light socket

Yeah, when guts wear out I save the shells, so have lots of extra shells here.

Somewhere in my house I have an old electrical catalog (probably from the 1930's) where any individual part you see, you can get.

Anyway $3.48 for the whole thing...adjusting for inflation is probably even cheaper than the 30 cents it might have cost in 1932.

Many times the whole thing can be less than the parts. I bet a $ 20,000 car would cost over $ 100,000 if each part was bought.

Most of the time on items under $ 100 I just get a new one instead of trying to repair it unless it would be a lot of trouble to replace it.

Or you can buy an entire lamp at a yard sale for a dollar and disassemble it for the socket.

...a typical car would cost 4 to 5 times as much if you bought the parts instead of the assembled vehicle.

Another obvious and easily researched question...

I often scavenge good parts from stuff people toss out.

The best one was the time my boss gave me a semi-working TV set.

(Must have been a long time ago as I have not had a TV in 25 years)

Anyway it was an older set and the high-voltage insulator needed to be replaced and I could not imagine where I'd get one other than go to a TV shop and probably pay a fortune .

I thought maybe I could pull one out of a discarded TV so went for a ride. I did not even get two blocks and there was an identical model out by the curb. I just opened it up and took the insulator out...took it home and fixed the set.

You must look at quality and not just price, and quality it self depend on material and workman ship.

Here's a good one. I only need the guts for a push through light socket and HD has a whole socket for 3.48.

So i go to Amazon, and trusty Amazon will sell me just the guts.

How much?

$8.69 by Cooper $4.40 by Leviton

Maybe it's a wierd thing where the whole thing costs less than part of it.

$5.00 by GE

So I guess 3.48 is not so bad.