I used to love Craftsman tools.  The quality definitely changed over the years.  The number of clicks in a socket wrench rotation was a dead giveaway.

You can use the linked reference below to identify the manufacturer codes and date ranges of the Craftsman USA tools you already have, want to acquire as matching tools on the secondary market; or, want to sell. Ebay sellers have a lot of that stuff, sometimes even in new (NOS) or like new condition. The list goes from Craftsman's beginning up to about 2010 (which includes the time range during which I got most of my tools, '80-'89). I did; however, recently buy an older (like new), VV series, 8-point, double square socket on eBay for a specific application.

Craftsman Hand Tool Manufacturers & Date Ranges

I've always thought that guarantee was magic, along with the ones for Snap-on, Proto, NAPA and others.
Of course, those tools seldom failed and felt good to use.
The main thing they did that the guarantee didn't help was disappear.
I snapped a mystery brand 1/2" flex head this week and will buy a better one.
Actually, I broke a 1/2" extension a few weeks ago, too.  Toyota strut assemblies are torqued at 160 plus and after 200k do not like to come off.

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

 Now Sears is gone, Craftsman is kaput, and the last time I was at Smith & Wesson I didn't see Moore's either. 

85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management.  In this case, an MBA and hedge fund manager.  Who was doing what is taught in business schools.  Enrich yourself by screwing others.  (Trump is another perfect example.)

From 2005, Eddie Lampert drove both Sears and Kmart into destruction by doing what business school graduates are taught.  Cut costs to increase profits.  Then take obscene bonuses.  Lampert further enriched himself by getting Sears Holdings to sell properties to him at distressed prices.

Bill Ackerman used Pershing Square Capital Management to do same destruction to J C Pennys.  While Pershing Square reaped $4.5 billion in 2014 alone.

One need only see same in places like DeepWater Horizon.  And a recent Norfolk Southern disaster to learn why and where jobs, productivity, and America's strength is being depleted. 

Nardelli was paid $200 million to leave Home Depot.  Since he was was doing so much harm implementing concepts taught in business schools.  Then then bankrupted Chrysler doing same.  Is now doing same the a grocery store chain called Acme.  Doing what is taught in business schools.

Craftsman is just another example of what business school graduates do to America to enrich themselves as the expense of all others.  As Carly Fiorina did to Hewlett Packard.

The purpose of business is now to enrich the Central Committee of the Party at the expense of all others.

Knowning that Craftsman was in its last year, I traded (upgraded) all my Craftsman screw drivers.
 

Last edited by tw (3/25/2023 2:21 pm)

I think the record is warped, too.

tw wrote:

Reality does not change because it is so difficult to understand.

Extremist hate everything - even reality.

I don't hate everything, but, I do hate you.

Thanks for proving my point, though.
 

I hate that motherfucker more than you can comprehend.