Discussion about Tetting gripper history

[Cannon]

1 hour ago, Brett H said:

I actually hesitated to post in the selling section, as I thought this would be a topic of its own.

It is now  

[John Knowlton]

Hey Brett how cool is it that you got to talk with Warren on a regular basis, the man was a wealth of knowledge .

[Bill Piche]

On 10/19/2023 at 2:05 PM, Bill Piche said:

What might be exciting to some gripsters and collectors is the REAL Mashmonster certification grippers being available for acquisition.  Say early 2024?  Just a rumor I heard.

Probably just a rumor.... 

 

This actually is no rumor.   Stay tuned in January 2024 if you are a collector or just want a piece of grip history! 

A little-known fact: Exact backup grippers were made at the exact same time by Warren Tetting when he created each level of gripper.  This was done just in case a gripper got damaged in shipment or lost.  There were two backups created at Level 1 through Level 3.  One backup gripper at Levels 4 through 6.  And, one at Level 9.

The total number of MM grippers that will be available will be 20.  

 

 

[John Knowlton]

It would be nice to have one of those. 

[Fist of Fury]

11 hours ago, John Knowlton said:

It would be nice to have one of those. 

For sure, would be nice to have the whole set of them. But it's nice to have two kidneys as well  

[Brett H]

I apologize that I have not responded to Matt's last post. I have been extremely busy, but hope to get some time very soon to respond.

[Brett H]

On 10/26/2023 at 1:19 PM, Cannon said:

 

I was discussing the implications of your Warren conversations with an avid collector. We drummed up some questions that we're not sure it's possible to clarify.  

We do think that Warren definitely stamped poundage numbers on grippers. Wayback machine has archived pictures of Nutrition Geeks T-series grippers going all the way back to 2008. I've never known Warren's sons to be involved with his business back that far, for better or worse. Also, the marketing copy on that page specially says "Warren works alone in his shop in St. Paul and that’s the way he likes it. That means your gripper will not be made by some snot nosed kid or massed produced in Taiwan… it will be crafted by the Father of Grip himself."

Also in 2010, GripBoard member @macaz was able to order custom T14 grippers from Warren by talking with him on the phone. These came stamped with the 2400 poundage although Warren did mess up assembly.

It is possible that Nutrition Geeks thought they were dealing with Warren when they were actually corresponding with a son, but given the timing this seems very unlikely. What I believe is more likely is that Warren forgot he used poundages. The reason I believe that is I have quite a bit of email correspondence with one of Warren's sons. During a 2014 conversation, the son was describing that Warren had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's although they were not sure yet what stage. If that disease progressed at all heading toward 2018, it is entirely possibly your 2018 conversation was clouded by this illness. I don't think we have a way to know for sure. 

In my dealings with Warren to get products for CPW, there was a distinct change in 2013 where suddenly I was dealing almost exclusively with a son via email. He would take the orders and fulfill them. Curiously, he did not want me coming to Warren's shop to pick up. He insisted on meeting me at work in Minneapolis to deliver. I never thought anything of this except that he was providing good service. He would speak of Warren often and also seemingly collaborated with him on questions I asked. For example, around 2013 they got the Thor Strength Equipment website established (www.thorstrengthequipment.com). They posted their grippers for sale below my cost. I raised this issue and there were a lot of replies about what Warren wanted. But also eventually acknowledging his Alzheimer's diagnosis and the son admitting it was only with extensive help that the business was limping along. Again, this is 2013-2014. 

Then it was the beginning of 2015 that Warren told me he was retiring. This was the last time I met him in person. He expressed to me that CPW's appetite for grippers was simply too large. He could work in his shop for brief spells and would have to rest. There was no way he could fill our purchase orders. Grippers did trickle out of his shop after 2015 including to CPW, Weightlifter's Warehouse, etc. But he was effectively retired from any real production. 

To summarize this into a few points: I believe Warren did personally make most Nutrition Geeks T-series grippers. I believe the period where his son(s) was most active in making grippers was 2013-2015. It was also during this time that the drilled pins began to appear. During this time Nutrition Geeks had some oddball restocks of just a few levels. Finally, consider that Warren was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2014 (according to his son) and this could have clouded future conversations. 

As always, I'm interested in any thoughts or corrections. I am eager to learn anything on this topic.    

 

Finally, I have a little time to respond Matt's post. These are just my personal observations, so take it for what it is worth. First, although Matt's post here sounds very plausible, I am not sold on its conclusion. First, we really don't actually KNOW when the sons got involved in helping him. For example, when the Mash Monster replica grippers were made, Warren told me how he had to get the correct spread on these grippers and he would do so by holding one handle in a jig and sliding a long pipe over the other handle to pull (or push) to get the correct spread. Warren told me it took a lot of force to accomplish this and he was just not strong enough to perform this operation, so his sons would do it for him. This process was a big reason he was not thrilled to receive MM replica orders lol. He also mentioned to me on many other occasions that his sons had helped him in production, but unfortunately, I really can't pinpoint a time as to when he first mentioned this. I had him make me a grip machine in 2004, and I thought he talked then about one son in particular helping him with the welding, but I am not certain if he told me this at the time he made that grip machine or after the fact. I do know the actual process of making Warren's grippers was quite simple, so I have no doubt the sons would have had the ability to replicate his grippers anytime they desired. The springs and the handles were sourced outside Warren's shop, so the process only consisted of drilling the holes for the pins, pinning the handles, and stamping the handles.

Additionally, although Nutrition Geeks had that catchy, nostalgic marketing line on the sale page regarding Warren working alone, I don't think that would have any bearing on whether or not Warren was the only one producing them. As a matter of fact, from my time knowing Warren (hours of conversing per week for 15 years) it doesn't even sound like something Warren himself would have written, but rather something Nutrition Geeks or even possibly his sons would have written. Marketing was not a strong point for Warren. Matt alluded to the Thor website and I know Warren did know this "conversion" from Beef Builder to Thor grippers, but I doubt it was his doing.

Another good point Matt made was with regards to a member getting a custom gripper with the poundage stamped on it. However, this is not surprising to me and the reason I say this is because Warren would often make custom items for people. Also, I did fail to mention in my initial post that Warren DID in fact stamp the poundage on the T14 gripper. However, this was a special gripper which would be analogous to the Baraban WT gripper, and so yes he did stamp these since they were a specialty item of limited quantity. As a matter of fact, I actually asked Warren about this very gripper because I wanted one, and he told me he made very few of them, and he actually told me about someone calling him to make this gripper, so quite possibly this was the same person Matt mentioned. Just for reference, a member here, Vitalik Sevko wanted steel handled grippers and Warren made a set for Vitalik, a set for Vitalik's friend, as well as a set for me (which regretfully I sold). After the steel grippers I spoke to Warren about making a limited edition series of stainless steel grippers.  Warren made ONE stainless steel Master and after the production of this, said they were just too hard to make and not worth it lol. So, my point here is getting a custom gripper stamped in any manner was something Warren was willing to do, but I don't believe this in really  supports a case for Warren making large batches of his entire series with poundage stamping. To be really honest, in the years I knew Warren, making grippers was not exactly a "labor of love." Maybe he had just done it for so long that it was no longer a passion, but the consistent theme was he didn't really want to make large quantities and even the smaller quantities, he wanted to make the process as painless as possible even to the point of fault.

Finally, to Matt's point regarding Warren's memory. I spoke with Warren consistently for 15 years, and I really find the whole Alzheimer's theory to have little validity. This is no offense to Matt or doctors in general, but regardless of stats or diagnosis one thing I as myself is does it pass the "eye test", and in this case I just did not see much of a decline in Warren's mental capacity from 2004-2019. Sure, he had the "normal" mental deficiencies one would expect from one in their 70's and 80's. But, I just didn't see anything extraordinary. We would talk about such a wide variety of topics and Warren was quite capable of carrying on these conversations. He would recall things which had far less significance in his life, so to completely forget something as repetitious in his life as grippers just doesn't seem likely in my mind.

Anyway, as I stated, this is just my personal observation, so take it for what it is worth. Matt did allude to the fact that by 2013 the son was selling grippers on his own, so we definitely are in agreement that at some point this was being done without Warren's knowledge. Really, the only thing in question is this five year period from 2008-2012. Is it plausible that this had been going on before 2013 and by the time Matt dealt with the son, his "backdoor production" was in full swing? I believe it is. It is also possible that the son was not doing this as far back as 2008, but to believe this we have to believe that Warren just completely lost this memory in his mind and it never came back in the multiple conversations we had regarding the poundage stamping. I wish I had more conclusive answers but everything here is basically just circumstantial and speculative. 

 

 

 

[Brett H]

On 10/29/2023 at 6:55 PM, John Knowlton said:

Hey Brett how cool is it that you got to talk with Warren on a regular basis, the man was a wealth of knowledge .

It's funny John, I just thought of him as a friend. When I first called him I felt like I was calling a legend, but we spoke for over an hour in that first conversation and he just felt like a friend from day one. It's also funny, we didn't talk about strength training as much as one would expect. Warren was very cynical about the current strength world and he would let you know it. Not surprisingly, he favored the old era of strength training, so he wasn't impressed at all with the strength training of today.

[deadgrip]

Hey all- I really enjoyed reading the small history and detailed parts here of this mans creations!  Warrens grippers are among my favorite and I still remember getting my first beef builder in the mail from Bill Ennis’ Weightlifters Warehouse.  I figure this would be the place to ask my couple of questions:  Whenever I ordered BBs from WW they would come with a really cool Thor logo that I haven’t seen since.. can anyone fill me in?  Also, I have some that use much smaller font, but don’t come across often.  Two of them are the smaller handled versions but I have an MM with small font as well.  Appreciate all the knowledge from you guys.  Thanks

 

[Slipshod]

On 1/4/2024 at 5:21 PM, deadgrip said:

Hey all- I really enjoyed reading the small history and detailed parts here of this mans creations!  Warrens grippers are among my favorite and I still remember getting my first beef builder in the mail from Bill Ennis’ Weightlifters Warehouse.  I figure this would be the place to ask my couple of questions:  Whenever I ordered BBs from WW they would come with a really cool Thor logo that I haven’t seen since.. can anyone fill me in?  Also, I have some that use much smaller font, but don’t come across often.  Two of them are the smaller handled versions but I have an MM with small font as well.  Appreciate all the knowledge from you guys.  Thanks

 

Iirc these were excess stock that were then used with a lot of the latter WT grippers. I never specifically had the "beefbuilders" from those runs, but I do have a regular and hybrid elite from the CPW runs of 2013/2014 as seen below, which also have the THOR handle as you describe

 

Fun fact: The hybrid one is the record holder for lightest RGC of the ones CPW rated at 160

Edited January 8 by Slipshod

[deadgrip]

2 hours ago, Slipshod said:

Iirc these were excess stock that were then used with a lot of the latter WT grippers. I never specifically had the "beefbuilders" from those runs, but I do have a regular and hybrid elite from the CPW runs of 2013/2014 as seen below, which also have the THOR handle as you describe

 

Fun fact: The hybrid one is the record holder for lightest RGC of the ones CPW rated at 160

 

hey my friend- I was actually asking about the specific Thor logo under mine.  I have seen the Beef Builder line with:

 

1. your THOR(later BBs)

2. one side having a scratched out bottom handle and the level on the other(I’ve heard these could be older BBs.

3. the “fancy” ThoR I posted(which I’ve never seen anyone else with.

4. and the much older BBs with the letter on both handles.

i started with BBs around 2004 and I’ve only seen that specific logo on the ones at that time from Weightlifters Warehouse and haven’t ever seen it again—- so I’m guessing it was made for a very limited time?  Just trying to see if anyone knows the stamps timeline or anything about them..  I also know his much older ones seemed like just alphabetical difficulty stamped on bottom with A,B,C,D - beginner, advanced, super advanced, master

also was checking to see if anyone knew about the smaller font stamp timelines.. yea yea nerd stuff I know haha

 

Edited January 8 by deadgrip

[Cannon]

@deadgrip There might be better names, but I have always called yours “Italic THOR” and the later ones like @Slipshod has “straight line THOR”. I also try and refer to the stamp with all caps to differentiate from the Thor gripper level which got the same name.

You’re right about the Italic THOR timing. You can date them to 2004 from Weightlifters Warehouse, and I can date them to 2006 when I visited Warren’s shop and got them directly from him. I will do some digging because I think those dates can be expanded on both sides. 

Then, once CPW was selling Tetting in 2012, the THOR stamp had changed to straight line by then. That lasted through to the end as far as I can remember. However I do believe quite a bit still shipped with no THOR stamps. 

[deadgrip]

9 minutes ago, Cannon said:

@deadgrip There might be better names, but I have always called yours “Italic THOR” and the later ones like @Slipshod has “straight line THOR”. I also try and refer to the stamp with all caps to differentiate from the Thor gripper level which got the same name.

You’re right about the Italic THOR timing. You can date them to 2004 from Weightlifters Warehouse, and I can date them to 2006 when I visited Warren’s shop and got them directly from him. I will do some digging because I think those dates can be expanded on both sides. 

Then, once CPW was selling Tetting in 2012, the THOR stamp had changed to straight line by then. That lasted through to the end as far as I can remember. However I do believe quite a bit still shipped with no THOR stamps. 

thanks man—-  haha “fancy” was all I could come up with.. 

yea I just became curious with the timeline for italics Thor because I haven’t seen them around at all.. plus I think the evolution of the stamping is cool to know about albeit in a grip nerd way.  Appreciate your detective work sir and looking forward to it.

[A.J. Valcarcel]

Is there any information about what level of gripper Warren Tetting was closing in his prime?