All About Pocket Knives

kootenay joe wrote:Charlie, i do not see the cheap badly made knives you & justbob speak of in my area. Many of the Gerbers & some of the Spyderco knives are designed and made in China.
I bought a 2 gallon air compressor about 10 years ago. It was the only one i could find and i needed to blow out my irrigation system. This one was $60, made in China. It's too small for the job so it takes about 6 hours of non stop running to blow out the irrigation pipes. I expected it to overheat and seize up. But i have a few hundred hours on it now and it just keeps running.
I mention this because i am having to un-learn an old lesson: "you get what you pay for". Higher price used to mean higher quality, but now with many manufactured goods, paying more does not give you a better made item. And this is the case with knives now. Many of my $10-$15 knives (China & Sweden) are better than my $50-$80 knives.
kj

Kj I don't mean to sound condescending but peerhaps you should refernce Toby Keith's song Courtesy of tge Red, White and Blue.
When you rattle his cage this big dog will bite.

just bob wrote:I'm of the opinion that all knives should be clearly marked with the country of origin and maker's name. This should not be done in a way where it could be wiped off with solvent. SNIP

Leaving aside the merits of China made knives or knives made in any country, I agree with Bob that the maker and country should be stamped in the tang. That is one thing that I respect A G Russel for doing. Where most others seem to use removable marking, or no marking at all to denote China as the country of origin, Russel does stamp it in the tang, at least on mine. I just feel that if a company is ashamed of where the knife is made, they should not make it there. I also have a couple of knives with Germany stenciled on the blade. I absolutely cannot understand why that is not stamped on the tang.

"I also have a couple of knives with Germany stenciled on the blade. I absolutely cannot understand why that is not stamped on the tang."
One reason is that some of these knives are stamped "Winchester" or "Remington" or "Marbles" and the person responsible for these knives hoped they might be mistaken for a USA original of these brands.

"The knife you used was probably hardened way too hard and if you dropped it the blade would snap"
Do you think i am a bit stupid ? or that i have no experience with knives ?
Obviously the Chinese knives i have experience with are not the same brands of Chinese knives you had experience with. Telling me that what i say is "nonsense" carries zero weight when you have no experience with the knives i am talking about.
The AGR Texas Ranger knives from China better than a Case-Bose collab ? I have had one of almost every collab made and i tell you the AGR knife is considerably better (and less than 1/4 the price).
Get yourself one and try it before you pass judgement. Then you will know what you are talking about because it will be your own experience with what these knives are like now.
kj

Guys I have been fooling with knives since I was 12 years old. Of all the people I have met in this hobby, Charlie Noyes knows knives as well as anyone. When he says a China made knife is a quality knife, it's time to pay attention. I have seen and held in my hand the Chinese made AG Russell knife he carries on a daily basis and I can attest to the amazing quality it possesses. I also know what that knife cost and I can assure you that you'll never be able to buy a knife of that quality made anywhere else for that kind of money. Yes there's still plenty of garbage grade cutlery coming out of China and it's in every truck stop and flea market you can wander into. But there's also some top quality cutlery being produced in China now that American manufacturers simply can't compete with price wise. I wish it were not so, but that's the reality we face today.

Phil, thanks for posting.
Sheffield was world best for making knives up until WW I. Then USA made the best knives (the ones we love to collect). About the same time Germany began making some very fine knives, esp. Henckels.
Then more recently and into the present, Cutlery makers in Japan made some of the world's best knives. And now in the last about 10 years we have been seeing some very fine knives come out of China. And during this same time 2 USA manufacturers have emerged to make top quality knives: GEC & Bark River.
Likely this is the same for other manufactured goods, that the country of origin for the best products changes over time. I doubt the situation with knife manufacturing will stay where it is now. My bet is that within 10 years we will be seeing some very high quality knives coming from Pakistan. And, why not ? We older folks have seen Japan & China improve from exporting junk cutlery to exporting very fine cutlery. If those countries can do it then so can Pakistan.
kj

I know and like the people in Titusville, I don't know others in the cutlery business,wherever they are I wish them well. Supporting the the people I know means more to me than all the other factors involved,as I think it should.
I don't think I'm alone here ,and this train of thought is the root of the opposition to imports,not as much as the other factors. Lyle's opinion

kootenay joe wrote:Phil, thanks for posting.
Sheffield was world best for making knives up until WW I. Then USA made the best knives (the ones we love to collect). About the same time Germany began making some very fine knives, esp. Henckels.
Then more recently and into the present, Cutlery makers in Japan made some of the world's best knives. And now in the last about 10 years we have been seeing some very fine knives come out of China. And during this same time 2 USA manufacturers have emerged to make top quality knives: GEC & Bark River.
Likely this is the same for other manufactured goods, that the country of origin for the best products changes over time. I doubt the situation with knife manufacturing will stay where it is now. My bet is that within 10 years we will be seeing some very high quality knives coming from Pakistan. And, why not ? We older folks have seen Japan & China improve from exporting junk cutlery to exporting very fine cutlery. If those countries can do it then so can Pakistan.
kj

Ok . maybe I was wrong in condemning every Chinese knife . As I said I cringe at the thought of buying anything that I don't have to coming from China . Being a retired Tool and Die maker it sickens me that we just don't make things here anymore . Since we have a few companies still making great knives I just feel spending the extra money employs Americans . Still most of what comes out of China is junk . Blades are Chinese economy steel - 8Cr13MoV - along the lines of AUS-8, the latter of which is used in many lower dollar tacticals and even "Tec-X" (the tactical line produced in China for Zippo/Case), so while a decent blade steel, it's not like they're using any of the supers well above 154CM or anything; they're using lower end steel.

What I find interesting about this topic is that we generally refer to knives made in the U.S.A. by their manufacturer (i.e. Case, Bear & Sons, GEC, LF&C, Valley Forge, etc.) but for the multitude of knives coming from Asia we simply refer to them as Chinese (with some exceptions like Rough Rider, etc.).

I did a Google search on Chinese knife manufacturers and found this page very interesting: http://www.alibaba.com/chinese-knife-manufacturers.html On this global trade site there were 950 suppliers/manufacturers of Chinese knives. I could be wrong but I don't think in the height of American Cutlery that we had close to 1,000 manufacturers of knives.

Based on the simple laws of probability there must be some decent cutlery coming from some of those 950 suppliers/manufacturers of Chinese knives. I don't have a need for them in my collection but to those that can't invest in vintage or American made cutlery then it's good to know there are economical options.