Comments on: 15 Companies That Originally Sold Something Else

By: Greg Tatum

Greg Tatum — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:30:16 +0000

One of my favorites that I came across is Zebco which is currently a fishing gear manufacture based out of Tulsa, OK. Their name was originally the Zero Hour Bomb Co. They built bombs in order to blow up oil wells in order to eek out that last bit of oil.

I restored a logo from an old collectible fishing light tin for a museum awhile back which I have up here: http://hinchu.blogspot.com/2009/04/zero-hour-electric-bomb.html

By: Wayne

Wayne — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:16:31 +0000

Oops . . . I meant “LOGO” not “LOG”.

Sloppy typing.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:14:43 +0000

Yamaha ( now famous for motorcycles and personal watercraft) began in Japan as a maker of PIANOS. Even today, look closely at their log and you will see that it is three tuning forks in the shape of a triangle.

By: VM

VM — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:14:58 +0000

Tandy is STILL a leather company, BTW; google “Tandy Leather Factory” if you disbelieve.

By: EMStoveken

EMStoveken — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:59:46 +0000

A year or two back I caught a re-run of M*A*S*H where Winchester proudly explained that his hunting coat was, in fact, an Ambercrombie and Fitch. It threw me for a second until I Googled the brand’s history.

By: amaneaux

amaneaux — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:09:14 +0000

How about Topps Chewing Gum? Originally a tobacco company (American Leaf Tobacco), then they switched to chewing gum (they still make Bazooka). They started printing trading cards of Hopalong Cassidy to promote their gum, then moved to baseball cards, and the rest is history.

By: Mo

Mo — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:09:24 +0000

Not to forget Peugeot, who started off as a stell foundry, then to producing almost everything, most famously coffee, pepper and salt grinders and bicycles.
And they still do. Their grinders still are among the best in the world.

By: Beirne

Beirne — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:46:32 +0000

Another one is Motorola, which originally made car radios.

By: freda

freda — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:22:00 +0000

signed up

By: Sandy Wood

Sandy Wood — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:58:50 +0000

Yamaha made pianos many decades before it became known for motorcycles. They still make keyboards/pianos of course, but if you ask most Americans about the brand name Yamaha, they’d probably think of motorcycles first.