I see stuff like that at the flea market from time to time. I think it often comes from divorces and deaths. The scavengers pick them up when exwives clean out the garage, and estate sales when guys die for next to nothing.

I picked up about thirty Snap-on sockets and a full set of wrenches at the flea market cheap. Old skanky looking dude who buys the left over crap from yard and estate sales has them laid out on his table. I ask him about them, and he tells me that he will sell me the whole lot for twenty bucks, but if I want some good tools he can sell me the same stuff but Craftsman for fifty. I told him that the off brand would be fine with me.

He then asks me if I would be interested in the rest of the non name junk he had picked up with it, I told him I would be interested. The next week I went to his table at opening time, he had a old beat up Stanley tool box slam full of Snap-on and Mac tools (most of them metric, which this old codger figured meant they were worthless, as they weren't Craftsman brand and weren't fractional). I told him that I couldn't give him more than another twenty bucks including the box. He bitched for a second but took it.

I would figure I ended up with about $2500 worth of tools. They were all dusty and had grease all over them, but they cleaned up well. Even the old Stanley tool chest and cabinet turned out to be a nice piece. Out of all of it the only thing that was broken or unusable was an old MAC 3/8ths in torque wrench, which I exchanged for a brand new one the next week when the truck stopped by the shop.

You have to remeber that there are lots of people who just don't realize how expensive tools are, and don't really care. The vast majority of back yard mechanics are firm in thier beliefe that Craftsman tools are the best ever made, and anything else is junk. When I worked for telephone companies we were issued Proto hand tools and Fluke meters, and most of the other techs would complain that they could have gotten Craftsman for that much money. I have a very high opinion of Proto tools, and was always happy to have them issued.