Sears Sells Craftsman Brand, Will Close 150 Stores

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: The Wall Street Journal.

Sears Sells Craftsman Brand, Will Close 150 Stores

The cash-strapped retailer will sell its iconic Craftsman brand to Stanley for about $900 million

By Anne Steele

[e-mail]
@AnneMarieSteele
http://twitter.com/AnneMarieSteele

Updated Jan. 5, 2017 9:48 a.m. ET

Sears Holdings Corp. said it would close another 150 stores and sell its Craftsman tool brand for $900 million, as the cash-strapped retailer continues to shrink and battle slumping sales.

Sears is flipping the Craftsman brand to Stanley Black & Decker Inc., and it will license back the ability to sell Craftsman-branded products royalty-free for 15 years after the deals closing. The acquisition gives Stanley the rights to develop, manufacture and sell Craftsman-branded products outside of Sears. ... Today just 10% of Craftsman-branded products are sold outside of Sears. Stanley Black & Decker said the deal will help boost Craftsman sales in untapped channels
....

A Sears spokesman confirmed the unlimited lifetime warranty on Craftsman hand tools made in the U.S.a hallmark of the brand for generationswill be kept in place.

On Wednesday, Sears announced sweeping closures of 150* of its namesake and Kmart storeswhich it called a difficult but necessary step as we take actions to strengthen the companys operations and fund its transformation.

* http://graphics.wsj.com/table/SEARS_0117

Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/sears-sells-craftsman-brand-to-stanley-black-decker-1483623215

---

There's a list of the stores that are closing at the end of the article.

I think some Craftsman tools are already being made in the same country where Hello Twitty has his branded clothes made. At least, the ones I saw at an ACE Hardware came from China.

Tough times ahead. Better get used to it.

The good times are over.

[Orrex]

1. Ayn Rand must be so proud.

[NWCorona]

3. Yup! The selfish CEO took all the money out of sears and into their pockets

[pscot]

10. Smart

[El Mimbreno]

95. Consider this:

Dump one $10 million executive and hire 200 workers at $50k to actually build products here in the US. What a concept! OK, I'm dreaming.

[NWCorona]

2. You beat me to it.

I knew this was gonna happen when they sold the flagship SODO store in Seattle to Starbucks.

[Sherman A1]

4. Sad,

simply sad.

[global1]

6. So What Will Trump Do To Save Sears And All Those Jobs....

for the people that work in those 150 stores?

[KatyMan]

38. This will be Obama's fault I'm sure

[napi21]

102. Unfortunately, as much as I detest the Con, this is a different situation. The Co.s who

are profitable and merely moving ops to another country to get cheap labor and make MORE $$ for their CEO's pocket. Those can be prodded into staying in the US. Sears/Kmart and Macys (all three were listed in the announcement) are losing a lot of $$ and they have no alternative but to close some of the most unprofitable stores to stop the bleeding and TRY to make the existing ones profitable again. Unless they make some BIG CHANGES in their operations they won't exist at all a few years from now.

[BeyondGeography]

5. Add Macy's and you've got a lot of big empty spaces

in a lot of places. On top of a lot of other big empty spaces, i.e. book and electronic big boxes, old Wal-Marts that were traded in for supercenters down the road, etc.

[NWCorona]

7. Barnes and Noble along with Limited can be added as well

[exboyfil]

8. Well our KMart is closing

My wife shops there instead of Wal-Mart because of less crowds. The loyalty program paid for 70% of our new refrigerator from Sears. I think she will be bummed.

[Blanks]

11. Didn't Kmart buy Sears?

[exboyfil]

13. Yes.

I might not have been clear. KMart and Sears have a joint loyalty program. We usually only buy appliances at Sears (we had a washer and dryer that lasted forever from them through three moves).

[randr]

9. Oh the irony

A new model of purchasing has emerged and is taking down the one dependent on fossil fuels.
Ironic that Sears started off with a revolution of their own in marketing; the famous Sears Catalogue allowed people all over the country to shop from home.
Too bad they could not see the similarities as the on line shopping world opened up. They were actually in a position to capitalize having been the originators of the "home shopping revolution".

[Hoyt]

15. Good point. Sears' Catalog was an important reference book back in the day, and of course

had many other uses.



http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc303557/small/

[randr]

18. You are right. They were the butt of many jokes over the years.

So to speak.

[TonyPDX]

25. They were held close.

[Blanks]

17. They sold house kits too...

If you go anywhere in the country you'll notice that housing styles are practically identical in areas where houses were built during a certain time frame, north to south, urban and rural. It's because whole house kits were ordered from Sears.

I was intrigued when I first started noticing this, in the days before we were connected even by television, communities had a kind of connection, Sears catalog ordered houses.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Catalog_Home

[randr]

57. I have worked on and remodeled Sears homes

They were very well built, up to today's structural standards at least.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

60. My grandparents threw one of those up when they arrived in California

It was still there till it burned down about ten years ago. My mother found it very disorienting as a child to see the same house everywhere.

[Crash2Parties]

100. Our first home was one. Amazingly well built, if simple.

Even the wood used for framing was beautiful compared to what is sold today.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

23. "A new model of purchasing has emerged and is taking down the one dependent on fossil fuels."

So how does stuff get from the Amazon warehouse to your house?

Hint: probably the same way the Craftsman tools I was buying 40 years ago got from the Sears warehouse to the local Sears store, where I would stop to pick them up on the way home from work, often on foot.

[randr]

56. Big difference between all of us driving and parking

on asphalt covered acreages to pick up an item or two and a fuel efficient truck making delivery rounds. Add in the costs and pollution of keeping millions of showrooms piled with goods warm for shoppers to walk around.

[yellowcanine]

27. Exactly. Sears could compete with Amazon with the right kind of management.

It would be ironic indeed if Amazon were to buy some of the Sears retail stores.

[LeftyMom]

45. Internet purchases are delivered in a fossil fuel dependent process.

[BumRushDaShow]

50. Unless they decide to deploy solar-powered delivery drones

Yes you may do this to me -->

[christx30]

78. I'd love to see the solar powered

delivery drone that can deliver a refrigerator. That hulking beast should be deployed in warzones.

[BumRushDaShow]

80. Unless you are delivering one of these

and you might have room for the other appliances in the kitchen too including stove and microwave!

[randr]

58. When you figure out how to deliver anything anywhere without useing power of some kind let me know

I will invest and we both will be rich.

[Skittles]

53. how is the new model not dependent on fossil fuels?

[randr]

62. Where to start???

Manufactured goods housed in low temp warehouses instead of spread all over the country to heated showrooms?
Millions of acres of heated showrooms and the infrastructure of paved parking lots?
Thousands of car trips to and from instead of a more efficient delivery system?

[Skittles]

68. so it is less dependent

but trucks still deliver Amazon packages

[randr]

69. The fleet of UPS and USPS trucks are some of the most efficient in the world

The only thing that would be more efficient would be personal intelligent printers that could manufacture everything we need from our own waste.
Or the drone delivery systems coming to a neighborhood nearby very soon.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

55. Huh?

I think a lot of kerosene and diesel is burned getting people's Amazon purchases to their door.

[Girard442]

12. Every time I've gone to Sears in the past few years...

... I left swearing I'd never go back. I'm not one of those people with a bug up his butt about mediocre service, but when it's bad bad BAD, even people like me get pissed.

[SoCalDem]

104. The sears near us is EMPTY

even at Xmas time(:

[RussBLib]

14. can we blame Trump?

He wants to take credit when jobs are created. He should get the blame when jobs are cut.

[coco22]

16. Trump to the rescue!

[yellowcanine]

19. Sears was doing okay until Crazy Eddy Lampert started the stock buybacks and

running Sears stores like street bazaars where departments within individual stores were competing with each other.

[TexasBushwhacker]

61. Yup. Yet another company killed by a hedge fund

While he's closing all these stores, he's loading the company up with more debt.

[turbinetree]

20. Where is the "make a america great guy" on this issue?

Isn't he going to save these and thousands of other there jobs?

This hedge fund jerk CEO is going to walk away with millions----------------amazing

[SoCalNative]

39. Well..you know he won't do a thing about Macy's

since they canned him.

[jmowreader]

85. Probably waiting till Lampert finishes running the company into the ground...

...because as far as I know Trump is still short an OMB guy.

[turbinetree]

86. These closing are an indicator of future spending

Now Craftsman will rent the space in the sears stores, just like Lands End does now and then eventually they will move out.

Hedge Funds----------------suck

[El Mimbreno]

21. Made in China

Yeah, power tools and some wrench sets are made in that big industrial city, Fu King, China.

[Mosby]

44. almost all power tools are made in China, regardless of the brand

same with the ratcheting wrenches.

Stanley will take care of Craftsman, they also own Proto.

[dixiegrrrrl]

91. the thing to do now is buy the old Craftsman tools when you find them.

Lots of people are selling what they call "vintage" items, meaning before 1990, on E-Bay and Etsy and other similar sites.
This is where to get the original Pyrex and other kitchen items that are built well and long lasting.
also sheets, towels, etc of real thick cotton, to avoid today's tissue thin dry goods.
Tools are still easy to find.

[El Mimbreno]

94. Absolutely

As long as you can still get parts. I have "vintage" machines in my woodshop and US made Revere Ware in our kitchen. And a Japanese-made Makita circular saw that I've beat up for almost 30 years. Just put a couple of parts on it and it's just like new.

[Zoonart]

22. Bricks and mortar retail....

is all on a banana peel; floating warehouses, don't cha know. What happens to business that has all been moved online when the grid goes down?

[ramapo]

24. Why go to a store?

We shop almost exclusively online with the exception of groceries.

I love books and our trips to Barnes & Noble are warmly remembered. But my Kindle is a more than satisfactory replacement.

That's progress. Never mind the disappeared manufacturing jobs. Retail jobs will become fewer and fewer.

[woodsprite]

40. My BIL works for Amazon and was singing the praises of their upcoming

"cashier-less" store model with smart carts. You take things off the shelves, it adds it to your cart. You put things back, it deducts it from your total, you walk out the door, it charges your credit card.

I'm like what about the jobs it'll do away with - you guys are conservatives and should be concerned about that. Nope! What both BIL and SIL said are "Most cashiers are horrible people, who get snitty with patrons and make nothing more than mistakes. To that, I say 'Good riddence.'"

It truly is a miracle that I made it through Christmas at the in-laws without decking anyone.

[Johnathan146]

52. Thats not new

When I go to kroger I pickup a scan gun, scan each item as I bag it, then swipe my credit card and walk out. Its a really nice system.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

63. Have you been to the area in Seattle where they're building that thing?

I am pretty sure the local vagrants are going to very effectively "disrupt" that business model.

[crazycatlady]

42. Some things I'd rather buy in person

I just had to return a xmas present that I bought on Amazon and I actually had to PAY to return the item (no Amazon lockers in my county to drop items in). If I bought it online from a Big Box website, I would have been able to return it at a store. (It had to pay to print the shipping label at the library and then for postage to mail the item back. Luckily I saved the mailer it shipped in and was able to reuse it instead of buying a new one). The printerless options were at least $6 to return a $20 item. (I paid $3.50 for printing and shipping-- I don't have a printer).

I'm an Amazon Prime customer and buy a lot off of Amazon but now their return policy makes me think twice before buying an item that I'm not 100% sure on.

I also tend to buy my clothes in person. The quality of fabrics used to make clothes has gone downhill and I want to feel something (and maybe try it on) before buying it. Only exception is if I'm replacing a similar item (same brand, etc) and I know the quality/fit/feel of it. Shoes are the same way (I know Zappos has free shipping both ways, but they're out of my budget). I have hard to fit feet and need to try shoes on before buying them.

[woodsprite]

88. I had to return something, but I called Amazon and they emailed me a return shipping label

and covered the cost of the return. I received the replacement product the day after I shipped it back (pair of work boots). It was definitely a packing error - wrong size. I was amazed how easy it was.

[crazycatlady]

89. I should have done the same thing

[Initech]

26. Trump will find a way to keep 1/2 the stores and take credit for it.

[TonyPDX]

28. I'm sorry for the loss of retail jobs that will result from this,

but I believed this would happen about thirty years ago.

[liberal N proud]

29. Is Donnie the Orange Con going to take credit for this?

Your fired!

[Elmergantry]

30. one thing i cant do online is buy clothes

Got to be sure it fits. One brands xl not the same as another.

[Paladin]

31. Let's see "The Art Of The Deal" save those Sears jobs.

Don't hold your breath, waiting for that to happen.....

[INdemo]

32. The Sears Essentials merger change about 15 years ago

whenthey bought Kmart was their downfall....I actually worked for contractors that organized and set up a couple of those stores (Sears Essentials)
and I mentioned to a Sears Rep that "this Sears Essentials thing will never work"..I lost that job because of that comment and a short time later I saw the two stores close that were the Sears Essentials brand.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

67. I was offered a job working on that mess

They just about hung up on me and I listed off the failed discount stores in California in my lifetime. The really dumb idea was taking on the former Wal-Mart locations... if Wal-Mart closed them they were either terrible locations or there is a brand new Super Center nearby. The one I would have worked on was in a relatively affluent area right next to a Costco.

[sharp_stick]

33. It's a shame

It used to be such a good department store and the Craftsman brand was top notch.

[LeftInTX]

82. I know.

My hubby and dad bought Craftsman. We've got a Craftsmsn electric mower, which I love. Has more power than our previous Black and Deckers which couldn't handle our heavy duty mulching.

[dembotoz]

34. last year i got an absurdly good deal on a washer on line from sears

my very old one died and i was researching a new one. a dear friend ALWAYS bought her appliances at sears for more for as giggle i gave them a look.

hit the sales chat thing and got someone....told him i wanted cheap but good and i was not opposed to clearance.....

he found a wonderful machine at a wonderful price and i snatched it up....

being worried i might have been taken....too good to be true? i looked further into the machine i bought...and damn i really did get a wonderful wonderful deal....

now i understand why sue bought all the appliances there

[bucolic_frolic]

35. Monopolies

Brands are just merging all the time.

YKK makes 90% of all zippers.

Time was you had your choice of underwear: Fruit of the Loom, Hanes,
Jockey. For women: Bali, Playtex, Maidenform. All the same company if
I'm not mistaken.

Chainsaws: Poulan, McCulloch, Jonsered. Now all owned by the former
Swedish conglomerate Husqvarna that was sold off, bought out, sold again,
and went independent if I'm remembering articles correctly.

I might also explain extended warranties. My Kenmore washer controller failed
after 5 years of light use. Didn't buy an extended warranty. No matter, replaced
the controller myself. The new part was redesigned with stronger contact points,
perhaps even plated, a better chassis. So I'm thinking in order to keep the price
down they put inferior parts in the new items, then sell or punish you for an extended
warranty or a new and better part. They got you either way. You're really stuck
if you have to pay a repairman. My controller was $93. Installed would have added
at least $100 to the repair. Almost cheaper to .... buy a new one and start the cycle
again.

[crazycatlady]

43. Women have more choice in underwear

The brands you mentioned are the mainstream brands sold in any given department store. Stores also have their own brands and then there's the specialty stores (Victoria's Secret, etc).

I know Hanes makes several brands, but as far as I know, they don't make VS items.

[bucolic_frolic]

46. Wikipedia is usually a good source

for checking out conglomerates, some of which as you point out,
manufacture for other companies though they don't own the brands

China will manufacture anything and everything

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

70. L Brands (Victoria's Secret et al) doesn't manufacture anything

They shop their garment designs to about a dozen different manufactures, ask for samples and ask for prices.

[Xolodno]

36. They are slitting their own throat.

That's like Disney selling off its most important characters for a quick cash infusion. They would have been better off negotiating with auto and home improvement chains to sell their products in their stores. Closing stores causes loss to access of your flagship products and selling them off gives people even less of a reason to visit them. I'm not a CEO, but this simple analyst can see just how stupid of a move this is.

The drop in sales at your brick and mortar stores is one part due to online shopping (which they didn't take advantage of) and the other dark and gloomy reason no one likes to mention. A shrinking middle class and less disposable income.

Malls have replaced some of their big box stores with Wal-Mart's and Targets, which is indicative of an area that has seen a shrinkage of the middle class. However, in the same exact mall, you still have the high end big box stores, that sell expensive make up, designer clothing, etc., indicating the upper class is doing quite well.

Of course, it doesn't help that they created a cut throat culture inside Sears that turns off customers and they didn't clean up the K-Mart brand and replace the Sears stores with them which were obviously going into the toilet due to economics.

I'm guessing they got greedy, Sears stores probably have a higher profit margin than K-mart so they kept pushing those stores without the realization, the local economy can no longer support them.

[Nay]

41. Correction: The CEO is slitting Sears' throat so he can get a big chunk of

that $900 million. Think Chainsaw Al and Chainsaw Mitt. This is what Romney did for a living.

[Berlin Vet]

37. Even the first

On then list is the K-Mart in Garden City Michigan. This was the very first K-Mart to open back in (I think) 1962. My family lived in Garden City for a few years and K-Mart was the place to go. I was back there in 2015 and went to visit the store and I felt like a ghost. I was remembering how the store looked like when I was young and I could see it again. The store had one little area that had some pictures of the newspaper story about the grand opening of the store. Management had no interest in promoting the fact that this was the very first K-Mart to open. Sad. Used to love their Submarine sandwiches, and to my surprise that store still sold them. I bought one and man was it terrible. I guess I just remember them tasting better.

[ucrdem]

47. You can never go back

but sometimes you can. I had a déjà vu moment in the games section of a local Target when I realized that the toy department of the White Front it had formerly been was in the same place when we'd passed through eons ago to buy August birthday presents for a brother.

Same toys too!

[BumRushDaShow]

48. Grew up with Sears

Still have my parents' Craftsman tools around and had various Kenmore appliances over the years. My parents even had Sears re-do their kitchen back in '72 (and they cursed it for years after...lol).

They closed the landmark store here in Philly in 1993 and imploded it in1994 (I actually still have my own tape of that implosion too)-

http://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2014/08/philadelphias-sears-tower/

True Fluffians used the iconic building to determine when they had reached "The Great Northeast" (as in NE Philly) when heading that way "up the boulevard" (Roosevelt Blvd which is also Rt. 1). I believe they eventually built a Home Depot on the land (haven't been over that way in years and years). This was our "Sears Tower" (although I have been in Chicago's Sears Tower now renamed to Willis).

[virgogal]

71. I HATE seeing great old buildings like that destroyed.

The replacements are usually dreadful.

[BumRushDaShow]

77. Well Independence Hall is still here

although over the centuries, they had considered leveling that too. They did pretty much get rid of the old 19th century buildings that had been built around it to clear the way for "Independence Mall" (for the bicentennial).

Before (when Lincoln was President-elect and was in this shot somewhere in 1861) -



and in the 1950s -



and now -

[Ace Rothstein]

49. I'm going to guess they sell off their appliance brands in the next 5 years.

When that happens it will truly be the end of Sears.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

72. I don't think the Kenmore brand is worth that much

And Kenmore itself doesn't actually make anything, Haier might have been interested but they got the whole GE appliance business which is a stronger US brand in the first place.

[jmowreader]

87. Kenmore is a very easy brand to own

It has ALWAYS been relabeled major-brand appliances. I don't know what it is now, but when I was a kid it was all Whirlpool - and Whirlpool was always a very good brand.

[The Wizard]

51. The age of retail is over

Internet sales are the present and the foreseeable future.

[Berlin Vet]

90. For Some Things

I agree with you to a point. Buying books from Amazon ushered in the demise of Borders and will probably put Barnes and Noble into the grave as well. But buying a washing machine, furniture and other heavy, bulky items online will kill you on shipping.
We have lost our manufacturing base and the jobs associated with it and now retail is going under with the closing of Sears, K-mart, and Macy's (and probably more to come). What jobs are being created to replace them? I'm not very optimistic for the future.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

54. I'm surprised the South Coast Plaza location isn't on the list

Sears is making a fortune leasing space to Forever 21, ‎Segerstrom would probably pay in the hundreds of millions for them to go away.

[pstokely]

73. does sears own their space at that mall?

or do they have some kind of long term lease?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

74. They own it.

http://newsroom.forever21.com/releases/sears-holdings-signs-lease-agreement-with-forever-21-xxi-forever-at-south-coast-plaza

At the Sears owned property at South Coast Plaza, XXI Forever will lease a small portion of the upper level and provide its own escalators and elevator into its lower level space. There will be an XXI Forever entrance facing Bristol Street, and a dedicated entry into the center on the lower level. The store is expected to open in the spring of 2011.

Sears owns (or owned) a lot of their mall locations in the US and Canada.

[pstokely]

76. they'll probably sell those also

they seem to be scrapping Sears for parts

[Throd 2.0]

96. Why?

[Blue_Tires]

59. Damn... I did make it a point to support my local Sears when I could

But deep down I guess we all knew this was coming

[Sunlei]

64. If back in the "old days" of computers, Sears put online that catalog, we'd be shopping them instead

of Amazon.

[lunasun]

65. Thanks for the table link . My free wsj time was up so the main story was na

The table came through and although we have many in the area no cuts seen. Craftsman is a brand of 20th century America history . Trusted tools. Popular Mechanics all that . I have some old ones and never had to seek replacement even if I could.msome came from work and others from garage sales. They were older but always a good brand to look for

Yes some items under the craftsman names have been made in china for quite awhile.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

66. Try going in through Google News. I hear regular Google works too. NT

[lunasun]

84. Ok thanks

[hunter]

75. I've got quite a few Craftsman made-in-USA tools...

... hand-me-downs and tools I've found in thrift stores or garage sales.

Unfortunately Craftsman started drifting toward the Harbor Freight model of "Lifetime Guarantee," which is "sure a certain number of tools will break, but they're so cheap we'll happily replace them. But we know you won't."

A craftsman can only tolerate a certain number of bruised knuckles when a socket or wrench breaks, or power tools that fail when you need them most. (My most recent experience was an inverter that spontaneously went BANG! and released the magic blue smoke. It wasn't doing anything strenuous, just charging my brother-in-law's phone.)

It's not all crap, however. Many Craftsman tools are still good, and so is some of the stuff you find at Harbor Freight. (There's also a large hacker society that turns certain inexpensive Chinese tools into much better tools by reworking or upgrading whatever parts makes them crap.)

As Mosby said above, Stanley will probably take better care of the brand than Sears was.

[shenmue]

79. I like department stores

[madaboutharry]

81. Someone should make a documentary

about Sears, starting at the beginning when it was Sears Roebuck up to now and the circling of the drain.

It would be facinanting story.

[LeftInTX]

83. I saw a documentary about Sears on the Biography Channel

The high power radio station, WLS, stands for World's Largest Store

[geek tragedy]

92. Answer: zero

Question: what is the number of struggling retail department stores that have managed to survive in the age of Amazon?

[Adrahil]

93. The Ayn Rand acolyte running the company...

Seems just about finished with ruining it.

[jgmiller]

97. While I agree the current CEO is not good

The problems at Sears predate him more than 20 years. Sears has managed to miss every significant retail development since the mid-90's and has reacted to each only after losing more revenue. The current CEO has only been on the job for 3 years and frankly it's amazing he's kept it out of bankruptcy this long so in that regard he's actually doing a good job. It's very sad to think of Sear's disappearing from the world for nostalgic reasons but honestly it just needs to go away and so does KMart.

Walmart killed KMart and the only reason it's still kicking is that a previous regime at Sears thought somehow buying KMart would fix them. If Sears went away nobody would notice, if KMart went away Walmart would gain revenue and a longer reprieve to fix what is wrong with them.

[Raine]

98. Very sad. My father worked for Sears after he got out of the Army, Sears was the only

place that gave him a chance and hired him. Always been a loyal Sears shopper after the opportunity they gave my father when no other business would.

[X_Digger]

99. Craftsman tools have been going downhill for 20 years.

I have a set of wrenches my father bought in the late 60's. If I had kids, I'd be handing them down. Sadly today's wrenches are crap.

[MFM008]

101. I am sad to see this happen.

Both my parents worked at K mart- my mom 20 years.
We made so many trips to Sears when I was growing up.

[TomJulie]

103. Very Sad Indeed...

I have a lot of Craftsman tools. A few years ago I bought a bigh collection at a garage sale. Some have to be over 30 years old. Still work like a Craftsman should.

My very first weedeater was a Craftsman. That thing ran perfect for 6 or 7 years.

My 1st lawn mower was a Craftsman. A 18HP 42inch cut. That was not a dependable mower. At the start of almost every spring, Sears had send their guy out to do something to get it running and ready for the mowing season. I sold it after a few years and bought a Deere. I haven't had any maintenance done other that what I do - blades, oil & filter change, tune-up, grease the fittings etc - since I've owned it.