Les :
[not custom sold as custom]
Generally, these people leave the hobby. When others ask them why they quit, the preson does not single out the dealer or other collector who lied to them. They use a general term like.. they are all liars and thieves. Now, with that kind of recommendation, do you think that guys friend is going to get into knives?
In the first place, I wouldn't listen to someone who is making broad generalizations which are obviously false as it indicates a strong personal reaction and an obvious bias.
I have broken a lot of knives, some of them fairly high end. My friends however do not think all knife makers overpromote and underwarrenty their knives - just some of them and they know which ones.
If I was buying knives for the purpose of resale or as an investment, I would simply ask for clarification of the description ? So it is custom? Does that mean that it is individually crafted? Made to order? One of a kind? Things like that.
While I think that an accepted set of definations for the knife industry would be of an obvious benefit as you would know what people mean, the use of custom that you are using is just so far in opposition of what it means to me that it is nonsensible.
As for your goal of protecting the customer, that is obviously a worthy one. However people who will try to mislead will continue to mislead in many ways, having people aware of what the "accepted" defination of custom is will simply get those dealers/sellers to switch tactics. You would be better off teaching the consumer how to penetrate hype of which the misuse of custom is just one aspect.
The main reason that I brought this up is that on numerous occasions when people are asking about *using* knives and mention the word custom you ask to restrict the discussion. Now I could understand if those people making the suggestions were trying to mislead but they are not.
People do this all the time. Someone will ask "which XXX knife should I get" and an answer could be "well ZZZ is a better brand/maker for that type of thing". A lot of people assume that custom knives make better users and this presupposition is built into the question. It is far from true and there are lots of production knives that give far better performance for the dollar and performance overall.
For example on the HI forum you will see people talk about machetes and other types of blades, on the Busse forum other similar knives like Project are bought up. As for some things there are better blades that the forums main subject.
Walt, that is why I said "you wouldn't consider this to be a custom knife", in reference to Reeves.
-Cliff
[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 09-07-2000).]
