Traditional knives and ratchets

[Hickory n steel]

My father was a dealer/racer of British motorcycles in the 1950s and 1960s so I have been around Whitworth tools for almost 60 years and I never saw any socket set come with a mixed bag of both USA and British sizes. Before the late 1960s a British automobile or motorcycle would have ALL Whitworth fasteners so USA tools were not necessary to work on them. I have had Craftsman, Snap-on, King-Dick and many other sets of Whitworth and USA tools and socket sets, and still do, and none of them came mixed. I would not believe they did unless I saw a period factory catalog listing for it.

What was common around WWII give or take was for socket sets to have SQUARE sockets because a lot of square bolts, nuts and plugs were used on older vehicles, so maybe that is what you are talking about, but Whitworth sockets and wrenches looked just like USA items, but the sizes were from the diameter of the thread the fastener had and not the measurement across the flats of the the nut or bolt.

I was always told square fasteners were called Whitworth, but apparently I was wrong.

 

[gben]

Whitworth was a British standard for threads, the thread had a different angle than USA or metric threads, it was a real oddball, just like most things British. Nuts and bolts with square heads were pretty much a standard the world over USA included before the industrial era, and even far into the 20th century many square-head fasteners were used on anything and everything in the USA and around the planet. The hex-head fastener was the johnny-come-lately to the scene. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.......