Van Norman was, at one time, a leading USA manufacturer of high-quality milling, die sinking and engraving machines. They also made a number of expensive precision bench lathes (that closely mirrored the design of the original Stark and similar makes*) and a variety of small bench milling machines. The lathes were built in three sizes: Nos. 3, 3 1/2 and 5 - the latter appearing to be the most popular. As was usual with this type of machine, a wide variety of extras were available including a horizontal milling attachment carried on an extended plate outboard of the headstock (the headstock spindle provided the drive) and screwcutting. A small, self-contained, all-lever-operated horizontal miller for bench mounting was also offered; this a very rare machine - few can have been sold - and was similar in arrangement to those from other makers including Ames, American Watch Tool, Cataract, Stark, Pratt & Whitney, Sloan & Chace and Waltham). The miller used a headstock - or at least the internal components  - taken from one of the Company's precision lathes, consequently, it was confined to horizontal work of the lighter kind, the stub-arbor being unsupported by an overarm.
In the last decades of the 20th century, the Company turned to specialist products for the automobile repair trade. In the UK the name Van Norman was always associated in the popular mind with a portable cylinder re-boring apparatus and their machine tools were little known outside a circle of professional people involved in machine-tool procurement. Van Norman used a simple numbering system for their products, with lower values denoting the smaller machines.
If you have a Van Norman precision bench lathe, a small milling machine or any company literature featuring these machines, the writer would be delighted to hear from you.
*High-class American "Precision Bench Lathes" as made by such manufacturers as:
*Levin, Bottum, American Watch Tool Company, B.C.Ames, Bottum, Hjorth, Potter, Pratt & Whitney, Rivett, Wade, Waltham Machine Works, Wade,  Pratt & Whitney, Rivett, Cataract, Hardinge, Elgin, Remington, Sloan & Chace, W.H.Nichols, Crystal Lake and (though now very rare) Bausch & Lomb, Frederick Pearce, Van Norman, Ballou & Whitcombe, Sawyer Watch Tool Co., Engineering Appliances, Fenn-Sadler, "Cosa Corporation of New York" and UND..

Circa 1910 Van Norman No. 5 4-inch centre height precision bench lathe as advertised from 1905 onwards. Note the flat, vertical plate, formed as an extension to the headstock-end bed foot - this arrangement allowed the mounting of a horizontal milling attachment. If supplied without this feature the lathe was listed as the Model 5A.

No. 5 lathe with changewheel screwcutting and drive to the top slide by a universally joined and splined shaft. For work where it was necessary to thread at the far end, the maker offered an extended drive shaft

The Van Norman bench-mounted, stub-arbor horizontal bench milling machine - almost certainly the hardest to find of the American-built type. Like those from other makers (Ames, Cataract, Stark, Pratt & Whitney, Sloan & Chace, Waltham) it used a headstock (or the internal components) taken from of one the Company's precision lathes.