All About Pocket Knives

Are the New Queen's and the new Shatt & Morgan knives made to the same quality level?

I have a handful of Queen and Queen Citys that were made in the past five or six years along with some of the Schatt & Morgan Keystone Series and File & Wire Series knives. I have no complaints with the quality of any of them. Of course they are all safe queens (pun not intended) so I cannot comment on their performance. I like 'em and at some point in time will buy more.

+1. I just picked up a NIB 2009 Queen copperhead jack and couldn't be more pleased with it from a quality perspective. Fit and finish are as good as anyone's. This knife was listed as being in the Queen economy line so I wasn't sure what I was going to get. It doesn't have half stops is the only negative thing I can say about it.

On older Queens its a mixed bag for me. Springs not flush when fully open is my main beef when there is an issue.

I only own one S & M, newer production and couldn't be more pleased with it. It gets carried a little, it's a small gentleman's knife.

rmeron wrote:Are the New Queen's and the new Shatt & Morgan knives made to the same quality level?

Keep in mind, Schatt & Morgan is considered Queens premium line so there should be no expectations of equal "quality level". Pretty darned close though.

Thanks. I really like the medium coke bottle with the Keystone emblem and beautiful stag handles. Probably toward the end of the month I'll be ordering one, not sure from where yet.

Two points:
A lot of finishing adds cost - so highly polished knives take more skill and time. More etches, fancier shields, fancier handle material, more expensive blade steel and limited runs all add to cost, so you wouldn't really expect a standard catalog knife to be as fine (equal )as a Schatt & Morgan. When it comes to function and fit, you would expect them to be equal - sturdy knife, feels good in the hand, will cut well for a long time.

I think Queen is recognizing this and consciously producing some plainer knives at very reasonable price points -- like the Workhorse series. At the same time, going high end with more stag, more limited editions custom maker versions etc. Some truly beautiful knives are coming to market - I've been liking the Kentucky shiner and gunstocks in the quart and pint versions, gentlemans stag, for examples.

2. It is very hard to get any objective measures of quality in knife manufacturing that go beyond personal anecdotes - "I got a bad one, I got a great one..." etc. Most of us do not see enough knives to get a real sense of corporate quality changes. I have never seen any systematic surveys of knife quality - by maker let alone by knife models with their different demands. (Collectorknives.net sees more knives than most of us and has some more nuanced comments on knife quality for several big makers - helpful I think)

The buyer chatting seems to indicate Queen quality dropped off for a while (fuzzy ballpark 2007-2012) and is now improving with new ownership. I think some of this "decline" was due to customer reaction to certain series - like Heritage I and II and the XX schatt set with unpolished blades, rather than actual differences in the function and fit of the knives.

What I like is the Queen warranty - if you think a knife has quality problems - return it to seller or return to factory for repair. Do not accept any poor quality.

3. (OK verbose...) A simple knife with great steel is best quality - for me it is easy to say right now the traditional Queen fixed blades 4180, 4185, 4190 all in very sharp and tough D2 steel since 2002 are tremendous quality bargain!