Sears tools were fabricated in American factories. Compare those to Harbor Freight.
The sad thing is, if one wanted to buy tools of any sort that weren't Harbor Freight, you'd go to another store and get the exact same quality but with different colored plastic handles that just cost twice as much. And instead of tool steel, they're made out of whatever pot metal happened to be around that day.
Furniture is now almost always made out of something like cardboard, compared to the real wood that it was constructed from in that era. It would amuse me as a child when I'd watch some old film and the people had all their worldly possessions piled up on top of the Model T or maybe even a cart, and I couldn't at the time understand why they were bothering to do that if they had to flee. Well, because I'd do the same if I could somehow afford dining room chairs that weren't cheap junk.
Someone in another forum was complaining about Pyrex cookware, which is hardly some luxury good itself. Apparently they've not been made of the proper borosillicate glass in a long time, and so they're no longer really oven-safe.
> It would amuse me as a child when I'd watch some old film and the people had all their worldly possessions piled up on top of the Model T or maybe even a cart, and I couldn't at the time understand why they were bothering to do that if they had to flee. Well, because I'd do the same if I could somehow afford dining room chairs that weren't cheap junk.
I think it's a bit more than that: those possessions not only weren't cheap junk, they also probably consisted of a significant fraction of that family's total wealth.
It's a good example of the question: "where is your generational wealth stored up?"
For homeowner types it's in your real property and the house sitting on top of it. A home and land are assets that also come with significant costs for maintenance and upkeep. And homeowners are in ridiculous situations of living childfree in a 4BR/6BA filling up with litter boxes, or their kids all flee the nest and don't want Mom and Dad's old place at all? Owning land, however, is a good way to ensure that a family invests in their local community and cares about the direction it takes, because they're not liable to pull up their stakes and go elsewhere.
So a century ago, and probably for hundreds of years, if a family didn't own land, I can see furniture as the soundest investment for generational wealth. Because sturdy furniture can be used by anyone for a long time, and its maintenance costs can be minimal. So you sit in your great-grandfather's chair, and occasionally needing to move, hopefully find ways to take it all along with you. Sadly in an emergency, transportation costs and logistics can outstrip their value now. All the time I see people abandoning furniture because they didn't account for how unwieldy it becomes with time. But furniture and clothing are so replaceable, interchangeable, and nearly fungible, it's now a lousy way to store up wealth.
So where's your generational wealth built? What will your great-grandchildren enjoy when the world's a different place? Your 401(k)? A McMansion? Your Prius?
You can most certainly still buy real borosilicate PYREX. But most people will not buy a $32 borosilicate roasting pan when the soda-lime glass version is less than half the price at $15. The boro versions are marked PYREX, the soda glass ones are marked pyrex.
The sad thing is, if one wanted to buy tools of any sort that weren't Harbor Freight, you'd go to another store and get the exact same quality but with different colored plastic handles that just cost twice as much. And instead of tool steel, they're made out of whatever pot metal happened to be around that day.
Furniture is now almost always made out of something like cardboard, compared to the real wood that it was constructed from in that era. It would amuse me as a child when I'd watch some old film and the people had all their worldly possessions piled up on top of the Model T or maybe even a cart, and I couldn't at the time understand why they were bothering to do that if they had to flee. Well, because I'd do the same if I could somehow afford dining room chairs that weren't cheap junk.
Someone in another forum was complaining about Pyrex cookware, which is hardly some luxury good itself. Apparently they've not been made of the proper borosillicate glass in a long time, and so they're no longer really oven-safe.