Can anyone provide info on this Craftsman branded tool? Is it just a rebranded Bear Jaws?
I got the feeling from Bear in most of our interactions that they really aren't interested in their own multitool line, and probably would have discontinued the whole mess if they weren't making some decent money selling them en masse to other companies.I believe they only started doing them in the past because they were already manufacturing components for Leatherman and decided to take a whack at it themselves. Def
The quality of my Crescent Toolzall Pro is excellent. The larger Bear multitool I bought which bore their own brand was terrible.
IIRC someone said that Bear & Son would often sell off their tools that didn't meet their own (quite low) QA standards at cheap prices, but without any markings to indicate they were "seconds". These of course got sold on as regular quality tools (for higher prices), thus denting Bear & Sons reputation even further.This would explain why there are some quite bad but "new" Bear & Son tools and knives floating around on the secondary markets (eg ebay, craigslist, gumtree etc)
I wonder if I have a few of these in my collection somewhere as when I got them, they reminded me very much of Bear & Son production...but they featured no name. I might have to take an expedition into my collection soon. I am uncertain exactly where the ones I am thinking are stored currently.