[clancy_boy]

About three years after Hurricane Andrew hit the southern Florida area, I pulled into Ft Lauderdale on a ship. Made a run to the local store one morning with my crew and while they shopped I went into a pawn shop. This place was packed from wall to wall with tools. The guy was a dead beat and really had a attitude. Well long story short he told me to load up and he would price the stuff (all Craftsman hand tools - sockets, ratchets, wrenches, etc) CHEAP. In the end, I could hardly walk out with the loot. 1/2 inch drive sockets 50 cents each, deep sockets 50 cents, wrenches $1, ratchets $2.50, and so on. He even let me have 12 cracked and chipped sockets free - "get em' outta here". He knew what they were he was just over loaded with the stuff. Seems that the fly-by-nights and other construction crews sell their tools for a song, and pawn them off for gas money. I replaced the cracked stuff at Sears which were valued for far more than I spent. Now waiting for that to happen here after Katrina - the swap meets are full of tools that people looted from destroyed homes - the law is there every weekend looking for id marks on stuff.