have a functioning website anymore, although there currently are sellers with some of their axes still in stock. After doing some digging to understand what happened, here's a summary of what was written in some newspaper articles, plus some more recent developments:
More than 40 people were employed at the Snow and Nealley facility on Main Street in Bangor, Maine. The former owners announced in 1998 that they were considering moving the company to New Hampshire, or potentially selling the company.
In October 1998, a private venture capital firm purchased Snow and Nealley. In April 1999, a car dealership showroom and shop was purchased for the new location of S&N, which brought it right next to the corporate headquarters of the owners in Bangor.
Five years later, in 2003, "...most of the operations at Snow and Nealley were shut down in what is likely to be a permanent move because the company was unprofitable. Seven people lost their jobs and were not given severence packages... Now a salesperson is all that's left to sell and ship off the remaining inventory, and Hutchins is interviewing people to hire a sole blacksmith to continue to make axes at a different location... Hutchins said "The axes these days aren't made to be axes. They're made more to be gifts. They're presents. So I think I can reposition the ax business."
Source: Bangor Daily News, Apr. 2, 1999, and Oct. 24, 2003
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=20031024&id=nSE0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZeEIAAAAIBAJ&pg=1758,2602482
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19990402&id=0aRJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eQ0NAAAAIBAJ&pg=6000,288413
Fast forward to 2007, when the president of the Lehman's catalog store, Galen Lehman, was surprised to discover that the "Made in USA" S&N axes he was selling had heads that were forged in China.
"I was surprised to hear that part of the Snow and Neally “USA-made” axe was made in China. So, I called the manufacturer myself, who reported that the “raw forgings” are made in China to their specific quality specifications. All of the subsequent manufacturing steps (tempering, assembly, sharpening, etc) are done in the USA. They told me that they cannot find a USA foundry to make the type of casting (or “forging”
that they need. It seems that all the ones they know about have been put out of business by Chinese competition. (They appealed to me to help them find a USA foundry that can do this. If you know of one, let me know!) In addition, because of high import duties (apparently imposed too late to help US foundries), the Chinese castings cost about the same as they used to cost when USA-made. What a tragic state of affairs!..."
-- Galen Lehman, from http://countrylife.lehmans.com/2007/10/01/should-lehmans-be-buying-from-china/#comment-38
Feel free to add any missing pieces of the story.
More than 40 people were employed at the Snow and Nealley facility on Main Street in Bangor, Maine. The former owners announced in 1998 that they were considering moving the company to New Hampshire, or potentially selling the company.
In October 1998, a private venture capital firm purchased Snow and Nealley. In April 1999, a car dealership showroom and shop was purchased for the new location of S&N, which brought it right next to the corporate headquarters of the owners in Bangor.
Five years later, in 2003, "...most of the operations at Snow and Nealley were shut down in what is likely to be a permanent move because the company was unprofitable. Seven people lost their jobs and were not given severence packages... Now a salesperson is all that's left to sell and ship off the remaining inventory, and Hutchins is interviewing people to hire a sole blacksmith to continue to make axes at a different location... Hutchins said "The axes these days aren't made to be axes. They're made more to be gifts. They're presents. So I think I can reposition the ax business."
Source: Bangor Daily News, Apr. 2, 1999, and Oct. 24, 2003
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=20031024&id=nSE0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZeEIAAAAIBAJ&pg=1758,2602482
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19990402&id=0aRJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eQ0NAAAAIBAJ&pg=6000,288413
Fast forward to 2007, when the president of the Lehman's catalog store, Galen Lehman, was surprised to discover that the "Made in USA" S&N axes he was selling had heads that were forged in China.
"I was surprised to hear that part of the Snow and Neally “USA-made” axe was made in China. So, I called the manufacturer myself, who reported that the “raw forgings” are made in China to their specific quality specifications. All of the subsequent manufacturing steps (tempering, assembly, sharpening, etc) are done in the USA. They told me that they cannot find a USA foundry to make the type of casting (or “forging”
that they need. It seems that all the ones they know about have been put out of business by Chinese competition. (They appealed to me to help them find a USA foundry that can do this. If you know of one, let me know!) In addition, because of high import duties (apparently imposed too late to help US foundries), the Chinese castings cost about the same as they used to cost when USA-made. What a tragic state of affairs!..."-- Galen Lehman, from http://countrylife.lehmans.com/2007/10/01/should-lehmans-be-buying-from-china/#comment-38
Feel free to add any missing pieces of the story.
maybe Snow & Nealley were behind the cusp when the web connected buyers with makers and business bloomed leaving them out in the cold?
