This happened months ago on Ebay, so I don't know if it belongs here, but realizing the Ebay seller (who is related to the maker) still occasionally sells knives on Ebay, and still has a 100% positive feedback, I felt it was my duty to post here my experience.
This below is simply a copy of a follow-up post I did on a thread where I had praised the design of the knife in question (ACK Sly II), before I knew what its performance was...
Here is the post, which contains all the relevant information:
I have to correct what I said about the Andrew Clifford being a practical knife (even if it does look that way)...: Under mild chopping use, the edge, in less than ten strokes, curls up like soft rubber, and the dented apex turns around and points all the way up 180 degrees to the spine... In the same wood a Randall Model 12 shows no damage in a thousand strokes...
I did take some incredible pictures that I'll upload later, as my camera is broken, but the ACK's performance is by far the most abysmal I have ever experienced with any knife, even compared to the disastrous Neeley SA9...: There were questionable delays in the purchase (an Ebay auction), and I suspect the knife was hurriedly made while I waited on an auction I had won for a non-existing knife: I got it a good five-six weeks after I won the auction, so over a month late...: The seller was the maker's nephew, and started making up a series of strange excuses right out of the gate, as soon as I won, like the paper of the authenticity certificate being cheap and needing to be re-printed(!)...
I suspect that to hurry things up the knife was not even hardened, as the performance was that of soft metal...
Gaston
P.S. I should mention that his nephew on Ebay goes by the name "Sonnerboomer", and being overly patient I did not give him negative feedback, which is still 100% positive on Ebay for this guy: I only found out about the unhardened edge months later, and given he is the maker's nephew (as acknowledged by the maker himself on his own site, mentioning the name "Sonnerboomer") I consider him responsible for the edge performance, and would give him negative feedback on the knife, if only because he claimed it would be an old serial numbered version (available on the first 100 made only), and instead I got a presumably more recent un-numbered version, which is very suspicious, even though I did not initially care about this...
Of note is that the seller on the Ebay stated the knife in the picture was just a generic picture, which should have been a red flag in itself...
The number of delay excuses, after I won a hard fought auction for around $700, went like this:
Week 1-Paper of authenticity certificate not "good enough": Seller offers to wait some time to have it re-printed (I declined).
Week 2-Missing sharpening rod (already stated in the ad): Offers to wait some time to get one for me: I had my own and declined.
Week 3-No response for a week, then "Wife" says Sonnerboomer is out on a trip...
Week 4-Sonnerboomer claims package was sent to the wrong address, but that it is returning to be sent out again(!!!)
That was about one excuses per week before I got a tracking number on the fifth week, and one week later the knife showed up, and looked good.
The knife had no serial number, and had an edge literally too soft to cut cheese, but I only found out about the latter issue months later.
That about sums it up.
As a side note, the maker recently jacked up the knife's price (Sly II) from $800 to over $1300 US, and says he is considering "only serious offers"
...
Make of it what you will...
Gaston
This below is simply a copy of a follow-up post I did on a thread where I had praised the design of the knife in question (ACK Sly II), before I knew what its performance was...
Here is the post, which contains all the relevant information:
I have to correct what I said about the Andrew Clifford being a practical knife (even if it does look that way)...: Under mild chopping use, the edge, in less than ten strokes, curls up like soft rubber, and the dented apex turns around and points all the way up 180 degrees to the spine... In the same wood a Randall Model 12 shows no damage in a thousand strokes...
I did take some incredible pictures that I'll upload later, as my camera is broken, but the ACK's performance is by far the most abysmal I have ever experienced with any knife, even compared to the disastrous Neeley SA9...: There were questionable delays in the purchase (an Ebay auction), and I suspect the knife was hurriedly made while I waited on an auction I had won for a non-existing knife: I got it a good five-six weeks after I won the auction, so over a month late...: The seller was the maker's nephew, and started making up a series of strange excuses right out of the gate, as soon as I won, like the paper of the authenticity certificate being cheap and needing to be re-printed(!)...
I suspect that to hurry things up the knife was not even hardened, as the performance was that of soft metal...
Gaston
P.S. I should mention that his nephew on Ebay goes by the name "Sonnerboomer", and being overly patient I did not give him negative feedback, which is still 100% positive on Ebay for this guy: I only found out about the unhardened edge months later, and given he is the maker's nephew (as acknowledged by the maker himself on his own site, mentioning the name "Sonnerboomer") I consider him responsible for the edge performance, and would give him negative feedback on the knife, if only because he claimed it would be an old serial numbered version (available on the first 100 made only), and instead I got a presumably more recent un-numbered version, which is very suspicious, even though I did not initially care about this...
Of note is that the seller on the Ebay stated the knife in the picture was just a generic picture, which should have been a red flag in itself...
The number of delay excuses, after I won a hard fought auction for around $700, went like this:
Week 1-Paper of authenticity certificate not "good enough": Seller offers to wait some time to have it re-printed (I declined).
Week 2-Missing sharpening rod (already stated in the ad): Offers to wait some time to get one for me: I had my own and declined.
Week 3-No response for a week, then "Wife" says Sonnerboomer is out on a trip...
Week 4-Sonnerboomer claims package was sent to the wrong address, but that it is returning to be sent out again(!!!)
That was about one excuses per week before I got a tracking number on the fifth week, and one week later the knife showed up, and looked good.
The knife had no serial number, and had an edge literally too soft to cut cheese, but I only found out about the latter issue months later.
That about sums it up.
As a side note, the maker recently jacked up the knife's price (Sly II) from $800 to over $1300 US, and says he is considering "only serious offers"
...Make of it what you will...
Gaston
