I don't ever purposely destroy a knife, but I have knives I wouldn't mind seeing destroyed. The handles may look the same, but the material might be different. You'd really have to buy the two knives.
Recently I bought a Smith & Wesson Homeland Security Tanto from Smoky Mountain. It was selling for $29.95 and that's the cheapest you can get it for anywhere. And I bought it because it looked kind of cool, though I wasn't expecting much. Then, to get free postage, I bought the Frost Cutelry COPY of the S&W. Price, thirteen bucks. I just wanted to see how they compared and it was about the same price as the shipping would have been.
I don't know how these companies work and what kind of a compensation they give each other when they copy designs. But the Smith knife was designed by Morgan A. Taylor and, as I stated elsewhere, I was very pleasantly surprised by the Smith's apparent quality. The looks were great, the balance fantastic, and the blade's edges were sharp and attractively ground. The knife's finish also was flawless and I was very happy with the purchase. Never had I seen a S&W that impressed me this much. Even the ballistic nylon sheath was well made. But then the Frost did not disappoint me. It was as completely lacking in quality as expected. The patterns were the same on the blade, but the thickness and grind were completely different. Plus the handles were plastic, but the Smith handles were G10.
When a company like Frost copies a knife like this, does it have to pay Smith & Wesson? And would M-Tech have to pay for its knockoff of the Dark Ops 911? If the answer is yes, why would the originators sell those rights? As they say down South, "That don't hardly make sense!" Even M-Tech frequently uses G10 in the handles of its knives, but again, I'd think if you had the two knives side by side, that you'd probably be able to tell why one would go fer $100 and the other $20.
The grips do look the same, but are they?
