nuhobby wrote: ↑Fri Feb 09, 2024 7:55 am
The points about scrap-parts etc. remind me: My Dad many years ago had dealings with a gent in Mt. Carmel, Illinois, which in those days had a Snap-On Tools foundry. This gent's job including taking any defective wrenches to a site where they were buried in concrete!
Wouldn't a foundry just melt down the defective parts? I understand a lot of stuff would get buried like those Atari games RFGuy mentioned, but it's not like they could be easily re-used. Although maybe there was a tiny bit of gold on in the components, but they really wanted those awful games to go away.
My thoughts exactly! Why bother putting them in concrete and finding a place to stash the concrete much easier throw back into furnace. I suspect there is something we are missing in that story. But I do understand the need to totally destroy the tools. If not I am sure some enterprising con artist would attempt to sell the defective tools. Some rube would then buy the tool discover it is defective and thus label all snap on tools as junk. The story would be told of the junk tool and before long everyone would label snap on as a maker of junk.
As for games getting pitched with the possibility of containing gold is another urban legend. All manufactures that use gold have a recovery for the gold on defective products. Gold is easy to recover when you know it is there.
Ed in Tampa wrote: ↑Fri Feb 09, 2024 10:10 am
As for games getting pitched with the possibility of containing gold is another urban legend. All manufactures that use gold have a recovery for the gold on defective products. Gold is easy to recover when you know it is there.
The story I heard was that working games were buried in the desert. I have no idea what the actual facts are.
At least one example, was the Atari E.T. video game cartridge that was buried in a landfill in the New Mexico desert. This really happened (link below). I don't know why a tool manufacturer would go to the trouble of pouring expensive concrete to render tools inoperable, but I could see it as possible. Here's the thing, if it is for reporting it as a loss on taxes, then it can't be recoverable into a new product. Putting it back into the foundry to re-melt would mean you couldn't write if off, or not the full amount. If the story of broken wrenches poured into concrete is true, I was just trying to give one possible explanation...as improbable as it might be.
RFGuy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 09, 2024 11:48 am
Here's the thing, if it is for reporting it as a loss on taxes, then it can't be recoverable into a new product. Putting it back into the foundry to re-melt would mean you couldn't write if off, or not the full amount. If the story of broken wrenches poured into concrete is true, I was just trying to give one possible explanation...as improbable as it might be.
That is a plausible explanation. At the time the steel in those tools might not have been worth much compared to the value of the finished tool that was written off.
RF Guy