Trying to avoid derailing the other thread where it was claimed that Hazet is "the best".
I owned and still own a few German tools, namely Hazet, Stahlwille, Karl Walter, Gedore (gone), Matador, Wiesemann, Heyco, Elora, Wiha, Felo, Wera. When I lived in Germany and owned German cars (and this is what you should there for a number of reasons), buying *specialised* tools from Hazet saved me a lot of money: I could do thousands and thousands worth of maintenance myself. And I like the aesthetics of German tols, I am neither a Gypsy nor a magpie, so shiny objects are not my attraction. But, if you take some regular hand-tools, for example the 600N combo wrenches, they are still stuck in 19th Century with their open end design.. Gedore discredited itself after moving production to 3rd World and QA slipped quite a bit. They still own the biggest press in Europe, so they can make any custom tool of any size. Stahlwille is still making most of their tools in house. Karl Walter is my favorite compliment to Wright Tools arsenal, but Hazet? yes, their marketing is good, they impressed a lot of managers (the folks who never worked with the tools they buy), still they are 3 times overpriced over a good tool. Over there, at home, they are affordable and Snap-on doesn't make much sense with their triple markup. How can one tool brand be the best?
Another factor: Euro is falling like a rock, and the vendours are still trying to charge as if it is still at 1.61 level (it has broke 1.09 at the time of this writing)
I owned and still own a few German tools, namely Hazet, Stahlwille, Karl Walter, Gedore (gone), Matador, Wiesemann, Heyco, Elora, Wiha, Felo, Wera. When I lived in Germany and owned German cars (and this is what you should there for a number of reasons), buying *specialised* tools from Hazet saved me a lot of money: I could do thousands and thousands worth of maintenance myself. And I like the aesthetics of German tols, I am neither a Gypsy nor a magpie, so shiny objects are not my attraction. But, if you take some regular hand-tools, for example the 600N combo wrenches, they are still stuck in 19th Century with their open end design.. Gedore discredited itself after moving production to 3rd World and QA slipped quite a bit. They still own the biggest press in Europe, so they can make any custom tool of any size. Stahlwille is still making most of their tools in house. Karl Walter is my favorite compliment to Wright Tools arsenal, but Hazet? yes, their marketing is good, they impressed a lot of managers (the folks who never worked with the tools they buy), still they are 3 times overpriced over a good tool. Over there, at home, they are affordable and Snap-on doesn't make much sense with their triple markup. How can one tool brand be the best?
Another factor: Euro is falling like a rock, and the vendours are still trying to charge as if it is still at 1.61 level (it has broke 1.09 at the time of this writing)