Back in 2011, nearly 13 years ago, Sears launched a new Craftsman V4 cordless power tool system of compact cordless tools and accessories.
I posted about it at the time, here – Craftsman V4 4-Volt Cordless Tools.
There were 6 Craftsman 4V Max battery-powered tools and accessories, 2 combo kit packages, and spare DieHard batteries were sold separately.
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The line consisted of a cordless screwdriver, shears, rotary tool, flashlight, soldering iron, and earmuffs.
Sears’ Craftsman V4 cordless system wasn’t revolutionary, as Home Depot already had a mature line of Ryobi Tek4 tools and gadgets of a similar nature. Yes, there was a time when Ryobi had a multimeter, digital camera, and other neat gadgets.
Still, the Craftsman V4 tool system was interesting and full of potential.
The line launched at Sears in October 2011, and went on clearance less than 2 months later. By mid-December Sears slashed the prices by 50% and then 75%.
Sears swept out the entire Craftsman V4 cordless system as suddenly and quietly as they launched it.
Was that the plan all along? Were sales far poorer than expected? Was there a behind-the-scenes conflict of some kind?
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It wasn’t uncommon for Sears and other retailers to launch seasonal tools. But an entire cordless power tool system with interchangeable battery? That kind of product system typically has a much longer lifecycle than just 2 months.
Sears never explained what happened, other than to confirm that the Craftsman V4 system had been discontinued.
The sudden launch and cancellation of Sears’ Craftsman V4 cordless power tool system remains a mystery. To this day I still wonder what had happened.
Jared
That does seem weird. Even if sales were bad, I assume they’d have to be MISERABLE to merit cancelling a new battery system after two months.
Dennis
I have these. I bought them way back when (2011 seems reasonable). They were ridiculously discounted. I in fact remember giving them out as cheap stocking stuffers to friends. Now mine are in a box somewhere because I have a hard time throwing away tools.
The shears were particularly useful for opening clam shell packaging . And the drill driver was also useful for teaching kids how to use power tools.
As I understand it, these were a re-brand of the Ryobi line. Same batteries, different color scheme. Sadly when Ryobi updated their 4v battery system to be USB chargeable, the new batteries aren’t backwards compatible…
scott
I hated the update on 4V. They should have made them compatible like they do with the rest of Ryobi stuff. The shears work great to cut cheap Christmas paper to wrap gifts.
Stuart
Ryobi Tek4 vs USB Lithium? There was like a 10 year gap between when Tek4 was discontinued and USB Lithium launched.
Adam
I’m quite certain that while snug, you can cram the new Ryobi USB batteries in original 4v line.
I still have original batteries still ticking from those tools. Scissors are used all the time, and I pick up the screwdriver for any light work & really don’t want power. I even used the soldering iron the other week.
Later on picked up the Ryobi screwdriver & see snake cam, mainly for some fresh batteries.
TomD
Did ANY of the 4v systems survive? I believe everyone had some dabbling in the area at the time, but they’re almost all gone.
https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/2101-21 exists for example but I’ve only ever seen it in factories.
Jason M
99% sure TTi was the OEM for the Craftsman as well. They made a good chunk of their cordless
Stuart
Sears Craftsman cordless seemed split between TTI (Ryobi) and Chervon (Skil, Flex).
Chervon made the Nextec, and some of the C3 19.2V, and I believe TTI made some of the other C3 19.2V.
Bosch made some of Sears’ Craftsman routers, and Dremel (Bosch) made their rotary tools and accessories.
Mark W
I believe Craftsmen 20v Bolt-on line that was a rebranded version of Black and Deckers Matrix tools – I know I had a few Bolt-on branded attachments to use with a B&D Matrix drill.
Robert A. Kinzel
Only problem here with interoperability is while either battery works in either one, the batteries must be charged only on the same brand charger.
Justin T
I didn’t run into a problem with mixing B&D batteries on my Craftsman V20 charger. Maybe it’s just the 20V Max system that is incompatible.
fred
If you Google “Sears Craftsman OEM List” you should find many citations about many of the companies that supplied Sears over the years, Some of Sears part numbers (like 9-xxxx, or 27-xxxx) might be uniquely associated with a single OEM – but I suspect that Sears may have shopped around quite a bit, In any event, I’ve read some of those articles in the past and they make interesting reading
Goodie
It really speaks to the power of Sears market share (and erosion of it) when you look at how their suppliers grew into brands today. TTI acquired Milwaukee and AEG back in 2004. At that time, Milwaukke was rather moribund and mostly known for their Sawzall. Nobody knew who Chervon was 15 years ago. Sears collapse allowed their suppliers to build their brands. A family member has a Craftsman router I like, I wonder if it was built by Bosch.
fred
I have an old Craftsman Commercial router – that I think was built by Wen in the USA in the 1980’s
JR Ramos
Not so relevant for me anymore, but I was able to procure one of their little black pocket books that listed who and where every item was made (nearly every item). Sears salesman pulled it out of his pocket one day and it was an amazing secret little book. He retired a year or so later and gave it to me. I was still young and aware that some Craftsman items were being sourced overseas at that point (plier sets at least) but up until then I had no idea that Craftsman didn’t actually manufacture everything, and then just how darn many manufacturers they worked with! Still seems kind of weird that they have disappeared.
Goodie
They only disappeared to Eddie Lampert gutting the company.
Farkleberry
The clean lines, lack of over mold and color scheme remind me of a cartoon ray gun.
White seems like a pretentious and impractical color for many items – tools, couches, shoes, etc.
Sorry Hart.
DanFromMass
The Craftsman headphones in the picture are identical to the Ryobi heaphones in the other picture.
Must have been made by TTI.
mizzourob
One other mystery…. When Milwaukee launched M12 there was a picture of a digital camera shown at the time. As far as I know that camera was only shown once and was never produced. That would have been an awesome tool and something that I don’t think is too late for them to bring out, esp. if it has thermal capabilities and a built in laser distance measuring tool.
Michael G
Stuart, Tekton just added a host of discontinued USA made screwdrivers to their outlet store. Great prices on USA made tools.
https://www.tekton.com/outlet?outlet-recently-added=last-30-days
JR Ramos
Aw mannn….they’ve discontinued that little emergency tech repair kit…4mm bit driver set. Those are outstanding and the driver handle is just excellent. I’ve recommended them to a lot of people over the years and all in all it’s a better deal than any of the iFixit kits and the bits are stronger. I think I got mine for $18 years ago so the closeout deal of $26 doesn’t seem great, but it’s a great kit, underappreciated. The extended bits included plus that handle made it a winner for utility use.
FatStoge
Sears/Craftsman commonly rebranded tools and gadgets as their own and released a limited amount to test the market. Also alot of “As Seen on TV” tools with Craftsman branding. I worked for Weber Grills at the time and we had released a limited amount of Sears/Craftsman grills that were briefly released for barely a summer.
Neighbor Joe
Sears knew they were in financial trouble. Sears lost 10.4 billion from 2011-2016 and filed chapter 11 in 2018. Stock price slid down to near 50 cents/share. I suspect the Craftsman division simply cut back on investing in new gadgets. No mystery.
CMF
Around the 70’s to 90’s, the salespeople told me that many of the power tools were made by Emerson. I don’t know if the still make power tools, got sucked up by another conglomerate or went bankrupt.
The Ryobi TEK I stayed away from, then…the were on really cheap liquidation and I picked 6-7 tools and batteries. The batteries still work, but I do not use then often enough.
I vaguely remember seeing these Craftsman 4v. Definitely something weird about a product being on the market for 2 months, then liquidated. Probably an interesting story behind this.
CMF
Talking of sliding stocks, ToughBuilt started the day around $5.50 and had hovered close to $7 last week before the Nasdaq Friday drop. Today they are closing in the $2.20 range.
Too bad, they had been doing alright stock wise.
Dave
Purchased around 5 of the screwdriver and flashlight kits when Sears had them on clearance! Gave them away over the years but I still have 2 of the screwdrivers I use frequently and the original batteries still working. Wife loves the flashlight and even though it is dated in lumens output she will not trade it out for something newer! I do have a couple of Ryobi Tek4 batteries I use in the Craftsman also!
Levi
They look like toys.
I also like the misprint where it says the second tool is a flashlight that “effortlessly cuts through a variety of materials.”
ColeTrain
Dude… flashbacks
Reggie
I don’t think there is any sort of mystery here. This line would have taken at least a couple years, probably. And that is right when Sears went from profitable to not. From 2011 on they were losing billions of dollars. That is right when they started to sell off brands in an effort to stay afloat.
This was likely just a cut in the name of trying to stay profitable.
Reggie
That is, it would have taken a couple years of development to launch. So right in the window they were going from making money to losing money.
Josiah
I was an intern at TTI in Anderson, SC where these were designed and worked on. I actually did the schematic and worked on the V4 soldering iron. They were based on the Ryobi Tek4, in fact the same engineers designed both systems and all our engineering models used the Tek4 batteries. They didn’t switch to using V4 batteries to until late in the process when they decided how they were going to key the V4 batteries so they wouldn’t be interchangeable between the two systems.