If you collect, use, buy, or sell vintage Craftool leather stamps, identifying older tool numbers can sometimes be difficult. To help, we've put together a free three-page vintage Craftool reference featuring hundreds of original stamp impressions, Craftool numbers, historical prices, and numerical price lists from the 1950s.
This reference was digitally compiled from original vintage leathercraft catalogs and price lists in the LeatherworkToolSupply.com collection, including period material from Handicrafters, Kirkpatrick Leather Company, Apache Leather Company, and MacPherson.
The result is a convenient reference for identifying older Craftool stamps—and an interesting look at what these American-made leathercraft tools originally cost.
Download the Free Vintage Craftool Stamp Chart PDF
What's Included in the Free PDF?
The three-page Vintage Craftool Stamp Chart – Circa 1950s contains two pages of stamp impressions followed by numerical Craftool and Craftaid price lists.
The three-page Vintage Craftool Stamp Chart – Circa 1950s contains two pages of stamp impressions followed by numerical Craftool and Craftaid price lists.
Pages 1–2 – Craftool Stamp Impressions
Hundreds of Craftool stamp impressions are organized into the traditional tool categories used at the time, including background tools, matting tools, bevelers, pear shaders, fine lined shaders, turnbacks, ropes, veiners, shell tools, camouflage stamps, stops, seeders, mule foot stamps, flower centers, sunbursts, border stamps, basketweave stamps, geometric stamps, crowners, flowers, leaves, flower petals, and figure carving tools.
Each impression is accompanied by its Craftool number and historical catalog price, making the charts particularly useful for identifying vintage stamps.
Page 3 – Numerical Price Lists
The final page contains a Craftool Numerical Price List arranged by tool number, along with a separate Craftaid Numerical Price List.
This makes it much easier to look up a particular vintage Craftool number and locate the corresponding stamp on the impression charts.
A Useful Reference for Identifying Vintage Craftool Stamps
One of the challenges with older Craftool stamps is that the product line changed considerably over the years.
Some designs remained in production for decades, while others were discontinued. Tool markings also changed over time, and many vintage stamps encountered today no longer have an obvious modern equivalent.
That's where these old charts become particularly useful.
If you have an older numbered Craftool stamp, you can use the numerical list to locate the tool and then compare it with the original catalog impression. The charts show what the stamp was intended to produce when it was being sold.
For leatherworkers who actually use vintage Craftool stamps, the charts are also a great way to discover older patterns and designs that may no longer appear in today's catalogs.
What Did a Craftool Stamp Really Cost in the 1950s?
The original prices printed beside the stamp impressions are more than an interesting historical detail. They provide a way to put the cost of early Craftool stamps into perspective.
Many of the stamps shown in these charts originally sold for approximately 85¢ to $2.00, although larger and more specialized tools could cost considerably more. The charts include examples priced above $3, and some figure-carving tools reached $5.20.
Those prices sound inexpensive today—but a dollar in the 1950s had substantially more purchasing power.
Using 1958 as a representative comparison year, the U.S. Consumer Price Index averaged about 28.9. The latest CPI-U available as this article was prepared, August 2026, is 334.980. That means general consumer prices are roughly 11.6 times their 1958 level.
Historical Cost vs. Today's Vintage Value
Inflation alone doesn't determine what a vintage Craftool stamp is worth today.
The value of an individual vintage stamp can also be influenced by its particular design, whether the pattern was discontinued, its age and tool marking, condition, availability, and demand among leatherworkers.
But the inflation comparison provides useful perspective.
A Craftool stamp that sold for 95¢ in the late 1950s represented roughly $11 in today's purchasing power. A $1.50 stamp represented about $17, and a $2.00 stamp represented about $23.
So while the numbers printed in these old catalogs may look surprisingly low today, these were not necessarily inexpensive tools for their time.
The historical price lists therefore provide more than an identification reference—they also give us a benchmark for understanding what quality leathercraft tools cost when these early Craftool stamps were new.
Original 1950s Leathercraft Catalogs From Our Collection
The history behind this three-page reference turned out to be particularly interesting.
We originally had scans of these vintage Craftool pages and knew they had come from an old leathercraft catalog, but over the years the exact source of the original scans had been forgotten.
While going through our collection of original vintage leathercraft catalogs, we recently found the answer.
An original booklet titled Craftools / Craftaids for Leathercraft and Stamp Engraving had been stapled inside our copy of Handicrafters Leathercraft Catalog No. 43, published by Handicrafters of Montrose, California.
The Craftool booklet contains the familiar stamp charts that formed the basis for our original scans.
Even more interesting, this wasn't the only leathercraft supplier using these Craftool charts.
Craftool Charts Appeared in Catalogs Across the Country
Our collection includes several original period leathercraft catalogs containing the same or closely corresponding Craftool stamp charts.
Handicrafters – Montrose, California
Our Handicrafters Leathercraft Catalog No. 43 still has the original Craftools / Craftaids for Leathercraft and Stamp Engraving material stapled inside it.
Finding this physical copy finally established where our original Craftool chart scans had come from.
Kirkpatrick Leather Company – Gainesville, Texas
Our original Kirkpatrick Leather Company catalog also contains multiple pages devoted to Craftool stamps and Craftaids.
The catalog identifies Kirkpatrick as a manufacturer and supplier for the leather industry nationwide and shows Craftool stamps being offered individually as well as with quantity discounts.
Apache Leather Company – Phoenix, Arizona
We also have an original Apache leathercraft catalog containing the same Craftool charts.
This provides another example of an independent leathercraft supplier presenting Craftool products to its customers during this period.
MacPherson – San Francisco, California
Our MacPherson Leathercraft Supplies Catalog No. 62 also contains the Craftool charts.
The catalog identifies MacPherson at 730 Mission Street, San Francisco, California, and advertises leathercraft supplies, leathercraft tools, hobby tools, dyes and dressings, and craft books.
Together, these original catalogs show that the familiar Craftool impression charts weren't confined to a single Craftool publication. They were distributed through independent leathercraft suppliers to help customers select stamps by number, design, and impression.
An Interesting Look at Early Craftool Distribution
Seeing the same or closely corresponding Craftool charts preserved in catalogs from several different leathercraft suppliers provides an interesting glimpse into the leathercraft business of the 1950s.
Before online stores, searchable product databases, and digital photographs, a printed impression chart was one of the best ways for a leatherworker to choose a stamp.
A customer could look through the impressions, find the desired design, note the Craftool number, and order that particular stamp from the leathercraft supplier.
The catalogs in our collection also show how broadly this material was being distributed. We've found these Craftool charts in catalogs from leathercraft suppliers operating in California, Texas, and Arizona.
Today, the same charts serve another important purpose: identifying the vintage Craftool stamps that have survived.
Why We Created This 3-Page Reference
The complete vintage catalogs are fascinating historical documents, but someone trying to identify a stamp usually doesn't need an entire catalog.
We wanted to make the most useful information readily available in a simple reference.
So we've combined the two Craftool impression-chart pages and the numerical Craftool/Craftaid price-list page into a single three-page PDF.
You can save it to your computer or mobile device, print it for the shop, or simply pull it up whenever you need to identify an unfamiliar Craftool number.
Download the Free Vintage Craftool Reference
Vintage Craftool Stamp Chart – Circa 1950s
The free three-page PDF includes:
- Hundreds of vintage Craftool stamp impressions
- Original Craftool tool numbers
- Historical catalog prices
- Craftool Numerical Price List
- Craftaid Numerical Price List
- Traditional Craftool stamp categories
No purchase is required. We're providing this reference free for leatherworkers, collectors, researchers, and anyone interested in identifying vintage Craftool stamps.
Preserving Vintage American Leathercraft History
Craftool stamps have been part of American leathercraft for generations. Many of the designs shown in these old catalogs are still recognizable today, while others have long since disappeared from the Craftool line.
At LeatherworkToolSupply.com, we specialize in leathercraft tools and maintain a large selection of vintage American-made Craftool USA stamps. Original catalogs like these have become invaluable resources for identifying older tools and documenting how the Craftool line changed over time.
They're also pieces of leathercraft history in their own right.
By preserving the original catalogs and making useful reference material available digitally, we hope to make it easier for today's leatherworkers to identify and continue using these vintage tools.
We hope you find the Vintage Craftool Stamp Chart – Circa 1950s useful the next time an unfamiliar old Craftool stamp turns up on your workbench.