Based on the title of this post alone, I'm sure that many on this forum are already rolling their eyes and saying, "Not THIS again!" But if you'll bear with me, I actually have some new things to say about this topic, and hopefully an insight or two to add.
I've been on a bit of a Cold Steel kick lately. (I don't know about your knife obsessions, but mine tend to run in periods of fixation on one brand, style, or category.) Knowing that Lynn Thompson is routinely ridiculed on BF, I was curious about it and did a Google search on him in an effort to discover why. I ran across a thread in the Good, Bad, and Ugly area that appeared to be exactly what I was looking for. It started with one BF member asking, innocently enough, "Why is Lynn Thompson so controversial?" Twenty pages (!!!) of posts later, only about three people ever addressed the original question, and none of them offered anything other than personal opinions (as opposed to personal experience). In short, the few people who bothered to answer the question said:
1. Cold Steel steals designs;
2. Cold Steel doesn't actually make any knives;
3. Cold Steel comes up with crazy designs, most of which only appeal to "mall ninjas";
4. Lynn Thompson is self-aggrandizing;
5. Lynn Thompson publicly puts down other companies' products/personnel;
6. The "Proof" videos are laughable.
Oh, and many chimed in to write the thoughtful and ever-relevant critique: Lynn Thompson is overweight.
I'll apologize in advance for the length of this post. But I want to address some of these accusations, not because I have a dog in the fight (I'm in no way affiliated with Cold Steel, nor am I especially an advocate, despite the fact that I consider myself a fan), but rather because people often read these forums in an attempt to become informed knife consumers/users and I don't think the arguments offered thus far come close to giving an accurate or fair depiction of Cold Steel's products or its president.
1) Cold Steel steals designs
No specifics were offered, but I'm assuming that this accusation stems primarily from Cold Steel's Black Talon model, which obviously was a Cold Steel re-work of the Spyderco Civilian. I remember thinking at the time of its introduction that it was a rip-off, particularly in its original Recon/Voyager-style format, which never went into production. At least the Custom Series model could be labeled a "ruggedized" version of the Civilian, which always felt a little fragile to me.
Maybe there are other examples of Cold Steel pirating designs, but I'm hard-pressed to think of them. So is this truly an egregious Cold Steel sin? I'm a firm believer that there's nothing new under the sun anyway, but the knife field is especially rife with re-hashing of long-established patterns. As one of man's oldest tools/weapons, I can't believe that there is honestly such a thing as a new knife design.
If anything, Cold Steel has been a design pioneer in the knife field. It was almost exclusively the efforts of Lynn Thompson in promoting Bob Lum's application of the katana sword tip to the tanto that created the "Americanized tanto" that we know today. This knife, in turn, became the basis of so many subsequent designs (including direct rip-offs of Cold Steel products) that it would be impossible to count them all. By way of example, Ernest Emerson's CQC-6 and CQC-7 models, arguably, would not have come into existence if it weren't for the national tanto craze inspired by the Cold Steel Tanto. (And no, I'm not accusing Emerson of ripping off Cold Steel or of a lack of originality. He's incredibly innovative. I just don't think anyone can deny that the knife industry as a whole owes a debt of gratitude to Cold Steel for the introduction of the Tanto model. Emerson is only one of many.)
Other production-level offerings original to Cold Steel? Just look at a partial list:
The folding tanto (Shinobu)
The modernized, heavy-duty Bowie (Trail Master)
The modernized push dagger (Urban Pal, Urban Defender, Terminator)
The modernized Persian folder (Scimitar)
The modernized khukri (ATC)
The folding khukri (Rajah I)
The modernized sgian dubh (Culloden)
The modernized folding stiletto (Ti-Lite)
The modernized kiridashi (Kiridashi)
The EMT/rescue knife (ER1)
The invention of the Nogales blade style (Vaquero Grande)
The use of Kraton as a grip material (Tanto)
The use of Kydex as a sheath material for a production knife (introduced through Cutlery Shoppe for the Special Ops Tanto)
The use of San Mai steel in a production knife (Shinobu)
The use of Damascus steel in a production knife (Imperial Tanto)
The invention of the Tri-Ad lock (American Lawman)
The record of innovation goes on and on! Cold Steal? Give me a break.
2) Cold Steel doesn't actually make any knives
This is actually quite true. They never have. Neither has Al Mar Knives, Columbia River Knife & Tool, SOG Specialty Knives and Tools, Bradley Knives, Becker Knife & Tool, Randall's Adventure & Training/ESEE, Blackhawk!, Heckler & Koch, Harley-Davidson, Smith & Wesson. Spyderco didn't originally and still doesn't with many models. Again, the list goes on and on. Nobody seems over-anxious to criticize those companies for not having their own factories. This indictment inevitably leads to three criticisms.
First, Cold Steel doesn't offer lifetime warranties because their models are often discontinued and there's no factory to work on them. I can't and won't argue against this because it's a pet peeve of mine, too. But it's also hardly unique to Cold Steel. Al Mar and Spyderco offer lifetime warranties, but just try getting your SERE Attack or Dive Probe repaired and let me know how it works out for you. (Again, not a criticism of either company. I'm merely drawing comparisons.)
Second, Cold Steel's knives are all manufactured overseas, leading to shoddy workmanship. I won't argue with this one, either. In fact, I'm guessing you won't meet too many people who are more ardent in their attempts to buy only American-made products than I am. I'm also a staunch believer that America produces the highest quality knives in the world. I bought a LOT more Cold Steel products back when they were contracting with American manufacturers. But the sad reality is that fewer and fewer companies want to manufacture domestically, and fewer and fewer Americans are willing to pay more for domestic products. Lynn Thompson has stated that he tried to convince Camillus executives to make some strategic changes to their business model when they began struggling. At least he tried to help. And at least Cold Steel carried USA-made products for a long while. CRK&T was founded in 1994; they introduced their first American-made knife (presumably to avoid import restrictions on autos) in 2013. Does anyone accuse Rod Bremer of being a sellout?
Third, Cold Steel's products are over-priced. This is an utterly relative statement and, therefore, meaningless. Knives, like anything else, are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. When Cold Steel introduced the Tanto model with a retail price over $100, many in the knife industry said that no one would ever pay that much for a knife. Turns out plenty of people were willing. I personally believe that lots of knives from many manufacturers are over-priced, but it doesn't mean I'm not occasionally willing to pay those prices if I like the designs.
3) Cold Steel comes up with crazy designs, most of which only appeal to "mall ninjas"
Make of this one what you will. One man's crazy design or useless product is another's innovative necessity. If we all liked the same knife style, size, and features, neither the knife industry nor Blade Forums would exist. Cold Steel certainly manufactures some radical departures from the norm. Some are winners and some aren't. All have their audience. But I would argue that it's the desire to produce something new and/or experimental that is the heart of American innovation. As I pointed out above, Cold Steel has done its share of advancing the development of knifemaking in the United States. Personally, I'm thankful that Cold Steel continues to generate new knife patterns and ideas. It helps to foster creativity in an industry that can, at times, become complacent and repetitive.
4) Lynn Thompson is self-aggrandizing
5) Lynn Thompson publicly puts down other companies' products/personnel
6) The "Proof" videos are laughable
For me, these are all related. There can be no doubt that Thompson is a vociferous advocate for Cold Steel. He touts every one of the company's products as being the best in its class. But would you buy a knife from someone who DIDN'T believe that his was the best knife in its class? If the maker/designer doesn't think he's offering something better, faster, stronger, safer, or more economical, then why would I want it?
The idea of torture-testing a knife to establish its quality did not originate with Lynn Thompson. In fact, almost none of the tests conducted in the "Proof" videos is even original to Cold Steel. The American Bladesmith Society came up with rope cutting, spine blows, and lateral flex tests. Unless I'm quite mistaken, Marc MacYoung was the first to produce a video demonstrating the cutting effectiveness of a pocketknife on a slab of meat. The Japanese have conducted tameshigiri tests on rolled mats and bamboo poles for hundreds of years. Thompson just took these ideas for testing and began applying them to his own products to see how they would fare. As it turned out, they fared very well. He video-taped the results and turned them into selling tools. The results speak for themselves. Some will disagree with me, but I think the "Proof" videos are pretty amazing and denote just how far knifemaking technology has come over the last forty years. You simply couldn't do the things to or with a Buck 110 or a Schrade Old Timer back then that Cold Steel does to and with its knives now.
The biggest points of contention over Thompson's claims about his knives arose during the explosion of the tactical knife market in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Everyone and his brother was coming out with the latest and greatest tactical knife. Based on his writings at the time, Thompson was getting tired of fashion over function and unsubstantiated performance claims (particularly glowing magazine articles in which the authors hadn't even used the "reviewed" knives to cut anything), so he began issuing print ads in the knife magazines challenging other manufacturers to replicate the Cold Steel tests with their own knives. The only company to follow suit was Busse, but neither company decided to go head-to-head against the other's products, probably to the benefit of all concerned as it really wouldn't have proven much.
I won't bother delving into the Cold Steel vs. Strider brouhaha, as that is fairly recent history, well-documented, and most assuredly certain to stoke a fiery debate. Suffice it to say that the two camps in that war (those supporting Mickey Ray Burger and those who agreed with Lynn Thompson) are firmly entrenched. The main take-away from that situation for the knife-buying public, at least from my perspective, was to demonstrate clearly that the knife magazines do almost no vetting of manufacturer-supplied histories/resumes/claims, so caveat emptor.
Since no one in the original thread had any stories of personal or professional relationships with Lynn Thompson that actually addressed his character, I'll relate one and allow you to make up your own mind about what it says about the man. Roughly five years ago, I had lunch with a guy who was directly involved during the early 2000s with the procurement of knives to be issued to trainees for use while in BUD/S. The knife selected was the Cold Steel SRK. At roughly the same time, the Cold Steel ATC (or one of the other Carbon V khukri models, I can't remember which) was already an issue item to SEALs undergoing Jungle Warfare training. That's right, two Cold Steel knives were procured and used by Naval Special Warfare Command for SEALs, but you never heard about it from Lynn Thompson. Recognizing that there are knife makers and manufacturers out there who would KILL to be able to claim some kind of genuine association with SEALs (had most of you even heard of Daniel Winkler prior to the recent mention of his knives in Tactical Knives magazine just before the release of No Easy Day?), I asked the gentleman relating the story why I had never heard or read anything about it. He said, "Because at that time we asked him [Thompson] not to talk about it. Say what you like about Lynn Thompson, but he kept his word that he wouldn't reveal that it was his knives we chose."
So I put this question to you: Is Thompson's response to the Navy's informal request indicative of a rabid self-promoter? Do you realize how many more SRKs and ATCs Cold Steel could have sold if Lynn Thompson had not been a man of his word?
To conclude this diatribe, I'm going to offer my response to the original question about why Lynn Thompson is such a controversial figure. The answer, as I see it, is simple. He's outspoken and believes in what he says. Anybody who is that confident and vocal in the public eye is going to elicit three categories of target audience (particularly an Internet audience, where there is a greater degree of anonymity):
1) Devotees, who blindly accept everything he says as Gospel;
2) Critics, who blindly condemn everything he says and does; and
3) The Rest of Us, who recognize that Lynn Thompson is just a man, with all the strengths and faults of any man; that Cold Steel is just a knife company, with all the pros and cons of any knife company; and that the truth about a product typically doesn't lie with the Devotees or the Critics, but rather somewhere squarely in the middle.
-Steve
I've been on a bit of a Cold Steel kick lately. (I don't know about your knife obsessions, but mine tend to run in periods of fixation on one brand, style, or category.) Knowing that Lynn Thompson is routinely ridiculed on BF, I was curious about it and did a Google search on him in an effort to discover why. I ran across a thread in the Good, Bad, and Ugly area that appeared to be exactly what I was looking for. It started with one BF member asking, innocently enough, "Why is Lynn Thompson so controversial?" Twenty pages (!!!) of posts later, only about three people ever addressed the original question, and none of them offered anything other than personal opinions (as opposed to personal experience). In short, the few people who bothered to answer the question said:
1. Cold Steel steals designs;
2. Cold Steel doesn't actually make any knives;
3. Cold Steel comes up with crazy designs, most of which only appeal to "mall ninjas";
4. Lynn Thompson is self-aggrandizing;
5. Lynn Thompson publicly puts down other companies' products/personnel;
6. The "Proof" videos are laughable.
Oh, and many chimed in to write the thoughtful and ever-relevant critique: Lynn Thompson is overweight.
I'll apologize in advance for the length of this post. But I want to address some of these accusations, not because I have a dog in the fight (I'm in no way affiliated with Cold Steel, nor am I especially an advocate, despite the fact that I consider myself a fan), but rather because people often read these forums in an attempt to become informed knife consumers/users and I don't think the arguments offered thus far come close to giving an accurate or fair depiction of Cold Steel's products or its president.
1) Cold Steel steals designs
No specifics were offered, but I'm assuming that this accusation stems primarily from Cold Steel's Black Talon model, which obviously was a Cold Steel re-work of the Spyderco Civilian. I remember thinking at the time of its introduction that it was a rip-off, particularly in its original Recon/Voyager-style format, which never went into production. At least the Custom Series model could be labeled a "ruggedized" version of the Civilian, which always felt a little fragile to me.
Maybe there are other examples of Cold Steel pirating designs, but I'm hard-pressed to think of them. So is this truly an egregious Cold Steel sin? I'm a firm believer that there's nothing new under the sun anyway, but the knife field is especially rife with re-hashing of long-established patterns. As one of man's oldest tools/weapons, I can't believe that there is honestly such a thing as a new knife design.
If anything, Cold Steel has been a design pioneer in the knife field. It was almost exclusively the efforts of Lynn Thompson in promoting Bob Lum's application of the katana sword tip to the tanto that created the "Americanized tanto" that we know today. This knife, in turn, became the basis of so many subsequent designs (including direct rip-offs of Cold Steel products) that it would be impossible to count them all. By way of example, Ernest Emerson's CQC-6 and CQC-7 models, arguably, would not have come into existence if it weren't for the national tanto craze inspired by the Cold Steel Tanto. (And no, I'm not accusing Emerson of ripping off Cold Steel or of a lack of originality. He's incredibly innovative. I just don't think anyone can deny that the knife industry as a whole owes a debt of gratitude to Cold Steel for the introduction of the Tanto model. Emerson is only one of many.)
Other production-level offerings original to Cold Steel? Just look at a partial list:
The folding tanto (Shinobu)
The modernized, heavy-duty Bowie (Trail Master)
The modernized push dagger (Urban Pal, Urban Defender, Terminator)
The modernized Persian folder (Scimitar)
The modernized khukri (ATC)
The folding khukri (Rajah I)
The modernized sgian dubh (Culloden)
The modernized folding stiletto (Ti-Lite)
The modernized kiridashi (Kiridashi)
The EMT/rescue knife (ER1)
The invention of the Nogales blade style (Vaquero Grande)
The use of Kraton as a grip material (Tanto)
The use of Kydex as a sheath material for a production knife (introduced through Cutlery Shoppe for the Special Ops Tanto)
The use of San Mai steel in a production knife (Shinobu)
The use of Damascus steel in a production knife (Imperial Tanto)
The invention of the Tri-Ad lock (American Lawman)
The record of innovation goes on and on! Cold Steal? Give me a break.
2) Cold Steel doesn't actually make any knives
This is actually quite true. They never have. Neither has Al Mar Knives, Columbia River Knife & Tool, SOG Specialty Knives and Tools, Bradley Knives, Becker Knife & Tool, Randall's Adventure & Training/ESEE, Blackhawk!, Heckler & Koch, Harley-Davidson, Smith & Wesson. Spyderco didn't originally and still doesn't with many models. Again, the list goes on and on. Nobody seems over-anxious to criticize those companies for not having their own factories. This indictment inevitably leads to three criticisms.
First, Cold Steel doesn't offer lifetime warranties because their models are often discontinued and there's no factory to work on them. I can't and won't argue against this because it's a pet peeve of mine, too. But it's also hardly unique to Cold Steel. Al Mar and Spyderco offer lifetime warranties, but just try getting your SERE Attack or Dive Probe repaired and let me know how it works out for you. (Again, not a criticism of either company. I'm merely drawing comparisons.)
Second, Cold Steel's knives are all manufactured overseas, leading to shoddy workmanship. I won't argue with this one, either. In fact, I'm guessing you won't meet too many people who are more ardent in their attempts to buy only American-made products than I am. I'm also a staunch believer that America produces the highest quality knives in the world. I bought a LOT more Cold Steel products back when they were contracting with American manufacturers. But the sad reality is that fewer and fewer companies want to manufacture domestically, and fewer and fewer Americans are willing to pay more for domestic products. Lynn Thompson has stated that he tried to convince Camillus executives to make some strategic changes to their business model when they began struggling. At least he tried to help. And at least Cold Steel carried USA-made products for a long while. CRK&T was founded in 1994; they introduced their first American-made knife (presumably to avoid import restrictions on autos) in 2013. Does anyone accuse Rod Bremer of being a sellout?
Third, Cold Steel's products are over-priced. This is an utterly relative statement and, therefore, meaningless. Knives, like anything else, are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. When Cold Steel introduced the Tanto model with a retail price over $100, many in the knife industry said that no one would ever pay that much for a knife. Turns out plenty of people were willing. I personally believe that lots of knives from many manufacturers are over-priced, but it doesn't mean I'm not occasionally willing to pay those prices if I like the designs.
3) Cold Steel comes up with crazy designs, most of which only appeal to "mall ninjas"
Make of this one what you will. One man's crazy design or useless product is another's innovative necessity. If we all liked the same knife style, size, and features, neither the knife industry nor Blade Forums would exist. Cold Steel certainly manufactures some radical departures from the norm. Some are winners and some aren't. All have their audience. But I would argue that it's the desire to produce something new and/or experimental that is the heart of American innovation. As I pointed out above, Cold Steel has done its share of advancing the development of knifemaking in the United States. Personally, I'm thankful that Cold Steel continues to generate new knife patterns and ideas. It helps to foster creativity in an industry that can, at times, become complacent and repetitive.
4) Lynn Thompson is self-aggrandizing
5) Lynn Thompson publicly puts down other companies' products/personnel
6) The "Proof" videos are laughable
For me, these are all related. There can be no doubt that Thompson is a vociferous advocate for Cold Steel. He touts every one of the company's products as being the best in its class. But would you buy a knife from someone who DIDN'T believe that his was the best knife in its class? If the maker/designer doesn't think he's offering something better, faster, stronger, safer, or more economical, then why would I want it?
The idea of torture-testing a knife to establish its quality did not originate with Lynn Thompson. In fact, almost none of the tests conducted in the "Proof" videos is even original to Cold Steel. The American Bladesmith Society came up with rope cutting, spine blows, and lateral flex tests. Unless I'm quite mistaken, Marc MacYoung was the first to produce a video demonstrating the cutting effectiveness of a pocketknife on a slab of meat. The Japanese have conducted tameshigiri tests on rolled mats and bamboo poles for hundreds of years. Thompson just took these ideas for testing and began applying them to his own products to see how they would fare. As it turned out, they fared very well. He video-taped the results and turned them into selling tools. The results speak for themselves. Some will disagree with me, but I think the "Proof" videos are pretty amazing and denote just how far knifemaking technology has come over the last forty years. You simply couldn't do the things to or with a Buck 110 or a Schrade Old Timer back then that Cold Steel does to and with its knives now.
The biggest points of contention over Thompson's claims about his knives arose during the explosion of the tactical knife market in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Everyone and his brother was coming out with the latest and greatest tactical knife. Based on his writings at the time, Thompson was getting tired of fashion over function and unsubstantiated performance claims (particularly glowing magazine articles in which the authors hadn't even used the "reviewed" knives to cut anything), so he began issuing print ads in the knife magazines challenging other manufacturers to replicate the Cold Steel tests with their own knives. The only company to follow suit was Busse, but neither company decided to go head-to-head against the other's products, probably to the benefit of all concerned as it really wouldn't have proven much.
I won't bother delving into the Cold Steel vs. Strider brouhaha, as that is fairly recent history, well-documented, and most assuredly certain to stoke a fiery debate. Suffice it to say that the two camps in that war (those supporting Mickey Ray Burger and those who agreed with Lynn Thompson) are firmly entrenched. The main take-away from that situation for the knife-buying public, at least from my perspective, was to demonstrate clearly that the knife magazines do almost no vetting of manufacturer-supplied histories/resumes/claims, so caveat emptor.
Since no one in the original thread had any stories of personal or professional relationships with Lynn Thompson that actually addressed his character, I'll relate one and allow you to make up your own mind about what it says about the man. Roughly five years ago, I had lunch with a guy who was directly involved during the early 2000s with the procurement of knives to be issued to trainees for use while in BUD/S. The knife selected was the Cold Steel SRK. At roughly the same time, the Cold Steel ATC (or one of the other Carbon V khukri models, I can't remember which) was already an issue item to SEALs undergoing Jungle Warfare training. That's right, two Cold Steel knives were procured and used by Naval Special Warfare Command for SEALs, but you never heard about it from Lynn Thompson. Recognizing that there are knife makers and manufacturers out there who would KILL to be able to claim some kind of genuine association with SEALs (had most of you even heard of Daniel Winkler prior to the recent mention of his knives in Tactical Knives magazine just before the release of No Easy Day?), I asked the gentleman relating the story why I had never heard or read anything about it. He said, "Because at that time we asked him [Thompson] not to talk about it. Say what you like about Lynn Thompson, but he kept his word that he wouldn't reveal that it was his knives we chose."
So I put this question to you: Is Thompson's response to the Navy's informal request indicative of a rabid self-promoter? Do you realize how many more SRKs and ATCs Cold Steel could have sold if Lynn Thompson had not been a man of his word?
To conclude this diatribe, I'm going to offer my response to the original question about why Lynn Thompson is such a controversial figure. The answer, as I see it, is simple. He's outspoken and believes in what he says. Anybody who is that confident and vocal in the public eye is going to elicit three categories of target audience (particularly an Internet audience, where there is a greater degree of anonymity):
1) Devotees, who blindly accept everything he says as Gospel;
2) Critics, who blindly condemn everything he says and does; and
3) The Rest of Us, who recognize that Lynn Thompson is just a man, with all the strengths and faults of any man; that Cold Steel is just a knife company, with all the pros and cons of any knife company; and that the truth about a product typically doesn't lie with the Devotees or the Critics, but rather somewhere squarely in the middle.
-Steve
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