Doubting this. I lived with my grandparents for awhile in the 1980s, in their neighborhood which was established in the 1950s. I remember everybody had their own everything - tools, lawnmowers, snowblowers, ladders etc. Borrowing happened, but there were socially acceptable reasons for it - something was broken, you just moved in from the city and hadn't bought everything you needed yet, etc. Anyone who habitually borrowed the same thing over and over just because they didn't want to buy it would have been ostracized.

That's exactly how it worked in my community when I was growing up. But-- people had significantly lesser buying power and tools were significantly more expensive.

So it was always getting it from a friend or a friend of a friend.

Consequently there were many cases where relationships would get tense because of late/non-returns.