We are losing legacy cutlers at an alarming rate. Just in the last few years, we lost Marbles, Western, Schrade and Camillus. Buck is importing some of it's knives from China, as is Boker, Remington, Browning. Ericksson and Frost of Mora have merged to form Mora of Sweden. Victorinox and Wenger have merged. Boker now owns Opinel. Some Pumas are now made in China. Don't get me wrong, some Chinese knives are of first-rate quality, but I'm concerned the USA and Europe are losing the ability to manufacture quality sporting/militar blades.

Well, cutlery firms are going through the same consolidations that other manufacturers are going through. Not a surprise.

but I'm concerned the USA and Europe are losing the ability to manufacture quality products.


Fixed it for you

If you read Gibbon's "Decline and fall of the Roman Empire" you will see that Western civilization is going the way of the Romans. It's just a matter of time, non-western peoples far outnumber us and we have become dependent on their cheap labor. We will go out, not with a roar, but with a whimper.

and to the sound of applause...

It was only a matter of time until the east would develop their technology and metallurgy en masse such that they could put out a pretty good product at a greatly discounted price and take away the market share. Most people will settle for good over great if they can see a huge value for money disparity. A $50 knife nowadays will do 95% of what a $350 knife will do, and so on. There just aren't enough of us aficionados around to provide the sort of business these traditional companies once enjoyed, and so since they didn't keep up with modern manufacturing trends (for whatever reason), they, like the big three automakers, cannot stay up with new production.

Quality doesn't equal expensive. If you can get close to what your contemporaries are doing and do so while passing on a huge savings to the consumer, you will overtake your competitors. Close being relative, most people who buy knives aren't terribly critical, and will buy really sharp junk because they can buy it with the change in their pocket. Since the vast majority don't rely on knives like they used to, it is a little foolhardy to expect them to spend double for something that, in their mind, is no better than what they bought at the flea market or Walmart.

You want a great knife? Go to a limited production/custom knife maker like Busse or Ontario or Benchmade. You want good, pick one out of hundreds of bulk knife makers these days.

One of favorite knifes is a custom made buffalo skinner made by a man in Montana. I also grew up in the PNW and Gerber and SOG are both there, at least manufacturing was.

Just to correct a few facts:

While Buck moved a number of its lines overseas, in many cases offering the same models at different price points, one US made, one China-made, they have been moving the majority of that back to the U.S. this past year with a goal to move most of it back.

Victorinox and Wenger are not "merged" Victorinox's owner bought Wenger rather than allow it to be sold to a non-Swiss company. They are operated as separate companies and still compete against one another. Not saying that a common owner doesn't mean influence over some issues, but they are definitely not "merged."

Also, Benchmade has stepped back from China for their namesake brand which is now entirely U.S. made, any imports do not go under the Benchmade brand anymore, and even those have been cut back.

Gerber still manufactures some few of their products, mostly those sold into the military, in the U.S., but the majority are made in Asia.

All of SOG's knives are manufactured overseas and have been for many years. Premium lines are manufactured in Japan and now some in Taiwan, as I recall. Their lower end lines added in the past couple years to break into the mass market are all made in China.

Thanks for the information Doug. That's good information to have.

For a lot of years I have been going to a local Knife maker. There knives are made from old files and can be found in all types of blade shape. For a US maker try ANZA Knife. at www.anzaknives.com