National Enameling and Stamping Company was incorporated in New Jersey on 21 January 1899. It absorbed several U.S. firms long embroiled in legal disputes about proprietary manufacturing processes: the St. Louis Stamping Company, Kieckhefer Brothers Co. (Milwaukee), Haberman Manufacturing Co. (Brooklyn), and Matthai, Ingram and Co. (Baltimore). In the early 20th century, one of its trade-name brands was Royal Granite Enameled Ware. Another was the "Nesco Perfect Oil Cook Stove." By 1940 the NESCO plant in Granite City, IL alone had 1500 employees. By the mid-1940s the firm billed itself as "The World's Largest Manufacturer of Housewares." Metal Ware, of Two Rivers, WI, purchased NESCO in 1981.