Please note: This is an older type study and is published here for reference use only.
For a more updated chart see previous image in this Flickr album.
The Swedish toolmaker Erik Anton Berg made a sea of chisels, plane cutters and other tools. During a spell of around 100 years they managed to portray their logotype in at least seven different ways.
This illustration outlines the variations between the different logotypes been used throughout the existence of the Erik Anton Berg Manufacturing Company.
I don’t claim this to be a final and conclusive study, and I still struggle to add reliable dates to logotypes. Some stamps might have been used concurrently.
The popular notion that the Berg logotype was a shark is however something I’d like to challenge.
Yes, the late era logotype was a shark and the company advertised their woodworking products actively as "The Shark Brand".
But there are other reliable reports that early era Berg logotypes could have been portraying either a Basking shark, a fish which unlike the shark, lives on plankton.
Another fish associated with early Berg logotypes is the catfish.
Both the Basking shark and Wels catfish do occasionally occur in the waters along the Swedish west coast. If that is relevant remains to be seen.
