Vessel Ball Grip Screwdriver No. 220

The Vessel Ball Grip Screwdriver No. 220 is an electrician's screwdriver with a handle shaped like a ball. The ball, 41 millimetres across in the common size, is moulded in black resin and capped in a soft, cross-hatched red, with a second soft band lower down where the fingers turn it quickly. The shaft is slim and bright, its tip blackened; a short collar between them carries the name Vessel, the size and the word Japan.

Its form is older than its maker's catalogue number. In the 1930s Japanese electricians worked with a screwdriver whose wooden handle was turned into a large round knob, known as the daruma shape after the round-bodied doll, so that a screw could be pressed and turned at once into timber. Vessel had been making screwdrivers in Osaka since 1916, when its founder was fifteen.

By the early 1980s timber for handles was harder to come by, and Vessel was moving its range to moulded resin. In 1982 it had made a screwdriver with a cushioned handle by moulding two plastics together, and it used the method to remake the electrician's ball handle with soft resin where the hand grips. The result went on sale in October 1984 as the No. 220, just as DIY stores were spreading across Japan, and came to be seen in Japan as the standard shape of a screwdriver.

It has been revised a little at a time since, in shape and materials, and Vessel has added versions with a shaft cover, a through-tang and a freely turning cap under other numbers. The No. 220 itself is still made in seventeen sizes and remains a favourite of electricians, who can wedge it in a tool pouch and draw it out by the ball. In 2021 it received a Good Design Long Life Design Award.