After leaving my second auction of the day(the 2nd one being in Cedar Rapids), I was driving to a 2nd hand "super store" outlet and stumbled upon ACME TOOL SUPPLY on Blairs Ferry Rd, just east of I-380. I had to go in and see if this was another HF clone and to my surprise and delight, it wasn't. Yeah, all the power tools were pretty much from overseas(what's new?), but they had a wide variety of Electrical, mechanics, and plumbing/contractor stuff that I wished I'd had more time to investigate. They were sleling those high dollar Bosch and Millwaukee tools you don't find at the big box stores. Of special interest to me was their only line of hand tools and sockets/ratchets was Wright. They even had a brand new Wright 1/2" rat with the open teeth(and no cover) for a mere $56. I also found one more 3 pc. set of the rubber gripped US made Vise Grips(too broke to cough up the $40 they wanted for them), but those same Chinese made VG's were sitting right above them for roughly $13 each.....lol. Not sure if ACME is a chain or not, but it's nice to know that quality is only an hour away.......
Don't get me wrong, they were not cheap, but the quality just filled that building up!! Once I got to the second hand super store, all they had for tools was overpriced 'vintage stuff, but they did have some quality. A really nice JH Williams 12" Crescent and a 6" Vlchek adjustable I'd never seen before. More on the two auctions later.....
DM&FS