True Value was founded already in 1948 and developed soon as leader in the hardware industry. With its huge product selection and nowadays over 7,000 stores, True Value is a trusted resource for do-it-yourselfers in big cities and small towns alike. In 1963 True Value merged with Cotter & Company, founded in 1948, too. In the year 1976 two calculators manufactured by Texas Instruments, the TI-1200 and TI-1250 were sold under the label of the True Value Hardware Stores.
Cotter & Company grew fast, in 1979 sales topped the first time $1 billion. But Cotter & Company didn't stop there! It had grown to a retail cooperative of over 5,000 stores with a wholesale volume of more than $2.4 billion by July 1997 when it merged with ServiStar Coast to Coast Corporation to form TruServ.
