While wandering through Costco I found a set of 6 Blue Marples with a wooden mallet for $30. This seems to be a great price compared to Woodcraft. As far as I can tell they are identical to those I bought at Woodcraft.
Which Costco please?
Be careful. The mass merchants negotiate a price with manufacturers and in many cases, the manufacturers will make a low cost version to sell through the mass merchandizers to meet their pricing requirements.
Meaning -- it may not be an apples to apples comparison.
Greg Ostrom wrote:
Woodcraft. As
Really, how do you know?
----------- I know this to be true in the case of Price Pfister faucets. Go to a big box store and open a faucet. You'll see a plastic waste tube, plastic ball c*ck, and cheap stick-on PF label. Look at the same faucet at a real plumbing store and everything is solid brass, and the cheap decal is actually a very nice enameled badge.
HD will happily special order that piece for a bit more than the plumbing shop. But yes, they stock cheap.
Note that they sell the bronze replacement cartridge for about 3/4 the cost of the faucet.
Toyota (iirc) has a fuel filter that nearly always needs replacement just off warrenty, then is good for the life of the engine. The OE part is plastic, the replacement is stainless steel and costs $400.
My mechanic (I don't own a Toyota) is convinced they used the plastic part so they could match the price point of similar competing models, and planned to make up the difference on the aftermarket part.
Ever been to an outlet store? This is common knowledge.
-j
It is fairly common with some clothing lines. Not all hardware is like that. It is also common knowledge that most of it is BS rumors. A local hardware store told me the same about a particular brand of tools. I asked how she knew. She replied, "the salesman told me". Give me specific part differences and I may believe you. I know that sometimes a model number will have a different suffix. That could be suspect. HP makes printers with different numbers and suffixes. The big store like Staples will have bundled software that others do not have. I asked an HP engineer when I was at a packing plant about the differences. He told me aside from the bundled software, the main difference was the screened on part number. Electronics were the same.
Costco and others, pride themselves on giving you the best merchandise at a good price, not a cheap version.
But this may not be the case for chisels. It's a lot easier to slap a blue handle on an inferior chineese chisel than it is for HP to come out with a cheaper printer that still works but looks like the expensive one.
I don't know if they are the same. But if I was the original poster, I'd check to see if the marples for sale were made in England. Chances are, a cheapened version is made in Aisa.
I didn't intend to imply that this was always the case. Merely pointing out that it is sometimes the case. Caveat emptor and all that.
-j
When I went to buy a bandsaw at the borg, I thought it was a 3/4 hp. It was only 1/2. Same model elsewhere was 3/4. Yes the borg was somewhat cheaper, by 60 clams or so but hey, the same model number except for some very small letter at the end. The only reason the borg was cheaper was because I was price matching it to a delta bandsaw at a normal store. When I saw the difference, I told them to forget it. Really it didn't qualify for the price match because they were technically different model numbers. But even under the scrutiny of pricematching, that little letter went un-noticed. Yes, they were selling it (the 1/2) for more that the 3/4 in a normal store. I tweaked to it while waiting to pay. There have been articles about this also.
WD. Wakeup!
WD wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 17:22:20 -0500, Eddie Munster wrote: > When I went to buy a bandsaw at the borg, I thought it was a 3/4 hp. It
When SWMBO and I were mattress shopping, it happened the CR had run an article on mattresses, pretty much stating that mattress companies routinely supply a "special" mattress to each of their retailers.
Their point being that essentially similar mattresses would be be sold under different names and model numbers at different retailers, making price comparison difficult.
-------- That's a well known tactic in the mattress business. I was successful at countering this by idenifying the exact matress I wanted at the manufacturer's site, then going to a few stores. When they blew that stink my way, I threatened to walk out unless they did an apples to apples price match for me, regardless of what customized name was put on the mattress. The dealers were reluctant, but I was insistent, and they knew I had their number. Ended up saving about 150.
Like peak hp, max hp or ultra hp? Can you believe my Shop Vac is 6 Peak HP and seven times more powerful than your BS. :-)
I know the Phoenix, AZ store on west Yorkshire has them (North Phoenix). I haven't looked at them to see where they are manufactured though.
Gary
Often the only difference is a "custom" model number.
Barry
That could be true if they are different models. I didn't notice what the box said as I wasn't interested (in Boise). But if it says Blue Marples or however they designate them and it says the same as Woodcraft, then they are the same.
I've heard the BS about a brand name model being a more cheaply made machine in lower priced stores. Not true, never been true, mindlessly stupid blather. No manufacture puts their name on a model and makes a good or excellent one and a poor copy. That's a quick way to degrade the manufactures name and lose sales. If an item is truly cheaper (quality), more economical version it will have a different model designation not the same name as a model built to a higher standard.
I bought these same chisels 2 years ago. At that time they were made in England. Decent chisels for a decent price. Not in the same league as two cherries, but for the price they are fine. Oh yeah they do need honing just like most other chisels.
Moen does much the same but the box is marked "metal" or "plastic." Confused me a bit since the faucet in the boxes were identical, then I saw that one had a plastic drain and one had a chrome coated brass drain. In Moen's case the metal drain separately cost about 1/2 the price of the faucet, but the faucet with the metal marked only 120 percent of the plastic one. However, these are two different models clearly marked and with different model numbers and not what the op is saying. BTW, real plumbing shops carry both models, but I'm sure if you ask a plumber to replace a faucet they will choose the more expensive model.
$400 for a fuel filter is an obviously rip off. Hell they could have changed it 40 time with a $10 filter. I wager that the $400 filter is not 40 times better than the $10 filter.
The different suffixes with HP printers are how they are sold, commercial or home use. The printers are the same and as you pointed out, the difference is the bundled software which is mainly useless and just an introduction to other hp items. It's not included in the commercial package because the commercial buyer wouldn't use any of it anyway. This subject comes up all the time and HP tells exactly what the deal is.
You see a good deal at Costco, you better buy it right then because you might never see it again. Bought a really cool
400W inverter with a digital readout of voltage in and out, and power, and include audio and visual alarms and auto shutdown for low voltage for $25. I bought it the first week they had it and by the third week they were out and have never seen it since.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.