Chinese Marbles

P

popcornpicker

Joined
Apr 3, 2007
Messages
625
I feel like I did when I got my first Chinese Schrade. I tried to buy an American knife, so I ordered an MR118 folding hunter. When it arrived, sure enough, there it was: CHINA. WTF, I thought Marbles was made in northern Michigan.
 
The Marbles brand pocketknives have been made in China for some time now. I don't know if they still make anything themselves or not, or if everything is subcontracted and stamped with their name. Even their famous Safety Axes are made in China.

-Bob
 
I feel your pain bro. I bought a Buck stockman as a gift for a friend who was leaving our plant a few weeks ago. When I got it home and was looking it over, I was surprised to see CHINA on one of the blades. I started a thread about it in the Buck Knives forum. According to the Buck guys, they sell more USA made knives, and have more US employees, because some of their knives are made in CHINA. :confused:

When my kids have to sign up for a foreign language in school, I'm going to tell them to take Chinese. I predict we'll all be speaking it before long if Americans don't wake up!

Scott
 
The fixed blade series is still made in the US. I don't know how much longer it will be so, but they are still carbon steel and are still great knives.

I can't believe a company like Marbles would let their brand deteriorate through using the China garbage...
 
the Buck 110 are still made in the US. Grab whill you can.
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Buck just opened a new factory in Idaho, and they have no plans to eliminate American production. In fact they once expressed an interest to bring all of their production back to the US, once the new facility was fully functional.

-Bob
 
I hate how Chinese products have become known to be crap, probably due to the fact that the companies know what they outsource will be crap they don't even care, maybe we should start blaming the companies not the country (not that I like China or anything).


Don't take that too seriously but outsourcing sucks ass.
 
65535 said:
maybe we should start blaming the companies not the country (not that I like China or anything).


Don't take that too seriously but outsourcing sucks ass.
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I agree. If we all refuse to buy the company's outsourced product, sooner or later it doesn't get made anymore. If we support American companies by buying products made here, more will be made here.

People just gotta make the conscious decision to buy American products when they can. Sometimes its not even possible, but if it is, we should.

A few years back the Wall Street Journal ran an article about the Mattel Company, and how the Chinese workers in their facility were treated. I wish I would've kept that article. If I remember correctly, it was one which the Barbie dolls were made and/or assembed. It talked about what amounted to slave labor camps with "employees" being required to live on site, pay ridiculously high room and board out of their meager pay checks, no time off if quotas weren't met, lack of bathroom breaks or rest periods, abhorrent working conditions, etc, etc. Anybody remember that article? It was a real eye-opener.
 
I also recall a bunch of articles about Chinese factories - from what I remember, you could still live off the factory in most, but rent would still be subtracted from your paycheck. Lovely - but if you take a look back, not exactly unprecedented.

The worst thing for us is that the jobs left here, went overseas, and now, if they come back, the wages suck - either less or exactly the same as when they left - which, when you factor in a few years of inflation really means the employees are taking a pay cut.
That, combined with the fact that people have moved on (assuming the company even comes back to the original location) means that even with American workers, you still don't have the training and skillset you had when the factory disbanded, so you're really starting from scratch. It does refresh everything and bring in fresh blood, but you can't claim that something isn't lost there.
This applies to pretty much all industries, not just knife manufacturing.

As for quality - we have to stop pretending that the company is blameless here - it's ultimately their decision to allow a crap product on the market. Recently it seems the companies just don't care - they announce layoffs, the board's stock options go up. Ditto with outsourcing and the "damn everything else, we need ever increasing profits" that the market loves so much.

If China gets their shit together - and I think they will because we're giving them the opportunity (if I can be so arrogant) to practice on the shiploads of stuff we're buying from them - we're going to be in for an interesting time.

China is a country that has built the equivalent of the us highway system in the last 10 years and expects 400 million workers to migrate to major cities in the next few years. 25-30 years ago, most people thought anything "Made in Japan" was the worst garbage. They managed to pull themselves out of that hole and I think - given sufficient motivation and resolve - the same is possible for China.
 
I don't have a problem with knives made in China. I own lots of things made in China and I don't doubt that the Chinese are capable of producing serious cutlery if they want to. If anyone does have an ideological problem in buying Chinese products then they have every right to boycott them as they see fit.

I do have a problem when traditional US or European companies source cheap products that are not obviously marketed as being of Chinese manufacture. Marbles, Buck, Taylors (Schrade) and others are guilty of this and there is plenty of evidence from previous posts here that people have been sucked in. I prefer what Spyderco has done with the Byrd line - they market them as an economy parallel line to their regular Spyderco knives under a different label.
 
2manyknives said:
I don't have a problem with knives made in China. I own lots of things made in China and I don't doubt that the Chinese are capable of producing serious cutlery if they want to. If anyone does have an ideological problem in buying Chinese products then they have every right to boycott them as they see fit.

I do have a problem when traditional US or European companies source cheap products that are not obviously marketed as being of Chinese manufacture. Marbles, Buck, Taylors (Schrade) and others are guilty of this and there is plenty of evidence from previous posts here that people have been sucked in. I prefer what Spyderco has done with the Byrd line - they market them as an economy parallel line to their regular Spyderco knives under a different label.
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Keep on buying Chinese products and we will all be sorry. I try and avoid it as much as possible. China is now threatening to crash the dollar by selling off some of their 1.3 trillion dollars in reserve. China is not our friend. Get your head out of the sand and realize that!:mad:
 
there is no way that we can keep out china or it's products anymore. they are the wave of the future. The only thing we can hope for is that their people wake up and demand a living wage for themselves.
 
Give the Chinese another ten years, and then they will produce quality, but for now Chinese made just means garbage. I remember back in the 60's and 70's when Japan started manufacturing, and it was all garbage then, but now things are much different.

My experiences with anything coming from China has been terrible. The compressor regulator exploded days after the warranty ran off, and there are no parts available. The Yamaha generator I bought was returned due to dirty electricity output. The weed eater lasted 5 minutes before self destructing, and the list goes on.

Now I look where things come from, and if its from China I will simply pass it by. It isn't worth the hassle no matter how good the deal looks.
 
Before I bought this knife, I tried to do some research on the company. According to their website, in 2001 George Brinkley, who was president of Case, became the chairman and CEO. It attributes him with the turnaround of Case in the '90s. In 2004, he bought Marbles Brands and Cutlery Division. The site goes on about tradition and nostalgia etc. I guess I should have checked with you guys first. So lets see, I have a SOG from Taiwan, CRKT from Taiwan, Bucks and Marbles from China. I know there are more but these were disappointing recent additions.
 
flylock said:
there is no way that we can keep out china or it's products anymore. they are the wave of the future. The only thing we can hope for is that their people wake up and demand a living wage for themselves.
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Not for knives for me they're not. I'm not that cheap that I can't spend a couple extra dollars to buy American.
 
Bob W said:
A lot of their fixed blades are advertised as "Imported", which is a thin disguise for "Made in China."

http://www.eknifeworks.com/webapp/e...Text=&list=50&range=1&order=Default&SKU=MA510

-Bob
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I didn't know about those... I was referring to this line

http://www.marblesoutdoors.com/cutlery/classic.html

I believe they are all currently made in US. All of the ones I have handled are and they are excellent knives for the money. I love their convex grind (but being a BRKT nut, I would! :) ) and the steel does a good job of holding an edge.

Thanks for the correction!
 
I knew some of their fixed blades were still made in the USA, but I also knew that some aren't. I didn't mean to dispute you, only wanted to clarify that buying a fixed blade is not an assurance of getting a knife actually made at the Marbles factory. Pricetag is probably the best single indicator; it seems the American-made Marbles cost 300% more than the imports.

-Bob
 
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