Tools, Sharpening and Power Machinery - Craftman seconds?

A monthly flea market I attend usually has 6-7 booths selling what appears to be new Craftman hand tools. They are priced considerable less than in-store items. I've looked at them closely but can't see any blemishes. Do their vendors sell these in bulk to employees? They sure don't look like counterfeits. Does anyone have any experience with them?

I've seen plenty of tools at flea markets, but almost always either antique-looking stuff or cheap Chinese crap. One way to find out would be to ask, in fact ask all the vendors seperately and see what they say. Not that you will necessarily get straight answers, but can't hurt. My best guess would be that they are picked up from pawn shops and the like, but if there is a wide selection and quantity that wouldn't be as likely.

Let us know what you find out so we can give you our orders or visit and buy our own if it's close, LOL.

When I worked for Raytheon we did have a contract with sears to purchase tools for much less then retail . There are alot of goverment shops that get a deal on them also .They shouldnt be at a flea market unless they where sold at an DRMO auction first.I have bought old craftsmen tools at yardsales before and then turned them in to get new ones at sears, also works for snap -on tools

sandy2000:
My son worked for a second hand dealer in our rural town who had bought ten pallette loads of Sears items from a liquidator. All of the items were warranty returns from Sears stores in Eastern Canada.
Seven of the pallettes were Craftsman tools.
What was interesting was that most of the items still had the warranty return tags attached. In the lot were a handfull of hand tools and power tools that were defective or broken. Most of the items there was nothing wrong with. An example was power mitre saws of various types. Of about twelve in the lot only about four had identifiable problems. The rest had a description of a problem that did not exist.
I bought a deluxe router table that had "parts missing". What was missing was eight 1/4 inch carriage bolts for the legs.
The most interesting item was a very nice camping tent.
Complaint: Tent was too cold and the ceiling drips in the rain.

There are SEARS SURPLUS STORES in my neck of the woods. They seem to mostly carry 'out of season items' at very reduced prices so right now they have tons of Christmas lights, wrapping paper, winter coats and so on, but for hand and power tools they have almost everything - and they're selling them cheap enough to buy and drag off to a flea market if you wanna invest and then stand in smog all day. I haven't seen any purchase limit signs. Some of the hand tool sets may be in opened boxes and missing an item or two, but all the power tools boxes I've seen are sealed. The SEARS tool guarantee is honored on applicable items purchased at the SEARS SURPLUS. My grandson bought his tool towers there and saved some nice $$ - they were much less than store and catalog prices. HOME DEPOT sold HUSKY hand tools the very same way at their Villager Store near me.