Check out my tools. They are in superb shape and get used often. None of my pipe wrenches are newer than 100 years old (Trimco wrenches were and still are among the best) yet they are clean and undamaged. My Williams socket wrenches are always cleaned before I put them back. I don't treat them as consumables. Unlike a car, which is expected to wear out, my tools should out last me if I properly care for them. They don't get left out in the rain. They do get cleaned before being put away - and many of them are unchromed.
I've always wondered about those who talk about their being tools and then brag about abuse. I believe in owning quality tools and firearms. I also believe in taking care of them. That is why my 70 year old Savage 720, which has killed ducks and rabbits, still looks good, ditto for my 40 year old Western Field 550 pump shotgun, 70 year old bolt action Mossberg .410, or 30 year old Pedersen 3500 rifle.
My forestry tools have more wear, but they should when they get dragged through mud, dirt, briars, and the like. Even so, their mechanics are spot-on. My compass and increment bores look almost new, still, because they are protected in my vest when I cruise timber.
Some finish wear is to be expected, of course, but "tool" seems to be code for "trash" for some guys. Just today, a guy at the Natchez gun show was bragging about a Glock attached to a truck bumper firing like it was new, kept calling it a tool. He wasn't rude or arrogant or anything like that, wasn't some arm chair commando type, but what he described is not how I was taught to care for a tool.
My grandfather, at 80 years old, rebuilt his Ford Tractor - at the time some 60 years old itself. His pride lay in the fact that even though he had used it for decades, the cylinder walls still looked clean. He took tremendous pride in his tools lasting - but then, his generation saw tools as a once-in-a-life-time purchase. You bought a wrench and took care of it. He did, I have some of his tools. Heck, I have the Colt 1849 Pocket Pistol my great-great grandfather bought in Camilla, GA, before enlisting at Forsythe and marching to fight in Atlanta.