A letter from Leatherman --> early PST's were "Made in Japan"

[supratentorial]

The current Leatherman multi-tools are assembled in the US (click here to see a video of the factory) but some of the early Leatherman PSTs were actually manufactured in Japan. Many of you may already be familiar with this history but recently someone forwarded me the following email from Leatherman and I thought I'd share it with you:

"We're back in the office after the Christmas Holiday-hope your Holidays were blessed. Are you ready for a story? As I told you, I have been with the company almost since its inception, 22 years. In the very beginning, Tim Leatherman found it difficult to keep up with production. The demand for his invention, the Pocket Survival Tool, was almost immediate, and with 11 people out in the shop at that time, we could not meet the demand. He contracted w/a company in Japan (that country was known at that time for their cutlery) and it became Leatherman Tool Japan (this partnership only lasted for 3 years or so at which time we decided to do everything USA). The tool that they made was ever so slightly different, in particular the rivets that are in the handle & hold the parts together. So, long story short, I believe you have that older Japan tool. The value was the same, just the place it was manufactured. I think you should definitely consider that tool a collector's item! The reason you are not seeing the "R" on the sheath is probably because a tools has to have "tm" markings until the patent is final, and it took a long while for Tim Leatherman to get the initial patent. It was most likely pending at that point. I hope I've explained this well enough. Happy New Year to you."

Notice that she says "we could not meet the demand. He contracted w/a company in Japan". As I understand it, the 1st PST's were manufactured in the US and later manufacturing was supplemented by production in Japan for a few years.

Not long ago, there was an auction for a Leatherman Japan PST that was still new in the box. The box was even marked "MADE IN JAPAN". Unfortunately I wasn't the lucky guy who got that one but here's a photo of the box that was shown in the auction description:

Here are a couple of photos of early Leatherman PST's from my personal collection (actually, I sold one to an acquaintance from another forum). One of them is stamped "Leatherman" and the other is stamped "Leatherman Japan".

 

[James Y]

Cool! I did not know that Leatherman had contracted for a while to Japan at all. Thanks for the info and pics!
Jim

 

[GIRLYmann]

I had an early Leatherman which had the ruler marked out in Imperial scale only.
Absolutely no metric scale rule.
And if it were not for the fact that it was stamped Leatherman, it would have been hard to belive.
The tool blades were clearly individually hand ground and evidence was especially apparent once all the back portions of every closed blade "tangs" were exposed as being in the state of an uneven line-up!

 

[supratentorial]

I had an early Leatherman which had the ruler marked out in Imperial scale only.
Absolutely no metric scale rule.
And if it were not for the fact that it was stamped Leatherman, it would have been hard to belive.
The tool blades were clearly individually hand ground and evidence was especially apparent once all the back portions of every closed blade "tangs" were exposed as being in the state of an uneven line-up!

You definitely had one of the early ones. Cool!

Here's a photo comparing the rulers on an early PST and a later one: