Torshälla Smide Chisels
Torshälla Smide is a distinctly Swedish name for a chisel brand. Torshälla is the name of a town located just northwest of the city of Eskilstuna, Sweden in Eskilstuna Province. “Smide” is the Swedish word for ”forging” as in metal forging.
Torshälla is well known for steel manufacturing, centered around the Nyby Bruk steel mill.
Torshälla is where Eskilstunasteel was located at one time. Eskilstunsteel manufactured a number of brands of chisels, including Eskilstunasteel Garanti, Esteel, and Gensco. I don’t know at this time if Eskilstunasteel had anything to do with the Torshälla Smide brand.
This brand was sort of an unusual find. It came from a set of six chisels that came from an estate. Although all five chisels appear to match, only the two largest chisels had the Torshälla Smide imprint stamped on their blade. The other three had “Eskilstuna Made in Sweden” imprinted there.
So … another interesting find and set of clues, but lots of unanswered questions, too.
Birch: I have two chisels that I think may be from the same company. Each has a partial stamp that says Eskilstuna Sweden, but the handle style and way the bolster of the chisel is ground back to fit the brass ferrule seems very similar. One interesting feature that both my chisels exhibit is that the hammer ring is held in place by two small flat head nails, driven in above the ring, in the Jernbolaget manner. If actually made by Jernbolaget, however, they would have used small brads instead of tacks for this purpose. The handles, which are plain Birch, also are very similar to Jernbolaget handles. I’m guessing the Torshalla Smide tools were made by someone with ties to the Jernbolaget factory.
It’s interesting that three of the five Torshälla Smide chisels shown above have the same blade stamp as the Swedish “Beaver” brand and “Tecomaster” brand chisels. All say “Eskilstuna” “Made in Sweden” on the blade. They are all very similar in appearance, too.