• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

rumor mill - the inevitable end may be very soon

Share this page

I still have many of the Craftsman tools I collected over the years, including a tool box with tools my wife bought me for our first Christmas as a married couple in 1975. Over the years we had many Kennmore appliances and had always been happy with the quality and service. In fact we still have a Kennmore front loading washer and dryer set that we've had for about 18 years and a Bosch dishwasher we bought at Sears several years ago. I still shop at Sears once in awhile and will be sad if it goes under. I remember what a bummer it was when Monkey Wards went belly up several years ago.

I hope Sears can restructure and recover somehow, perhaps with a different business model.
 
5-12-2011-10-48-37-AM-2275293.png
 
Wow- look at the different styles of cars in post #1.

Memories, memories -

Sears-Tampa.jpg

What a difference from today's egg shapes.

TM
(Is that a TR2 in there?)
 
As a kid, we always used to pore over the "Wish Catalog" - or something like that that had all the toys. My first "real" two-wheeler was a purple banana-seat Sears Spyder.

My grandfather use to call it "Sear", as he considered the last "S" possessive, like Boscov's.

I still have a handful of Craftsman tools around, and picked up a couple more from my father's tool kit.
 
I can also remember drooling over the wish book every Christmas as a kid.
Another very fond memory is my first set of tools - a Craftsman basic mechanics set I got for Christmas when I was in HS. I was just starting to get into TR's and was looking at various 6's in the area. I used to love going in and seeing the entire tool sets laid out on peg board in the display cases. I used to think I could fix ANYTHING if I got that biggest set.......
 
I remember scroling through the catelog and lusting after all the electric guitars Sears used to sell, especially after the Beatle's were on Ed Sullivan.
 
I've also got some Craftsman tools, mostly inherited from the two generations before me. But for well over a decade now I wouldn't give them th' stink off my... ummm...

They can go the way of the dodo for all I care. Our "Revolving Charge Account" was cancelled when we had less than $100 as a balance. Sent them the balance immediately. Clothing was about all we'd used it for, for fifteen years. The morons threw us over the side after three generations had spent THOUSANDS of dollars with them. They deserve to fade into memory.

Good riddance. No sympathy from here. The upper level management steered their ship onto the rocks, IMO.

...feh...
 
So Doc, are you saying you're not a fan? Hard to tell from your vaguely worded post :cool-new:
 
Yeah, my true feelings were somewhat masked... :smirk:


BTW: I've your new avatar on vinyl in a drawer here.
 
Last edited:
The fools sent us a check for $3.00 and change for overpayment, we never cashed it. A year later another check for the overpay plus interest. Both times I sent a scathing letter telling them (among other things) they needed that three bucks more than we did and to stuff it someplace anatomically uncomfortable. Haven't heard back after the second missive. mehheh.
 
More than a year gone here in the great white North. On the one hand no one misses them for most of the reasons doc mentions. (Though being Canadian we are politer about it :grin: ) Department stores are having a tough time though finding a business model that works - especially facing Wally Mart and Amazon.

Was in my home town a week or so ago and had cause to walk through their shopping mall - Sears was the anchor store (I worked there as a yout) with it gone, it is hard to know what will become of the mall, certainly seemed to be in the beginnings of a death spiral by the quality of the other stores.
 
JPSmit said:
, it is hard to know what will become of the mall, certainly seemed to be in the beginnings of a death spiral by the quality of the other stores.
Click to expand...

Our local mall lost Sears, Boscov's, and others. It has now become a warehousing depot.
 
I suppose it's time for me to gather together my broken Craftsman ratchets, screwdrivers, etc and cash in on their lifetime guarantee one last time. I remember first starting out after being married that Sears was one of the first that would issue us a credit card, which was a great help in establishing a credit history. I lived in a small town about 20 miles from any large department stores, but we had a Sears catalog outlet in town where you could place your order and pick it up once it was shipped in. Made purchasing stuff easier. Not to mention their Foreign Car Parts catalog that provided parts for my bugeye. I doubt I'll miss today's Sears, but I'll miss the old one. And if you long for the days of perusing the Wish Book, here's a link to the 1969 version that you can flip through page by page: https://www.wishbookweb.com/FB/1969_Sears_Wish_Book/index.html#
 
I thought Sears would die after it bought Kmart. Two stores that did not change with the times. As said above, bad management decisions.
 
One thing I've read is that over the last 40 or so years business has come to be dominated by finance people in the upper management ranks, not experts in the particular business. They want to maximize cash flow on the profit side and aren't interested in necessary costs in changing with the times or even in understanding changing times. I work in a Fortune 100 company and see it all the time with the concentration on cost cutting at the expense of necessary upgrades to keep up with a changing world.
 
Back
Top