Sears never made their own tools in their own factory. They used jobbers and contractors to make their tools. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, it has been done for centuries. The good thing about Sears was that at one time the specifications Sears set made their product quite good. Their bulletproof warranty made it a no brainer for certain tools.

I remember about 30-40 years ago going into the Sears "tool store" they had at the big Sears here in town that was conveniently by my house. I often recognized rebadged products. Different color of molded parts, a usually a couple of Sears marked goodies were all that were different.

Then I noticed a lot of different manufacturers we selling "DIY" lines (for example, Sears "Companion" line) that were made in other countries. Then it became to easy to have a lot of top shelf products made "over there", wherever that might be, so the crap tool Tsunami began. I couldn't tell where tools were made (I ALWAYS wanted to buy American first as an allegiance to my blue collar roots)after a while. Tools were label on the box they came in with their COO, and I thought when I looked at the tool and it had the company's American address on it the tool was made here. Nope, not necessarily; the label could just be a reference to the company.

They American tools were assembled here using parts "sources" from other countries. So people like Porter Cable, Bosch, etc. had tools made here or overseas, made from parts made here or overseas. never saw any country other than the USA when I was buying and I didn't care if a tool came from Switzerland, Germany, Italy, or anywhere else. If it wasn't American, I didn't buy it.

I gave that up, though. As companies bought one another, were absorbed by one another, used manufacturing facilities and parts from one another, then were bought by investment firms that saw tools as widgets... I now just buy using my "bang for the buck" metric.

Now I see that DeWalt is sporting a new American flag logo on the boxes that tout MADE IN USA .... and in much smaller print... "using global materials"...

So we now have factories in the USA that have workers that screw parts together and call it tool making, parts that are made somewhere else. I doubt that if it wasn't a populist trend these days, this new logo wouldn't have been noticed.

I don't know how anyone can keep up with who owns who, who can make what products, which patents are licensed out, which company is a subsidiary or partner of another (remember... Bosch partnered with Fein on a recent project!) and on a on.

I am sad to see Craftsman/Sears go away, but this agreement just seems like an natural end to a tool line (Craftsman and their unrealistic lifetime warranty) and even more so, and end to a business model that should have been abandoned years ago.

Robert