I have been an avid WW since I was 10 years old. When I graduated college I bought a 1970s Unisaw with a first production year Biesemeyer fence. Great saw. I think I paid $1400 for it with a 1HP router and a few bar clamps. When I graduated with my MBA in 1990 my wife bought me a bunch of new Powermatic tools, PM66 saw, PM100 12" planer, 8" jointer, model 141 bandsaw and a PM26 shaper. I bought them all from Tool Crib of the North before the internet. Negotiated a great deal and my memory is as follows.
3HP PM66 with Bies fence $1700
3HP Model 26 $1500
PM100 $2700
Model 41 $1400
forgot on the jointer.
One dollar in 1990 is the equivalent of $1.91 today. So those prices today would be almost double.
At the time I thought I was buying made in the USA tools. When they arrived I was pretty disappointed to learn that only the tablesaw was made in the USA. Some had made in Taiwan labels and some had made in the USA labels but clearly lots of parts were made in ASIA as most of the fasteners were weird bastards in that the threads were metric and the heads were imperial.
The jointer and bandsaw were solid, no real issues but pretty rough from a finishing perspective. The saw was great and nicely finished.
The planer pressure bar was not machined flat. Powermatic in Tennessee sent me 3 replacements, all machined incorrectly exactly the same. I finally took one to get ground locally. Then I found that the chip breaker sat crooked. It turned out that that part was also machine incorrectly as were the 3 replacements. I ended up fixing that myself. Why not send it back? At the time Powermatic was super customer oriented and each time I called they were super embarrassed. They even air freighted one of the parts. Turns out that if they replaced the machine I think the replacement would have had the same issue. That machine had been moved 100% offshore for manufacturing and Powermatic hadn't figured out how to ensure quality.
Now who would pay over $5000 for a 12" planer today? Crazy. The move of manufacturing has forced all makers to up that game. The only one of those tools I still have is the planer and that's because it's one of the best 12" planers and in my current shop I don't have room for a 24" planer.
It's pretty amazing how the pressure of asian suppliers has driven the real cost of tools down. Even Euro tools are a better value today than back in the 80s. I have a 1975 12" Rockwell jointer that was made by SCMI for Rockwell. It sold new in 1975 for like $7000. That would be nearly $20K today, for a 12" Euro jointer. Great jointer but not $20K in today dollars.
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