Codger_64
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- Joined
- Oct 8, 2004
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This past week, an old familiar question raised it's head again, not once, but twice. The most obvious time was when an acknowledged and respected knife expert paid us a visit. He expressed his opinion on the question. The other time I can't recall exactly right now, but it reminded me that quite a few of our members were not participating in this forum, some not collecting Schrades, or even knives at all when first this question came up around October of 2004, not long after Imperial Schrade's unexpected announced demise. I remember well many of the conversations. We even attempted to assign "catagories" to knives to express what we were seeing evolve in the market.
Time and again the conversations became highly charged, as opinions were expressed, and sometimes tempers flared. It does seem odd that so much emotion and importance should be attached to inantimate objects... things... like knives. Usually emotions and rhetoric sidetracked the logic of the conversations, and feelings got hurt on one side or the other. In resurecting this question, I ask that responding members refrain from emotional rhetoric and insults. I believe that we are, or should be, mature enough to disagree without being disagreeable. If I am proven wrong, I'll delete my posts and have the thread locked. Please leave out politics, business practices found disagreeable, and personalities. The root of this question is the Schrade knives themselves.
I've spent a good deal of time in the Levine forum here reading. There are many things I disagree with him on, though I do recognize his expertise. Mr. Levine is a very intellegent man, and has well over thirty years in the cutlery industry, as does Mr. Voyles. And yet the opinions of these two experts also disagree, as far as I can tell, on the subject of the validity of tangstamps.
One expert tells us to ignore a seller's hype. Ignore what the stamp says. Read the knife. Now, I must admit this was a hard concept for me to grasp, not being a collector of knives of antiquity. How could this apply to modern knives? I now realize that it very much does.
Another expert is of the opinion that the stamp is the be-all end-all. That if a knife is stamped Schrade, it must therefore be a Schrade, as were the knives for a hundred years prior to the change of the trademark ownership. This, I cannot reconcile with any known logic.
The first expert makes the illustration of the stamp wording by referring us to a knife with a Sears Craftsman stamping. Does Sears Roebuck have a knife factory? No. Does their Craftsman division have a knife factory? No. Sears does not and never has made knives. They buy them from makers of knives, such as Schrade and Camillus, occasionally Buck and others.
In the same vein, I ask, if you buy a New York Knife Company stamped knife, for instance the Sharpfinger pattern, was it made by New York Knife Company? No. It was made by Schrade for the then-current owner of the name, SMKW I believe. Or if it was a Boy Scout Camp Knife with the NYKC stamp, was it made by NYKC? Or was it a commemorative knife made for Schrade by Camillus? Only a close examination of the construction will tell you which modern manufacturer made the knife, and a check with the USPTO trademark records will show you who the knife was made for, the true owner of the NYKC trademark. NYKC as a registered corporation, a cutlery manufacturer ceased to exist many, many years ago. Knives made after that are not NYKC knives. They are Schrades, or Camillus, or whoever the trademark owners designated to produce them for them, or "rented" the name to.
Simple ownership of a trademark does not make one a manufacturer by that name or any other. It only means that they have the exclusive right to either manufacture, or have someone else manufacture knives under that mark.
A knife seller came here once a year or so back claiming to be a Schrade dealer. I still feel like I did then. There are no Schrade Dealers, since Imperial Schrade no longer exists. There might be dealers who sell Schrades, or dealers who seall Taylors. But no Schrade Dealers. Semantics?
No one stepped forward and bought Imperial Schrade, the corporation. No one bought the factory in Ellenville New York, all it's machinery and materials, and continued it's name and production calling back long time employees. It was dissolved, it's assets were spread to the winds. One of those assets was the intellectual property, i.e. the patents and trademarks.
That is nowhere near the same as purchasing an intact, functioning company and continuing production. Witness all the knives that have been made in Germany and elsewhere using old trademarks. Will a collector be expected to believe that these newly made knives, in many cases bearing no resemblence to the original knives, are continuing productions of the old knives? No. Some may be copies loosely based upon the genuine article, but they are not the real knife. If some maker tries to copy an older knife to fool buyers, even if it is a poor copy, it is a fake. Does it become a legitimate fake because the owner of the trademark comissioned it? Not in my opinion. A fake is a fake.
Summerizing, the new owner of the Imperial Schrade trademarks and patents can lawfully use them in any manner they wish. This does not make the products so marked Schrades. There is no longer a Schrade factory. Or Napanoch. Or Platt Brothers. Or Western States. Or NYKC. Or... well, I guess I made my points.
Please respond without insulting any of the parties I have referred to. I am talking about the knives, not the people, or nations involved.
Michael
Time and again the conversations became highly charged, as opinions were expressed, and sometimes tempers flared. It does seem odd that so much emotion and importance should be attached to inantimate objects... things... like knives. Usually emotions and rhetoric sidetracked the logic of the conversations, and feelings got hurt on one side or the other. In resurecting this question, I ask that responding members refrain from emotional rhetoric and insults. I believe that we are, or should be, mature enough to disagree without being disagreeable. If I am proven wrong, I'll delete my posts and have the thread locked. Please leave out politics, business practices found disagreeable, and personalities. The root of this question is the Schrade knives themselves.
I've spent a good deal of time in the Levine forum here reading. There are many things I disagree with him on, though I do recognize his expertise. Mr. Levine is a very intellegent man, and has well over thirty years in the cutlery industry, as does Mr. Voyles. And yet the opinions of these two experts also disagree, as far as I can tell, on the subject of the validity of tangstamps.
One expert tells us to ignore a seller's hype. Ignore what the stamp says. Read the knife. Now, I must admit this was a hard concept for me to grasp, not being a collector of knives of antiquity. How could this apply to modern knives? I now realize that it very much does.
Another expert is of the opinion that the stamp is the be-all end-all. That if a knife is stamped Schrade, it must therefore be a Schrade, as were the knives for a hundred years prior to the change of the trademark ownership. This, I cannot reconcile with any known logic.
The first expert makes the illustration of the stamp wording by referring us to a knife with a Sears Craftsman stamping. Does Sears Roebuck have a knife factory? No. Does their Craftsman division have a knife factory? No. Sears does not and never has made knives. They buy them from makers of knives, such as Schrade and Camillus, occasionally Buck and others.
In the same vein, I ask, if you buy a New York Knife Company stamped knife, for instance the Sharpfinger pattern, was it made by New York Knife Company? No. It was made by Schrade for the then-current owner of the name, SMKW I believe. Or if it was a Boy Scout Camp Knife with the NYKC stamp, was it made by NYKC? Or was it a commemorative knife made for Schrade by Camillus? Only a close examination of the construction will tell you which modern manufacturer made the knife, and a check with the USPTO trademark records will show you who the knife was made for, the true owner of the NYKC trademark. NYKC as a registered corporation, a cutlery manufacturer ceased to exist many, many years ago. Knives made after that are not NYKC knives. They are Schrades, or Camillus, or whoever the trademark owners designated to produce them for them, or "rented" the name to.
Simple ownership of a trademark does not make one a manufacturer by that name or any other. It only means that they have the exclusive right to either manufacture, or have someone else manufacture knives under that mark.
A knife seller came here once a year or so back claiming to be a Schrade dealer. I still feel like I did then. There are no Schrade Dealers, since Imperial Schrade no longer exists. There might be dealers who sell Schrades, or dealers who seall Taylors. But no Schrade Dealers. Semantics?
No one stepped forward and bought Imperial Schrade, the corporation. No one bought the factory in Ellenville New York, all it's machinery and materials, and continued it's name and production calling back long time employees. It was dissolved, it's assets were spread to the winds. One of those assets was the intellectual property, i.e. the patents and trademarks.
That is nowhere near the same as purchasing an intact, functioning company and continuing production. Witness all the knives that have been made in Germany and elsewhere using old trademarks. Will a collector be expected to believe that these newly made knives, in many cases bearing no resemblence to the original knives, are continuing productions of the old knives? No. Some may be copies loosely based upon the genuine article, but they are not the real knife. If some maker tries to copy an older knife to fool buyers, even if it is a poor copy, it is a fake. Does it become a legitimate fake because the owner of the trademark comissioned it? Not in my opinion. A fake is a fake.
Summerizing, the new owner of the Imperial Schrade trademarks and patents can lawfully use them in any manner they wish. This does not make the products so marked Schrades. There is no longer a Schrade factory. Or Napanoch. Or Platt Brothers. Or Western States. Or NYKC. Or... well, I guess I made my points.
Please respond without insulting any of the parties I have referred to. I am talking about the knives, not the people, or nations involved.
Michael
