pe wrote:

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 14:35:07 -0400, "Percival P. Cassidy"
wrote:


A year or two back I bought a Black & Decker 9.6V cordless drill that
came with two batteries. I don't recall how much I paid for it. Several
months back, when I wanted a new battery for it, I found that for very
little more than the price of a battery alone I could buy a whole new
drill and battery (but only one battery, not the two that I got
originally). A couple of days ago I noticed that Lowes had the drill
with *two* batteries for exactly the same price as for a battery alone!

Can anybody explain the logic of this?


Cordless tools are going the computer inkjet printer route.

King Gillette started it all over a hundred years ago. He sold his
safety razor for less than it cost to manufacture, and sometimes even
gave them away, but you'd have to buy his blades at a price which seemed
unreasonably high for what it took to make them.

http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/gillette.html

Low end laser printers are another example of that, but you can beat the
game by refilling the toner cartridges, which I do routinely for 5 laser
printers in our little office. I can get two and sometimes three refills
before the drum gives out, for about $5.00 worth of toner.

I refill our HP ink jet fax machine cartridges too, from bulk ink at a
cost of about $1.50 per refill.

I probably was born to do that because my dad used to resharpen his
Gillette "Blue Blades" by stropping them on the inside of a drinking
glass. :-)

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia

(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented."