Bark River has taken $16,000 of My Money

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Bladeandbarrel said:
Huh? I no habla..I don't get your drift....
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I believe its an attempt, a lame one mind you, by BM to show his support of the felon. BM is saying that if he were a secretive squirrel government agent, why should you know or be allowed to know?

Either that, or he just doesn't like you...
 
Well, I didn't know Mike Stewart was a convicted felon, but a whole lot of things make sense now.
 
okbohn said:
It is frustrating, but we cannot judge the hand until the final cards are played. Let's wait and see how they fall.
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C'mon Derrick! Wake up and smell the coffee.

You already know Mike Stewart is a compulsive liar. He proved that to us both. More than once.

I have nothing against you, but you're totally wrong on this issue.
 
okbohn said:
I know he already had the money tied up in the components for the Kephart, so he wanted to complete the project and get them to his distributors so he could have the money to refund.
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This seems to be just another way of saying that MS used SS's funds to bankroll a project for which SS will see no profits.

Is this interpretation incorrect?

Seems to me that the honorable thing would be to pay back the money with reasonable interest. While probably not the legal requirement, it would be the honorable action.
 
I wanted to post this here, but did not want to re type all of the information. My experience with Mike Stewart was a nightmare. He tries to sweet talk you when you have him on the phone then it all turns to shit. I would not trust him in a shit house with a muzzle on.
Remember this is a guy who had been screwed once by Mike. I tried to do the right thing by getting the swords off of the street or at least into our hands so that Tom could recoup some of the money that he had been owed for years.

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=47044&highlight=tom+maringer&page=2
 
So then, were the Northwind swords made from stolen (or otherwise wrongfully obtained) blanks?
 
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Bobby Branton said:
I wanted to post this here, but did not want to re type all of the information. My experience with Mike Stewart was a nightmare. He tries to sweet talk you when you have him on the phone then it all turns to shit. I would not trust him in a shit house with a muzzle on.
Remember this is a guy who had been screwed once by Mike. I tried to do the right thing by getting the swords off of the street or at least into our hands so that Tom could recoup some of the money that he had been owed for years.

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=47044&highlight=tom+maringer&page=2
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This quote from Tom is very relevant.

The whole Vorpal Sword episode with Blackjack and Mike Stewart was very disappointing in many ways. We still have a lot of slip-shod business ethics in the knife world. The many wonderful folks who craft good blades, speak truthfully about them, and honor their commitments, have a great deal of difficulty gaining the trust of customers or suppliers who've been burned by the bad ones. We mince around and don't want to name names... but that just perpetuates the problem. If we had something like the public feedback system on eBay where both customers and material suppliers could post feedback on transactions with knifemakers, then we'd have a way to put pressure on the bad ones and give customers some assurance that they're dealing with quality people.

Just an idea!

Tom

Tom Maringer
 
joe-bob said:
So then, were the Northwind sword made from stolen (or otherwise wrongfully obtained) blanks?
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Someone smarter than me will have to tell you how he was able to buy back some of the assets of the company that he ran into the ground. There was RUMOR that a lot of the finished knives and other stuff were hidden and then found by the feds in someone's home. Maybe someone could expand on this. The blanks were his and we only tried to buy them back and wound up in the deal from hell.

They were made from the old Black Jack Vorpal Sword blanks that Tom designed for Black Jack and was supposed to receive royalties from. Since he never received royalties for the Black Jack Vorpal swords we asked to purchase the remaining blanks so that we could finish them out so that Tom could finally get some money that he lost when he was screwed out of when Mike either owned or ran Black Jack.
After numerous lies from Mike a middle man who knew Mike stepped in and said that he knew how to make the deal work. Mike agreed to make the swords and give Tom and I royalties if we let him finish them out and market them as Tom's design and they would use Tom's art work on the blades to sell them. They said that all of the swords were pre sold to a big dealer who would take all of them at once as there were only a couple hundred left. We were given a contract and as I posted in the previous thread, They backed out of the deal and went ahead and modified the blanks and made another sword by modifying the old Vorpal sword blanks to prevent from having to pay us any royalties.
The swords that were showing up on e bay were modified and still had Tom's artwork on them and were being marketed as being made from the old Vorpal swords blanks that we were to be paid royalties on.

Did he steal from us? Not really, but we did have a contract to receive royalties on the remaining swords that were supposed to be made into Vorpal swords that was designed by Tom. He chose to modify the blanks and sell them as his swords to prevent us from receiving any royalties. This is just another example of how he does business.
 
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Bobby Branton said:
Did he steal from us? Not really, but we did have a contract to receive royalties on the remaining swords that were supposed to be made into Vorpal swords that was designed by Tom. He chose to modify the blanks and sell them as his swords to prevent us from receiving any royalties. This is just another example of how he does business.
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Well, in my book, that counts as stealing, whether it's cash, products or royalties. The intent is the same.

Stewart has repeatedly said that he won't make any more Northwind swords, but always refuses to explain why. Never once did he mention that the reason was that there were no more blanks for him to steal. :thumbdn:


BTW -- He closed the thread(s) over on Knifeforums on this topic. Clearly too much truth was getting out.
 
I've been collecting Bark Rivers for a long time. Sadly, that has come to an end.

Having seen the "other" thread on this topic locked by the hands of the accused, and reading his admissions of "keeping the money until I want to refund it" I have to admit that I refuse to fund anyone who ignores the law because they believe they are self-righteous in their action. Theft is theft, and I don't feed criminals.

Done deal.
 
while i've never actually bought anything from him,i have seen first hand how he attaches himself to a forum like a giant attention whoring leech.

1.shows up at forum posting lots of pictures of knives he has for sale
2.gives owner of forum a few freebies
3.becomes "knife mod"
4.more free knives to admin,a few raffles,giveaways
5.becomes "super mod"
6.uses forum as free advertisement/web presence,
7.all dissenting/critical opinions edited or deleted
 
borinquen said:
while i've never actually bought anything from him,i have seen first hand how he attaches himself to a forum like a giant attention whoring leech.

1.shows up at forum posting lots of pictures of knives he has for sale
2.gives owner of forum a few freebies
3.becomes "knife mod"
4.more free knives to admin,a few raffles,giveaways
5.becomes "super mod"
6.uses forum as free advertisement/web presence,
7.all dissenting/critical opinions edited or deleted
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Very observant!
 
Wow, as the skeleton creeps out the closet huh? I have only a golok and baldric from BRKT...it'll be my last from them.
 
I have bought many BRKT knives in the past.

I plan on buying more.

Bottom line is I like them, like the warranty and have no desire to commission a big batch.

I don't give a rat's ass about politics.
 
monkfish4 said:
I don't give a rat's ass about politics.
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This goes a lot farther than politics. When you sign a contract, pay $ 16,000 up front, and then the other party says "Meh, I'm going to keep the knives you've already paid for, and I'll pay you back when I decide to" this blatant breech of contract goes way beyond politics. :rolleyes:

Consider fraud and theft.

How would you feel if you had shelled out 16K only to be screwed by MS?
 
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