And where are the tools made?

Summit Tools flyer - February 1,2013

This flyer was included in last week's copy of the local community newspaper.

I have a long history of tackling home renovation projects and so I have a passing interest in tools. (Over the years I've essayed electricity, played with plumbing and plaster, and fumbled with framing.)

Summit Tools is a Canadian company, based in Burnaby , British Columbia. On the website is a rather impressive graphic showing the logos of the brands that the firm carries.

Logo of Brands carried by Summit Tools (Source: http://www.summittools.com)

As I was looking through the flyer I noticed listings for a few items that mentioned the country of origin. Three made in the USA, one made in Canada, and one made in Germany. In all the flyer lists 300 different products, and the country of origin is only listed for five of them. My natural assumption is that none of the other products are made in the United States, Canada or Germany, or in any other countries that might be a selling point.

And what other countries might be a selling point? Italy, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom all spring to mind as reasonably reliable sources of tools.

The only conclusion I can come to is that the other 295 products come from countries that are not a convincing selling point. China springs to mind.

Fifty or sixty years ago, "Made in Japan" was often a damning indictment of quality. Now it is one of the hallmarks of quality. Will China get there, or will :Made in China" be something that a retailer is ashamed of, or at the very least does not want to promote?

There are some many poor quality products manufactured in China that "Made in China" carries a taint that will be hard to overcome. I can't see it happening in the next 10 years.