Last Craftsman stuff I warrantied out was at my local Ace Hardware when they carried Craftsman. That was probably 5 years ago though. Might give Lowes a try.
Sears circleing the bowl
- Thread starter Bonnewagon
- Start date
- Status
Sears used to be great. My Dad worked for them in the 70's. He worked for their Commercial Truck Tire Division in Denver. He even had a Sears Green Ford Pickup to drive. I remember he would call on Coor's Brewery once a month. He always came home with 5 or 6 cases of beer. We got everything at Sears on his discount, I remember they had a sign above the door. " Satisfaction guaranteed, Or your money back." It's sad that there is no such business model anymore.
Don't think they could, he is the majority holder IIRC.
Think this is how is goes now.
One thing I worry about is if I break any of my grandfathers' Craftsman wrenches I was able to get is that they I'll be out great tools. He got most of them in the '40's to '60's while at Greyhound. I'm like alot of guys with alot of older USA Craftsman tools, totally screwed when they break.
My Sears tale begins long before the downturn of the company started. When I was a youngster ~40 years ago, my parents shopped at Sears for almost everything. This was due to the fact that they had decent re-branded products for a good price. Most of our clothes and all of our appliances were purchased there. They were also the Amazon of the day back then with their catalog sales. My parents would have us scan through the catalogue back in the day to add items to our birthday & Christmas lists. I also remember shopping there with the family for Christmas gifts & back to school clothes. As a young teenager back in the day ~35 years ago I even saved up and purchased my first set of craftsman tools there. The set of tools included timing light, sockets, ratchets, screwdrivers and a small torque wrench. These tools weren't utilized for 'trade' work but lots of 'back yard wrenching' that including many engine installs. I still have and use that set of tools today as I approach 50! I even worked at Sears for a while as a teenager, which was interesting but that's a story in itself.
Being from a rural area and Canada, it was first Eaton's which lost out to Sears around the time I was born, Eaton's last Catalog was 1976, Mom kept it, not like they were hoarders.... Either way our closest Sears stores literally had basically 0 inventory. You either ordered over the phone or in person and picked up at the Sears which was basically a room with a large desk and storage for incoming orders. Unless you went to a big city, there was no showroom, it literally relied on the awesome catalog's, especially the Wishbook, which had Sears exclusive's for the popular toys, that came in the mail for it's sales. It really was the Amazon of the day as shipping was also free for many items with it's catalog being the same as Amazon's website for that time. Both Kmart and Sears are toast, they just need to pull the plug already. It would be nice if the executive's for once were screwed on the way out but of course they will get huge bonuses for running a company into the ground.
The contractor who built my house used to be co-owner of one of those small Sears satellite stores but it was closed during a downsize probably 25 years ago.
Right before that when I was going through an automotive program and just getting started, he gave me a 5 gallon bucket full of broken Craftsman tools that had been returned to his store. He had gotten credit but they'd never been picked up. His instructions to me were to (1) only return a couple at a time, (2) go to different stores, (3) never wear any type of uniform, (4) never tell them that you were using them professionally.
I got a lot of spare sockets, ratchets and screwdrivers out of the deal. Took a couple years. Never could get any stores to make good on a nice broken 1/2" torque wrench though. Other than that I think they replaced everything. Oh well, easy come, easy go.
Right before that when I was going through an automotive program and just getting started, he gave me a 5 gallon bucket full of broken Craftsman tools that had been returned to his store. He had gotten credit but they'd never been picked up. His instructions to me were to (1) only return a couple at a time, (2) go to different stores, (3) never wear any type of uniform, (4) never tell them that you were using them professionally.
I got a lot of spare sockets, ratchets and screwdrivers out of the deal. Took a couple years. Never could get any stores to make good on a nice broken 1/2" torque wrench though. Other than that I think they replaced everything. Oh well, easy come, easy go.
The capitalist tool who owns the Sears brand is systematically mining the remaining value of the brand itself, plus all the properties. Pennies on the dollar. I too have lots of Craftsman I bought decades ago when it was manufactured on contract by American companies. Too bad for me that others have caught on to mining the grandparents' garage sales.
Looks like old Eddie secured his funding at the last minute. Now they have until January 4 to determine whether Eddie is a "qualified bidder" or otherwise accept bids from liquidators.
Eddie Lampert, the world's most out of touch billionaire and the man who almost single-handedly killed Sears.
Either way they are still closing an additional 80 stores.
Edit: they are finally closing the West View Plaza K-Mart! I've been waiting for that for a long time, it is such a dump and an eyesore.
Eddie Lampert, the world's most out of touch billionaire and the man who almost single-handedly killed Sears.
Either way they are still closing an additional 80 stores.
Edit: they are finally closing the West View Plaza K-Mart! I've been waiting for that for a long time, it is such a dump and an eyesore.
Last edited:
- Status
