This is the Emergency 10mm Socket from the team at SST. It’s the perfect gift for the man who has everything, because no one has a 10mm socket when they need it. That’s just a fact.
Exactly where the “missing 10mm socket” meme started isn’t known, but it was so immediately relatable that it became one of the most common running gags in the automotive corner of the internet. At the end of the day, the 10mm is frequently needed and it’s just small enough to seemingly disappear off into Narnia as soon as it’s accidentally dropped into an engine bay.
The Emergency 10mm Socket is the perfect gift for the man who has everything, because no one has a 10mm socket when they need it.
Who Invented The Ratcheting Socket Wrench?
It isn’t widely known that the modern ratcheting socket wrench was invented by an American – J.J. Richardson, of Woodstock, Vermont – with its patent approved in June of 1863. It seems that J.J. Richardson’s life is largely lost to history, but one can only hope he reaped the benefits from his invention and lived out his years as a wealthy man.
After all, if it wasn’t for him we’d all be using standard wrenches and everything we tried to get done under the hood would take twice as long. It’s thought the the history of the (non-ratcheting) socket wrench has existed for centuries – they were originally used to wind large clocks and typically had a square head rather than a hex.
The quick release mechanism that essentially all modern ratcheting socket wrenches use was also invented and patented by an American – Peter M. Roberts in 1964.
The Emergency 10mm Socket
The Emergency 10mm Socket is intended as a gag gift either for yourself, or for the mechanically inclined in your life. It’s one of those rare gag gifts that will almost certainly actually end up being used – when the person’s 10mm socket inevitably goes missing.
The Emergency 10mm Socket is intended as a gag gift either for yourself, or for the mechanically inclined in your life. It’s one of those rare gag gifts that will almost certainly actually end up being used – when the person’s 10mm socket inevitably goes missing.
The set comes on a plastic presentation base with a clear polycarbonate cover, inside you’ll find a real, functioning steel 10mm socket bit that has been chromed for corrosion protection.
The Emergency 10mm Socket is now being offered for sale on the SST Amazon store here for $19.99 USD and it’s designed to be displayed on a shelf or even added to your tool bench.
Images courtesy of SST
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.