Beijer Swedish Quality Chisels

“Beijer” is a Swedish company that, among other things, distributed and exported tools. Its full name was G. & L. Beijer at the time it was exporting Swedish chisels. It was founded in Malmö, Sweden in 1866 by two brothers — Gottfried and Lorens Beijer. This company is still operating successfully in spite of many challenges and changes over the years.

Beijer distributed chisels manufactured by others under the “Swedish Quality” brand name. So far I have found that this includes Toldeo, Kronan, and, possibly, Hellstedt brands of Swedish chisels.

I’ll start with the Toledo brand. The chisel below is a Beijer Swedish Quality brand chisel with crisp and complete decal. It is a good quality tanged bench chisel with beveled sides on the blade and a beech handle.

 

The wateslide decal on the handle has a bright yellow background, orange-red outline, and black lettering. From top to bottom it reads “Swedish” | “Quality” (in cursive) | “BEIJER” | “MALMÖ SWEDEN”.

 

The blued steel hoop at the top of the handle is pierced in two places and held in place with small blackened nails.

 

The front of the chisel blade reads “TOLEDO STEEL” | “MADE IN SWEDEN” from top to bottom. It’s the same blade stamp that is seen on other Toledo brand chisels which were made in Sweden and exported mostly to Australia.

 

There is nothing stamped on the back of the chisel blade. Note the two rows of tight vertical knurling on the brass ferrule at the bottom of the handle.

The chisel shown above came from the U.S.  so it appears that Beijer exported Toledo chisels to the U.S. under this brand name and label.

Next are “Swedish Quality” Kronan chisels that were exported to Australia under the Biejer label. The label is on the far right of the box and reads: “BEIGERS” | “G & L Beijers AB” | “Malmö – Sweden” | “Australian Representative” | “Stanley F. Coffey” | “Sydney”.

 

The box lid below shows the Kronan crown on the left and “ESKILSTUNA . SWEDEN” on the side. The box was likely a standard Kronan chisel box with the Beijers label applied to it. It is hard to know when and where this label (and the Beigers decal) was applied to the box and chisel handles.  Note that the top of this box shows both socket and tang chisels in both cabinet chisel and butt chisel sizes.

 

These Biejers Swedish Quality “B” socket chisels have nice birch handles with a pierced and blued steel hoops pinned in place by small nails. The blades have crisp beveled sides with nothing stamped on the front. Kronan chisels are typically very good quality and these chisels are a good example.

 

The decal uses what appears to be the typical Beijer color scheme — yellow background, orange-red outline, and black lettering. It is simple, with a “B” enclosed in a red circle at the top and “Swedish” | “Quality” (in cursive) enclosed in a rounded orange-red rectangle.

 

The back of the blade is stamped with the standard Kronan crown emblem and text: “KRONAN” | “ESKILSTUNA” | “SWEDEN”.

 

Below is an example of a tanged and beveled Beijer “B” cabinet-style chisel. It has a beech handle with a blued steel hoop at the top. The hoop is held in place by dimpling the hoop into the wood of the handle. The brass ferrule at the bottom of the handle has two line of medium vertical knurling on it. There is nothing stamped on the front of the blade.

I do not know who made this chisel for Beijers, but I am fairly sure that it was not Kronan. I have not seen any Kronan chisels so far with beech handles. And all the Kronan chisels I have seen have the Kronan crown and “KRONAN” | “ESKILSTUNA” | “SWEDEN” stamped on the back of the blade.

 

He is a close-up of the Beijer Swedish Quality “B” decal and the dimpled steel hoop.

 

The blade stamp on the back simply reads “MADE IN” | “SWEDEN”. As I noted previously, there is no mention of Eskilstuna.

 

Randall Nelson owns the following Swedish Quality chisels and has kindly provided the photos below. I believe that these chisels may be re-branded Hellstedt chisels that were exported to Australia by G. & L.  Beijers.

These chisels have labels identical to the Beijers Swedish Quality brand “B” chisels except that they have an “H” in the top circle instead of a “B”. Like the chisel shown just previously, these ones have beech handles and tanged blades with beveled sides on the wider blades.

 

The blued steel hoops at the top of the handles are pierced and held in place with small nails.

 

Again, the decals below show the typical Beijer Swedish Quality brand color scheme — yellow background, orange-red outline and black lettering. There is an “H” enclosed in a red circle at the top and “Swedish” | “Quality (in cursive)” enclosed in a rounded red rectangle.

 

The shaft on the back of these chisels is stamped “MADE IN SWEDEN” followed by an “H” enclosed in a circle. I have believed for some time that the “H” enclosed in a circle was the trademark for Hellstedt in Eskilstuna, Sweden. I have had difficulty finding supporting information for this over the past few years and I am still working to either confirm or disprove this theory.

 

Although it is difficult to see, the two wider chisels below on the right have “MADE IN SWEDEN” followed by an “H” enclosed in a circle stamped on the flat back part of the blade. Also, note that the brass ferrules at the bottom of the handles all have two rows of coarse vertical knurling.

 

Based on what I have seen so far, it appears that Beijer exported Swedish Quality circle “B” (Kronan) chisels and circle “H” (Hellstedt) chisels to Australia. It also appears that they exported the “Beijer Swedish Quality” (Toledo) chisels to North America.