I was thinking about the commenter above who stated that the absence of evidence of an ADV shop is not "proof" he doesn't have one. I see this sort of thing in various contexts and would like to clear up some misconceptions about the concept of "proof." Time for some napkin epistemology!
"Proof" means, roughly speak, evidence sufficient to establish the truth of a proposition. The word doesn't mean anything in the abstract; you have to have a standard that goes with it. For example, "mathematical proof" is the most rigorous. I can prove that the area of a square whose side is the hypotenuse of a triangle is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares on the other two sides. To do so I need only set out a handful of axioms and postulates, which, if agreed upon, lead to the air-tight, logical conclusion known as the Pythagorean theorem, which is as indisputable as four equaling the sum of two and two. So that's mathematical proof for you.
In the real world, as you move away from mathematics and the "hard" sciences (which rely on mathematical rigor), you get into more messy areas of "proof." This is where legal standards come in handy. The highest standard, from criminal law, is "beyond a reasonable doubt." In civil law, you have lower standards, usually "preponderance of the evidence" (a greater than 50% chance the proposition is true), or in some special situations "clear and convincing evidence" (somewhere between the former two standards).
The first question is what standard of proof would apply to the proposition that ADV doesn't make his own knives. I would say preponderance of the evidence.
The second question is, does the complete absence of shop or work-in-progress pics, in and of itself, lead one to the conclusion that it's more likely than not (i.e. greater than 50%) that ADV doesn't make his own knives? I'd say that fact, combined with the fact that nearly 100% of other makers active on social media do post such pics of theirs shops/work-in-progress, gets you pretty close to 51%. Maybe not all the way there, but close.
It's important to keep in mind that outside of mathematical proof, nothing is ever 100%. Even a video of him standing in a room full of boxes marked "Guangdong, China" and pulling out what look like ADV knives wouldn't do it; it would merely show that he has boxes of knives curiously marked. Even a videotaped, tear-filled admission by ADV that he doesn't make his own knives wouldn't cut it; he could always be lying. The point is you have to always have your standard of proof in mind.
That's it!
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