The chisel is also completely new, and the small bit driver looks to be a different design. I would have liked more changes too, but every additional change of that magnitude would add to the cost of the tool. For me, $199 seemed like a good balance of price vs interesting changes.
I am not feeling 200 is a stretch. Yes its a lot of money. Yes it's likely to be a shelf queen for many. I'm good with that as well. I used to feel every tool needed to be used. Funny enough I bought all mine previously used so . Many of my tools are now in rest. I use the ones I found to be the best fit for me. I do have a few new tools that are queens. Use is subjective when I apply it to certain tool I have. If by owning the tool and all that comes with ownership brings a certain happiness then its being used. Many tools are industrial art pieces. Yeah they produced thousands but they started from an idea then drawing. The patent drawing themselves are pretty flipping cool. Its the evolution of a company, industry, tool category, and hobby for many of us. We all have our opinions and this is MTO.
Eh, $200 is a huge amount of money for a multitool, I'm not convinced that a single tool fabrication increases the price that much, particularly when 90% of the tool is stock parts. It would have been nice to see different steel in use at the very least, when it comes to blade steel Leatherman seems stuck 15 years ago.
Too many flat pieces in the handles...
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see more premium steel choices; however, Leatherman is already doing better than the other major manufacturers of multitools. The latest from Victorinox, the Swisstool MXBS, cost me $230 and it just has the soft and inferior mystery steel that they always use. I dont see anything from Gerber either, but at least their prices reflect that.
Vic tools are made in another country, with a high polish, and prices come with that.
Respectfully, I think that many people have the wrong paradigm about corporate entities generally and Leatherman in particular. Leatherman is not in the multitool business - its in the revenue business. Making MTs is only ancillary to the primary goal of increasing share value and producing dividends for the shareholders. So when some of us (not me) complain about the tool set or the design or the price of an MT, it wholly misses the point. Since these aren't potatoes in the midst of a famine, we can buy an MT or not buy it with few consequences except having our feelings hurt when we don't get what we want. We, of course, look at it from the consumer side of things. But Leatherman's goal as to the Mr. Crunch was to generate $100,000.00 in revenue in 29 minutes - which it accomplished. It also fired up the hardcore customer base, generated attention for the brand, etc. I can tell you that while I am not totally enthused about the Mr. Crunch (which did not stop me from buying 2x of them, along with a regular Crunch), the whole "Leatherman Garage" thing has rekindled my Leatherman addiction just a little. If I did not already own every Leatherman I could possibly want, and multiples of many of them, I might very well be getting out my credit card for something new. There's that revenue thing again. So in my view, from both a consumer and corporate perspective, the Mr. Crunch has been a spectacular success. Thanks for reading.
Leatherman is not a publicly traded company. No idea what your talking about with shareholders and dividends and such. It's a private business they don't have any fiduciary duty to public shareholders. They could actually do what Rolex did and become a non-profit foundation if they key stakeholders wanted to do so.
FYI - a lot of companies that are not publicly traded still have shareholders, although I don't know if Leatherman does any kind of profit sharing.
Yes, but the way they operate is totally different than a publicly traded company which has a different set of obligations. Leatherman is a private business and from all reporting a very successful one.They even have this answer on their FAQ page:CAN I BUY STOCK IN LEATHERMAN TOOL GROUP, INC.?Sorry. Leatherman Tool Group is privately held and is very unlikely to go public in the foreseeable future.
Understood, but private businesses can still have and issue stocks to employees. I owned private stock like this before, but I was required to sell the stock when I left the company. Edit: I even earned dividends from those stocks while I owned them.
But that has nothing to do with what I said, that's why I said stakeholders. Yes a private business can use shares to represent ownership or something else but that has nothing to do with a fiduciary duty to public shareholders, which is governed by an entirely different set of laws and doesn't apply to Leatherman Tool Group because they're a private company.
You're the only person saying "public". Powernoodle just said shareholders ("Making MTs is only ancillary to the primary goal of increasing share value and producing dividends for the shareholders.") This is an accurate statement.
and your replies make even less sense.
Making MTs is only ancillary to the primary goal of increasing share value and producing dividends for the shareholders.
Leatherman is not a publicly traded company. No idea what your talking about with shareholders and dividends and such. It's a private business they don't have any fiduciary duty to public shareholders.
FYI - a lot of companies that are not publicly traded still have shareholders,
This is only an accurate statement if we know for a fact that Leatherman has shareholders and that the corporate culture and goals are solely based on financial performance. Unless I'm missing something in their about us section that's shockingly frank, no we don't know any of that.And the whole making money thing is primary is how a lot of corporations work, it's how Gerber went down the hill and off a sheer cliff because accounting got aheado of quality. But that doesn't mean that every company works that way nor that if it does work that way that we should just lie down and accept it.The only reason they can get away with 'Leatherman Garage' is because there's a hardcore fanbase that would buy it regardless what it is. That fan base rolling over and saying things like they're only about money is part of the problem, even if Leatherman turns their nose up at us the consumer having these discussions are important.
This is only an accurate statement if we know for a fact that Leatherman has shareholders and that the corporate culture and goals are solely based on financial performance.
Yes, I agree with that. I was just trying to explain to Greg that a company doesn't have to trade stocks publicly to have stock or have a responsibility to shareholders.
But your not explaining anything because I think everybody knows this. You're just causing confusion because the matter here is public vs private company responsibilities and you went on an irrelevant tangent about private companies sometimes issuing shares, which I think everybody knows and is really irrelevant anyways to the discussion.
Donations
Community Links
