Product quality. Question for the old timers.

[horseshoe3]

Was there ever a time when you could order a product from a catalog and when it arrived, it would meet or surpass your expectations? Or was that just a myth.

Lately I've been burned several times buying from a catalog and getting junk. I have vowed never to buy an item over $50 sight unseen again. How did it work in the golden days of the Sear and Roebuck catalog? Was quality that much higher? Were expectations that much lower? Was it neither, and people are looking at the past with rose colored glasses?

[Winston Smith]

Quality was much better for sure.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7epp4zby01qbaleqo1_500.jpg

[General of Darkness]

Back in the day nothing was made in China, not even the rice we get. So the answer to the question is very simple.

[StackerKen]

Quality was much better for sure.



Hey Fred!? Welcome back :)

[Cobalt]

Quality today exists in very few items, if it isn't Cheap Chinese Junk then it is Cheap American or another country's Junk trying to compete with the low prices China sets

[MAGNES]

I don't wear Levi's, much better jeans out there, tailored.
But I bought irregular 550 Levi's carpenter jeans for $20 bucks
for some construction jobs I do once and a while as help,
that was 1 1/2 years ago, I was so impressed with the denim
on the jeans, very tough, lasted long time, heavy, I went
out just before Christmas to find the same pair and was
willing to pay full ticket, the denim is not the same, thinner
like many newer jeans, no way they would last like the others.
So I said no way to full ticket. I noticed this obvious change and been
noticing this throughout the years just on jeans alone. Applies
cross the board.

Not only are things getting cheaper, but the cheaper
are getting cheaper, now you have to worry about
your jeans ripping open for cheapness brand new.

If they cant get that right don't expect them to get anything right.

And fuck china. They poison us, our dogs and our babies and our
politicians help them to do it.

[MAGNES]

Hey Fred!? Welcome back :)


Freddie Kruger ? :o

[midnight rambler]

Quality was much better for sure.



Hey Fred!? Welcome back :)


Uh-oh, do we have a shape-shifter among us?

[Dogman]

It depends, back when, the rule still holds in general "You get what you pay for"
still holds. Stuff today in general is not built as heavy duty as back when. But
stuff today in some cases would be considered "Magic" back then. It does
depend on what you are buying, back in the day and today!

[Ponce]

Well, I still remember back in Cuba in 1940-1959 when I came to the US that all that we wanted was items made in the US and then we bragged to each other about it......."Hey hey look made in America".......but now it is a different story, I took some stuff for my dad and family and one of them asked me "Does it work?, any good?"......even the old cars from 1960 and before are still running in Cuba after 60 years, I don't see much hope for the future.

[midnight rambler]

Oh yes, quality goods could be had via mail order back when America was still America.

http://images.quickblogcast.com/8/2/8/8/2/238726-228828/sears1966rifles.jpg?a=64

[StackerKen]

Quality was much better for sure.



Hey Fred!? Welcome back :)


Uh-oh, do we have a shape-shifter among us?




well I don't know....I saw the title "THOUGHT CRIMINAL" below his user name...

Isn't that what Phoenix used to have below his name?

[midnight rambler]

Quality was much better for sure.



Hey Fred!? Welcome back :)


Uh-oh, do we have a shape-shifter among us?




well I don't know....I saw the title "THOUGHT CRIMINAL" below his user name...

Isn't that what Phoenix used to have below his name?


As you should know, Winston Smith is the protagonist in Orwell's 1984 so naturally he's a thought criminal.

[nunaem]

The quality of goods reflect the quality of people.

[chad]

Quality was much better for sure.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7epp4zby01qbaleqo1_500.jpg


i'm wondering if there's any possible way you could make the picture in your sig file bigger. i'm thinking maybe the whole screen.

[woodman]

I've been buying Doc Martin's shoes and boots and they are durable and extremely comfortable. It is hard to find a good shoe anymore. I believe they are made by 'lbp's (little brown people) but so is every thing else.

I get them at onlineshoes.com and I believe the prices are quite good.

[ShortJohnSilver]

There is Red Wing boots; certain diesel engines, automatic and manual transmissions. Can't think of much else at the moment.

[Cebu_4_2]

When I was a kid my grandparents and, well everyone's house has a sears catalog somewhere within view, usually by the radio or fireplace. The TV's were challenging then and black and white but in the same room.

Anything ordered was guaranteed to be of quality and I don't remember anyone having any problems except my grandfather. He ordered some huge ass garden supplement and it wouldn't run right so Sears sent a rep out to fix it, and they did.

Sears also had competitors such as Hudson's (mostly clothing and household items) and Montgomery Wards which could only compete in the sense of the word. Quality was good in all 3 as far as I know but Sears was like the best of the distributors. Oh and all 3 had items in their own brand name.

To answer the OP Question yes the quality was better, much better than todays.

And for Levis jeans, mid 1980's Levi jeans cost a minimum of 50 bux a pair. Take in inflation and devaluation your now 20.00 jeans would have cost 4 bux in the 80s. What you want for 4 bux?

[zap]

We are a throw away society now, why fix something old when you can buy a new one cheaper than fixing the old one, ( computers, cars, shoes etc.) that is what they want us to do... buy, buy, buy and keep up facade.

[Book]

http://image.hotrod.com/f/incoming/9213054+w200/hdrp_0609_12_z+paint_body_pt5+fender_placement_pan el_gap_before.jpg

I dunno. By the late 1960s autos coming out of Detroit were crap. The entire assembly line must have been stoned or drunk. Eventually the gap between the hood and fender and door and body was DESIGNED to be almost half an inch to help the stoned/drunk union workers fit the auto together...lol.

Toyota and Volkswagen ate their lunch.

[zap]

http://image.hotrod.com/f/incoming/9213054+w200/hdrp_0609_12_z+paint_body_pt5+fender_placement_pan el_gap_before.jpg

I dunno. By the late 1960s autos coming out of Detroit were crap. The entire assembly line must have been stoned or drunk. Eventually the gap between the hood and fender and door and body was DESIGNED to be almost half an inch to help the stoned/drunk union workers fit the auto together...lol.

Toyota and Volkswagen ate their lunch.


Ok then maybe not cars, but lots of stuff is made to be used for a little while then upgrade or get a new one. :oo-->

[horseshoe3]

Oh yes, quality goods could be had via mail order back when America was still America.

http://images.quickblogcast.com/8/2/8/8/2/238726-228828/sears1966rifles.jpg?a=64


That reminds me. The only purchase I have really been happy with in the last 2 years are a couple of new Beretta guns. They are tight, crisp, and accurate. I haven't seen a gun like these that was built after 1964. Newer guns seem to be more accurate on balance, but they are all rickety. Looks like Beretta is still building them solid.

[Hatha Sunahara]

I have a book called Why Nothing Works by Marvin Harris, a cultural anthropologist, who wrote it in 1981.

A brief summary of his argument is this. Before WW II the way a business succeeded was to make a quality product--better than all the competition. After WW II, as businesses became bigger, the emphasis shifted away from product quality to marketing and profits. Businesses with lots of money to invest started buying out the original owners of businesses that made quality products, and in order to make more money, cheapened the product and strengthened the advertising and marketing effort (propaganda). Also, factories had to deal with the alienation of workers who worked for money not for the quality of their craft. When the emphasis shifts to making money, everything else suffers.

Harris also explains a few other things in this book. Why Women Left Home, Why the gays came out of the closet, why salespeople don't help you, why the dollar shrank and a few others, like Why America Changed. It's a great read about American cultural transformation in the 20th century. It's a short book, only 179 pages, and very easy to read. Here's a short excerpt from the Introduction



This book is about cults, crime and shoddy goods that the shrinking dollar. It's about old ladies getting mugged and raped, people shoved in front of trains, and shoot-outs at gas pumps. And letters that take weeks to get deilvered, waiters who throw food at you, rude sales help, and computers that bill you for things you ever bought. It's about planes that lose their engines, reactors that leak, dams that burst, roofs that collapse. It's about a lot of other things that are new and strange in America today.

Hatha