Bear MGC and their "Genuine India Stag bone"?

Danbo was probably looking for customs...and used (india stag) as his search on ebay. :p
I've done it myself...you get a lot of crap...with the occasional decent knife.

So did you get a Bear? :D
 
shappa said:
Danbo was probably looking for customs...and used (india stag) as his search on ebay. :p
I've done it myself...you get a lot of crap...with the occasional decent knife.

So did you get a Bear? :D
Click to expand...

It was worse than that. I simply typed in "stag damascus" and hit the search button. Lots of crap to sift through. And, no. I didn't get a Bear this time. I do have to say that I have owned Bear knives before, and found them to be of decent quality. Not great quality, but certainly a lot better than a Frost.
 
How many items did you get with that?
"custom" will get you about 800, with the item and description seach about 4000! "handmade" about half that.

I agree that Bear is definetely a step up from frost. I can spot stag bone scale easily as I'm sure most of us can...it's very destinctive. It's those new to knives that will be misled.

The last item I got off of ebay was a Meerdink stag neck knife. The guy had it listed as a merroink! He couldn't read the makers mark. I was worried that the mark was blurred, but it turns out that meerdink uses a fancy script and the guy must have bad eyes because it is a sharp mark.
 
"Bone stag" or "stag bone" has been around for a while - for example quite reputable makers use the material - normally it's cow bone made to imitate stag antler/horn -
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I agree that "Genuine India Stag Bone™" just does not sit well with me either :barf:

It may be of interest that Swiss Army Brands (now wholly owned by Victorinox) actually listed Bear Cutlery in their 2003 dealers catalog including "Genuine India Stag Bone™"

At the Bear Cutlery home page -
http://www.bearcutlery.com/
Their banner header says:
"Bear Cutlery
a division of Swiss Army Brands, Inc."
and there is a link to
http://www.swissarmy.com/

--
Vincent

http://UnknownVincent.cjb.net
http://UnknownVT.cjb.net
 
UnknownVT, I'm pretty sure that website is out of date.
I believe Ken Griffey and probably some others (SMKW?), bought it back from Swiss Army Brands a few months ago.
If I remember the story, Swiss Army wanted the Plier patent so much they bought the company from the 3 guys who had purchased it from Jim Parker and Fain Edwards, one of whom was Ken Griffey (the G in MGC, of Bear MGC). He has a statement about he and his son running it now, on the SMKW website. Don't know what happened with the multitools, though. :confused: . They were pretty nice tools, in general, I thought.
As far as the "Stag Bone" thingy, someone once told me it was water buffalo from India. Ummmm, not betting on anything, though. Just industry scuttlebutt.

Just as some fuel....er, information. ;)

Bill
 
Actually the water buffalo bone makes more sense to me than cow bone. If the bone is coming from India, I have a hard time believing they would allow their precious cows to be used like that. But who knows. After the phone conversation I had with them, I wouldn't be suprised if when they say "India", they are just using an abbreviated form of "Indiana".
 
I contacted Bear & Son Cutlery and informed them they were getting beat up pretty bad here, and offered them a chance to reply.

Below is an email that they sent me:

Thank you for the information. The trademark was never meant to deceive
anyone!

When we like all the manufactures looked for a replacement for Stag Horn.
When released a series called Genuine Red Stag Bone. Later we continued to
look for other replacements. After about 2 years we worked with our
supplier from India (who had supplied the Stag Horn), he brought to us a
Bone that was jigged and dyed to look like Stag Horn. We then called it
"Genuine India Stag Bone" there was a lot of thought put into this name.

The reasons are simply and made sense:

1. Many of the other manufactures turned to a plastic handle. For example,
Schrade called their handle "Staglon". Thus, we wanted our customer to
understand it was real bone not plastic. So just as we us on all our bone
handles we put the word "Genuine" in the front.

2. We wanted people to understand that it was a replacement for "Stag".
So we used the word stag in the description.

3. The bone is coming from India. Thus, the "India" in the trademark. We
put where it was coming from for 2 reasons:

A. It is larger than the shin bone from a cow so it would fit our
Bowie. Cows do not get big enough to provide a bone for the 5" handle on
our Bowie. Also, all bone is imported because we feed our cattle so many
growth hormones that their bones are brittle and thin.

B. It cost more than the plain shin bone that we get from South
America for our other bone uses.

4. We wanted the word "Bone" in the name to make sure that no one
misunderstands that this was Bone not Horn.

Case uses the term "Stag Bone". Both Case and Bear have worked hard to
insure that our customers understand the difference in the Horn and Bone.
The only people in this industry that is is the business of deception is the
imports that put American names on knives and then have "China" Etched on
the back of the blade so the consumer will not know from looking at the
package that the knife is an import. The few 100% American made companies
take more feedback because of the way we market items and the consumer
should be upset with the loss of American jobs from non-tariffed imports
with good names that they have come to respect as being American made. If
anyone has a question about how bad the imports have hurt this industry ask
the 300 employees from Schrade that lost their jobs because of Imports
putting Schrade out of business in July of this year!

I think that if those people in the forums looked at the top 10 knife
companies they would be much more upset about the import problem and what it
is doing to the American Industries that this country built and is now
slowly declining.

As for the employee that the member spoke to, she is paid to answer the
phone and perform office duties. She should not have made any comments
about what she doesn't know and like all employees they sometimes do not
handle everything as they should.

Please feel free to pass this information to the forum. I wish I had
access to reply, because I don't believe we have in anyway done anything
that is deceptive!

Thanks,

Bear & Son Cutlery
Cutlery that is Proud to be "Made in the USA"
 
Maybe you all who don't buy sllipjoints think Stag Bone is deceptive, but anyone who knows the "pocket knife" scene knows about stag bone. I'ts old news by more than a few years.

Just as the people from Bear said, stag bone has become a replacement because of trade restrictions, not for deceptive marketing purposes. Bear uses the term "bone" to describe the handle material so consumers know it's not antlers. Some may think it's "cheesy" but I am sure Bear would prefer to use real stag, unfortunately real stag from india is not currently available.

So lay off the company. Their product may not be the slickest, but it's usually a fair deal at the price.
 
I still think it's cheesy and purposely deceptive. So there. Nanny, nanny, boo, boo.
 
Companies have been selling jigged bone dyed and made to look like stag for as long as I can remember - certainly back to the 1960's. They've always called it bone stag. It is nothing new. It is the traditional name for it. Right, wrong or indifferent, there isn't any reason to be surprised. I agree that using the term "genuine" is unnecessary and possibly misleading but bone stag is a very old handle material.

Since India banned the exportation of antlers from the Sambar stag a few years ago, bone stag has had a resurgence in popularity. The antlers from the elk, European red deer and other sources aren't as strong as the Sambar stag so perhaps making it from bone is actually a good idea in these times. Just providing another perspective.
 
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