Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Buying US
Tom Norton
So at the risk of starting an argument I am going to make a determined effort to buy all new purchases from US manufacturing companies.
This morning I was searching eBay for a 6" SS ruler. Saw the filter that allows me to choose country of manufacture.
Re: Buying US
Philip F Duffy
100% YEA! p
Re: Buying US
JL
How do you feel about Canada?
I like Lee Valley. I think they make quality tools.
Re: Buying US
John Foster
I am Canadian, but I try to buy Canadian, American, European first, and then other countries with well developed H&S, building code, labor, pollution etc. laws.
I have nothing against any race, religion or nationality, and if someone can be more competitive because they work harder than me for less money, all the power to them. If they can undercut me by dumping their toxic waste in the river, building cheaper by not putting fire escapes in their factories, using what amounts to bonded labor etc., them I will try to avoid buying their product.
Re: Buying US
Paul Leuba
Very rational approach!
I buy mostly US and Europe and Japan....
David Weaver
......because most of the things that I buy on a regular basis are used.
When I fix something on my cars, I also try to buy western world, but sometimes some of the sites that say "made in the USA" deliver something that was probably made in the US 6 months ago before the brand/oem supplier was sold and started badging overseas products.
When making tools, I always buy either old stock US (files) to make knives or tools, or new stock steel products. You whack them, sand them, grind them, file them whatever- and then heat and temper them and the result always seems to be excellent.
Re: Buying US
Josko Catipovic
I find imports are generally a better deal.
Re: Buying US
walta
Tom you may want to look again at EBay I suspect you are misunderstand what the filter is used for.
I see a filter by “location” this is about where the item is currently located. The item could have been made anywhere on earth and shipped in mass to a USA reseller who ships items one at a time to fill orders.
Please note many Chinese EBay sellers are now falsely claiming to have product in the USA. They pad their delivery date to 14 days or so, then they quickly ship several orders in a single air package to the USA. After it clears customs they have the package opened and hand off the individual packages to USPS at about 12 days and you get it on day 14. I think it is fraud but EBay does not care as long as they make their delivery date.
Walta
Re: Buying US
Paul Blackwell
After WWll, there was reluctance of buyers to buy anything made in Japan. Japan actually renamed one of their cities "Usa" so they could say, "Made in Usa" and people would think it was made in the USA.
That’s false, just a folk tale *LINK*
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/made-in-usa/
There's no need...
David Weaver
...for urban legends like that to be created, because there are branded tools coming out of china with the name "sheffield" on them.
Why bother creating a town when you can just label the tools?
There's an urban legend that a town has that name in china, but I've never seen it.
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20200502060017&SearchText=sheffield
as far as the japanese thing goes, my grandfather would not buy anything japanese until the 1980s. He was getting heavy into farming when WWII broke out, and he never forgave the japanese. He used to talk about the motorcycles (zuki, zaki - never got a grasp on the entire names and it was a struggle for him to get out the last couple of syllables because it was like a foreign language to him 
).
He was a lifetime john deere adherent who cut and split firewood in retirement to make income, and his plan was foiled when john deere rebadged echo chainsaws. He didn't like international harvester and resorted to calling their machinery "japanese imported goods" (totally false) just to peeve his friends who were brand loyal to them
Haha!
John in NM
"He was a lifetime john deere adherent who cut and split firewood in retirement to make income, and his plan was foiled when john deere rebadged echo chainsaws. He didn't like international harvester and resorted to calling their machinery "japanese imported goods" (totally false) just to peeve his friends who were brand loyal to them 
"
Sounds like he was trolling them!
A man far ahead of his time Or more realistically, human behavior is really timeless.
Re: Buying US
Mark Nowicki
They do, and they also sell a lot of Made in China junk.
I wish they would mention the country of origin for each of the product they sell.
They seem to have the resources to write paragraph long descriptions but a simple " Made in China" at the bottom seems to cause them problems.
The wit....
David Weaver
...my grandparents on that side went to school until 8th grade. They worked for themselves for almost 60 years and never had to dull their wit to stay in line with a boss.
They enjoyed (and so did their friends) getting little digs in at each other, but the lack of a computer allowed it to be too infrequent to ever cause too much trouble.
Grandfather L always talked about working hard being the only way to have a clear mind, and one of his friends with the same first name always said when he retired, he would never lift a finger again. G-L found this very offensive - not a quality a man should have, so his friend often gave him a report about how little he'd done since their last visit. Other friends knew of this little rivalry and would call my grandfather Lute (the nickname the other guy went by) and say they got him confused with "Lute" to really set him off
When G-L bought a ford LTD in 1977, "Lute" bought a 1978 version the next year with just a few more options to one-up him, and he would often talk about how much nicer the 1978 was than the 1977. They both bought them in brown - G-L did first, then Lute did, too. Brown was a color they thought would never show dirt, and Lute couldn't get a different color and allow G-L to lecture him about how the color was less practical and would take more effort to keep clean.
"you know, the 1978 LTD is really the best one Ford ever made"
G-L would laugh while they were there and then say "s__s of b____s!" when they left
Like you say - human nature doesn't really change much. Their little rivalries were great entertainment for the rest of us.
True...
John in NM
But is it really that hard to tell?
There are a multitude of clues, but the easiest is when the country of origin isn't labeled - to me that is pretty obvious because everything made in Canada on their site is labeled as such, and I bet most everything made in Europe or the US is similarly labeled.
I don't mind reading between the lines a little, its easy enough.
It's fairly easy to ...
David Weaver
...figure out that they mark canada or US on products made in either, and nothing on others. If it doesn't say canada or US, you assume it's not either.
Of all of the mail order sellers out there, I'd imagine the LV "take" (margin after expenses/testing/sourcing) is probably on the low side - at least as far as woodworking retailers go.
Re: True...
Mark Nowicki
If LV can identify stuff made in USA or Canada or Japan why not China?
Are they embarrassed?
Re: True...
David Bassett
Because when they can't be sure of the country of origin, they say nothing?
I read an article, I think with a LV buyer (but good luck finding it on the new website) talking about country of origin on products. They talked through a couple examples where the truth gets weird and with distributors etc in the "chain of custody" they couldn't tell with any certainty where the products were actually built. They also mentioned being offered products that clearly had forged country of origin on the labels. (E.g. "Made in Canada" on products from Chinese factories.) They avoid the forgeries and, when the product offers good value, don't state the country of origin for products for which they don't control the entire supply chain.
Don't know...
John in NM
But try this rationale (I'm sure there are others, this is just the first that occurs to me).
If the product is something where I have a choice, I will often choose US or Canadian made, or Japanese, or European - anywhere that manufactures as John Foster outlined in his response - I thought that was well put.
If there is no choice then I don't much care where it was made if its something I need.
So perhaps the customer who selects first world products by default has enough info for their choice, the customer who selects based on price won't care regardless and wouldn't be pushed to select the more expensive product if the cheaper one is labeled "made in China" (or wherever). So labeling something "made in China" is pointless in ad copy.
+1
Well put John!
Balderdash
Maybe...
John in NM
and maybe its you
Big question - why does this matter so much? It only seems to bother you.
Don't like it? Well, that's easy, take your purchases elsewhere.
Don't like hearing how great LV is in spite of the fact that they don't label those items manufactured in China? Too bad, you're going to have a very hard time finding a woodworking forum where you don't hear from LV's satisfied customers.