Sears is a jack of all trades store that doesn't have much value these days. Before Home Depot and Lowes were everywhere, Sears was a good option for appliances, lawn care, power tools, etc. They were good for fitness equipment before Dicks. They were good for electronics before Best Buy. I suspect a place like Kohls took over their clothing audience as well.

Of course the internet didn't help them much either.

I'm sure someone will gladly buy up Craftsmen when it goes up for sale but I agree with you that it's their only exclusive asset that sets them apart.

Sears died for me when the internet replaced the catalog.

As a kid, we'd spend literally hours pouring over the Sears Catalog to circle christmas/b-day gifts (each kid with a different color pen), and we'd actually fight each other to get to it first.

That culture doesn't really exist anymore, and Sears really didn't adapt to it. Amazon would be the modern version, I guess.

The Sears catalog and the JC Penney Christmas catalogs. Such an amazing time of year.

I still get a bit of a thrill from the Quadratec and Cabelas catalogs, but nothing on par with that. It was really the best.

My first Nintendo came from that Sears Christmas Catalog :)

Someone may buy Craftsman, but all they'll get is a name. It's a house brand Sears puts on tools that are manufactured by a number of other companies, and whoever buys the name will need to make sure those business relationships continue. It probably wouldn't be easy.

Craftsman used to be a good name, now it's just the same (or worse) house-brand tools you can buy at any big box retailer.

I have a 20+ year old Craftsman socket set that I use regularly... then a couple years ago I bought a new set for a project at work -- I broke one of the sockets within 2 days trying to loosen a tight fastener, and then the snap-ring that holds the socket head together came out a week later (not sure if it broke, or somehow worked itself out, I never found it), and the socket head fell apart.

Sears did refund my purchase price, no questions asked, but I'm no longer buying Craftsman.

Last time I broke a ratchet, they gave me a rebuilt one that they had under the counter in a box.

You can buy Craftsman at other stores:

http://www.acehardware.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=215...

They also stopped going out of their way to honor the warranty.

They killed the lifetime guarantee on tools.

Hand Tools still have a lifetime warranty

Power Tools and Specialty Tools have limited time warranties

And killed the only reason to go in there.