China copies.. my thoughts

[smcjoecohen@yahoo]

If they make it obvious that it's a replica, it's not quite as bad as them trying to replicate it to the point where people have a hard time telling them apart. As somebody mentioned a while back, fakes don't really hurt the companies because knife makers like CRK, Strider, Hinderer target a certain type of customers.

The people who would spend $400-800 on a knife would not buy a fake even if it's nearly like the real thing, because they know it is NOT the real thing. The people who would buy the fakes are the ones who can't afford the real thing or are unwilling to drop that kind of a coin for the real thing. So those companies aren't really losing any business because of the fakes. Those people wouldn't be buying from them anyways.

The biggest problem is when someone tries to sell a fake as the real thing.

I agree mostly. I own 5 Striders, I love them. I have been looking for an XM-18, I can' quite pull the trigger on a $750 knife. I have bought 2 Strider clones though. The SMF clone is pretty good, not great. The SNG clone is very close to perfect, it's difficult to tell the difference between it and a real one but I know it's not real. I will always know and therefore it doesn't fulfill that craving that all of us have. It doesn't appear that China will ever respect US Patents. They steal much more important technology and design from American Companies, important advances in the fields of science, computers, and manufacturing that actually impact American jobs and business. The Gov't won't punish them by implementing high trade tariffs because they lend us so much money.

 

[Jack Black]

Do you really think the Mears/Wood design is so similar to the Spydie bushcraft? The handle shape is quite different, blade shape isn't spot on either. Not to mention that the design you seem so attached to is not very much unlike traditional Scandi blade shapes. Its an incredibly generic design, basically just a Mora bladeshape with a full tang.

The Mears/Wood knife is not a knife I'm "so attached to", as I think my comments above make clear. I think it's a passable design popularised by television and copied by unimaginative manufacturers supplying less expensive copies to a gullible market. For me, the Spyderco knife is very clearly a copy, despite a few minor differences. I raised the point of the Mears/Wood knife on this thread to underline the point that it isn't just Chinese manufacturers who are copying more expensive designs (I'm not talking about fakes, that's a different matter). Those copies too, may not harm the producers of the original knife, and even encourage users to 'upgrade', but we all know they're copies and shouldn't pretend otherwise. Personally, I dislike copies, and in terms of the Wood/Mears knife I'd rather see manufacturers produce something original, and hopefully better, rather than churn out endless clones of what, even Alan Woods, regards as a flawed design. I also dislike he idea that every kid who wants to go into the woods thinks they're not properly equipped unless they first have a 'genuine classic bushcraft' (or whatever similiar name the copy is being sold as) when they'd be just as well equipped with a £10 Mora or a knife out of the kitchen drawer. It's nice to see the Ramboesque 'survival knives' have all but disappeared, and at least the new 'must have' knife is a sensible design, but I prefer to think for myself, rather than just carry a knife because some guy on the TV (and in the case of Ray, I knew him when he was Raymond and lived with his mum) has one.