There is no doubt that Home Depot failed miserably in their attempt to unseat Sears/Craftsman as the tool supplier of choice.
When they first came out, H-D offered to swap broken Craftsman or Snap-On tools for the equivalent Husky. Hah! You would have had to be nuts to do that.
Although they made a lot of bluster initially, HD never mounted a serious effort against Sears. Their line was limited to basic tools, far less than the extensive line carried by Sears, which includes a lot of fairly-specialized Craftsman tools.
Ditto for Lowe's attempt with the Kobalt brand, originally made by J.H. Williams (subsidiary of Snap-On), now made by Danaher (parent company of the maker of most Craftsman sockets and wrenches. The Kobalt tools are still USA sourced.
The Husky tools are (for the most part) made by Stanley. For the first few years, they were labeled "Made in USA". Then Stanley got nailed by the feds for mislabeling their tools for USA origin. I believe they were importing the raw forgings and finishing them in their US plant.
About the same time, the Husky tools started being labeled with China or Taiwan as country of origin. I suspect that they were always as such and simply labeled improperly.
You can literally buy the same tools (but branded "Stanley" instead of "Husky") at Wal-Mart. Stanley used to make the old Popular Mechanics tools for Wal-Mart, and I considered them to be a good value for the money (even if they were from Taiwan). They now simply brand the same tools as Stanley, but they are quite a bit less than Husky in price.
In my opinion, if you are going to pay Craftsman-equivalent prices, you might as well buy Craftsman to begin with. H-D/Husky prices are pretty close to Craftsman. If you want the cheaper tools, go with Wally instead, get the same tools and save a few dollars.
If K-Mart ends up sells Craftsman tools, this would not be a first. When Sears owned Western Auto (since sold to Advance Auto Parts), the WA stores carried Craftsman. No change in price or warranty.
Say what you want about Sears and their Craftsman line, but they have been around a long time and they have sold an incredible amount of tools. Of course, the warranty is only as good as however long Sears stays in business, but the price to performance ratio is hard to beat. I'll bet that the vast majority of race cars fielded by weekend warriors are primarily wrenched with Craftsman tools.
