ESEE-3F Folder with Lion Steel is Canceled!

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joe- dude i sprayed cool-aid all over my computer when i saw that. you need to put a warning before you say sumthin funny, one of these days this forum is gonna cause my computer to die
 
TheGame said:
I'm not disappointed by this at all. I would love for a USA stamp on it. Although, a shake means more then a contract in my family (one of the few left, I guess) I understand cultural differences..
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Shaking someone's hand in greeting is not the same as shaking on a deal. If Jeff said he needed 4 weeks to deside whether to go ahead with an order you certainly can't expect LionSteel to sit idly by in the hopes that ESEE will make up their mind and commit to a contract. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, Jeff is a cast iron pot calling the stainless kettle black in this situation.
 
R.A.T. said:
We will simply go forward and dig even deeper on USA production. No big deal. Just wanted to bring everyone up to speed here.
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Appreciate that. I'm still looking forward to putting an ESEE-3/F in my pocket when they're available. Sad to see LionSteel drop the project, but we have every confidence you'll find someone to make this knife to your standards. Have fun testing new prototypes. :thumbup:
 
nutnfancyfan said:
joe- dude i sprayed cool-aid all over my computer when i saw that. you need to put a warning before you say sumthin funny, one of these days this forum is gonna cause my computer to die
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Sorry bro! Couldn't help it.

By the way, how's the name change coming along? ;)

(You could always go with "ESEE Fan", that dude's not here anymore.)
 
Vege-Taco said:
Shaking someone's hand in greeting is not the same as shaking on a deal. If Jeff said he needed 4 weeks to deside whether to go ahead with an order you certainly can't expect LionSteel to sit idly by in the hopes that ESEE will make up their mind and commit to a contract. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, Jeff is a cast iron pot calling the stainless kettle black in this situation.
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What if he said he'd send the PO in four weeks and there was a miscommunication due to the language barrier. It could be an honest miscommunication also.
 
As Shon, Mike and I all said to Gianni at SHOT, we would send in the Purchase Order in February and Gianni responded that delivery would be sometime in June "close to Blade Show" were his exact words. We all shook hands on that. Gianni took all the changes and notes. He spent over an hour at the booth noting the changes. Nico also met with him later in the week and gave him another change to to the order: adding engraving on the blade to indicate steel type. Most everyone in our booth witnessed and heard the whole deal. We told him we would turn the purchase order in in February because we simply wanted to carry the folder a couple more weeks to see if there would be any last minute changes before production. He understood and didn't seem to have any problems with that, or at least we thought he understood. In fact, the only thing Gianni seemed to have a problem with is when we told him we would be ordering 20% of the knives left-handed. He said "that is a whole new knife" and we agreed. He indicated that it would cost more since the production numbers would be lower. We told him to charge us more and not lose money. He agreed to do that. So, we thought everything was wrapped up.

With all that said, it's just really no big deal any more. We thought we had a deal but since it wasn't on paper I guess we didn't. Nor did we give him a check at the show. So, since no money changed hands then Gianni has EVERY right to cancel any deal we thought we had. We can simply chalk this up to a miscommunciation and walk away from this happy. Personally, I don't blame the man for pulling the plug since he got more orders after he met with us. Like I said, I have no problems with Gianni or his company. He has to make sure his compnay is headed in a direction that is rigth for him and we have to do the same thing. We wish him the best.
 
I'm very sorry for esee things turned out and I'm sure Rowen will do a nice job.

As a knife collector I've knives from all over the world including quite a few from Italian makers and thus also from lionsteel. Being a bit of a steel junkie I followed the nexus and mckf projects and bought some of these knives. The quality is perfect.
I really think their concern to be able to keep the quality of their products high is legitimate. I followed their business since the nexus knives and must say since they are on this forum their business grew exponential. The success of the SR1 (and the lionspy) already has some concequence because I see the regular lionsteel products dry out in European online stores. I see Kniferesearch prolonging the production date ... Please keep in mind this is actually a small company and much is still done by hand.

I think it's best for the two sides to be open about the matter and make harsh decisions instead of trying to do things that might turn out to a big disaster.
Of course it sucks that at shot things where agreed on a handshake and a week later canceled. In this week time Gianni probably had to take a step back from the awesome days at shot, look at the big picture of running his company and make some decisions.

I don't think he's doing it for the $$$
If that would be the case he would try to make the order and let the quality slip.

I completely understand the disappointment and the shock of receiving this email.
I also think this isn't necessarily a bad thing for esee with Rowen being very capable to deliver a high end product. The fact that all esee knives will be made in the USA is also a very strong selling point. In all my years on the knife fora I know how important this is for Americans.

I being an European however don't have any patriotic nationalistic feelings :o
I just shamelessly buy whatever I like ;)

I'm only trying to give some thoughts at the other side.
Jeff is a great man how he handles this case, he's got my huge respect.

To be clear I'm not affiliated with lionsteel in any way just a knifenut/ collector
 
Concerning the "some don't want it made in Italy.."

Instead of Lion Steel brushing off wanting to produce the folder for people who "only want American made", you create the best folder these Americans have ever seen and win them over. Change the American customers mind about "offshore" products.

That's how I operate, if someone doubts me in any way, I go above and beyond to make them eat their words.

And I've been somewhat quite about the HEST/F thing, but I'm hearing now it's pushed back another few weeks/month(S?). If this is any indication on how timelines work at Lion Steel, then it may not be worth ESEEs time and aggravation.
 
R.A.T. said:
As Shon, Mike and I all said to Gianni at SHOT, we would send in the Purchase Order in February and Gianni responded that delivery would be sometime in June "close to Blade Show" were his exact words. We all shook hands on that. Gianni took all the changes and notes. He spent over an hour at the booth noting the changes. Nico also met with him later in the week and gave him another change to to the order: adding engraving on the blade to indicate steel type. Most everyone in our booth witnessed and heard the whole deal. We told him we would turn the purchase order in in February because we simply wanted to carry the folder a couple more weeks to see if there would be any last minute changes before production. He understood and didn't seem to have any problems with that, or at least we thought he understood. In fact, the only thing Gianni seemed to have a problem with is when we told him we would be ordering 20% of the knives left-handed. He said "that is a whole new knife" and we agreed. He indicated that it would cost more since the production numbers would be lower. We told him to charge us more and not lose money. He agreed to do that. So, we thought everything was wrapped up.

With all that said, it's just really no big deal any more. We thought we had a deal but since it wasn't on paper I guess we didn't. Nor did we give him a check at the show. So, since no money changed hands then Gianni has EVERY right to cancel any deal we thought we had. We can simply chalk this up to a miscommunciation and walk away from this happy. Personally, I don't blame the man for pulling the plug since he got more orders after he met with us. Like I said, I have no problems with Gianni or his company. He has to make sure his compnay is headed in a direction that is rigth for him and we have to do the same thing. We wish him the best.
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Sounded like a Deal on the Folder was Struck to me ,I was standing their at the booth while they were directly behind me doing their thing ,making changes to the folder & what not ...

ESEE3 Folder is Cancelled until ESEE finds another maker is all ,Delays happend ,more so with Folders
 
obsessis said:
What if he said he'd send the PO in four weeks and there was a miscommunication due to the language barrier. It could be an honest miscommunication also.
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I absolutley said he would receive a P.O. in February along with the down payment he required. Again, Shon and Mike heard this. But again, maybe it was a miscommunication due to a language barrier, and since no paper work was signed or no check was delivered at SHOT, Gianni has every right to do whetver he wants. So, we're not ready to go to Italy and shoot Gianni :D Just a difference in the way companies do business.
 
Sounds like Gianni used to be in the Italian military; where it is common practice for things such as "ineffective combat operations" and "change sides".
 
That's unfortunate for all parties, but at least we got both sides of the story now. In the end nothing too bad happened and life goes on. Now time to drool over some more sexy knives. :D
 
Neo said:
I'm very sorry for esee things turned out and I'm sure Rowen will do a nice job.

As a knife collector I've knives from all over the world including quite a few from Italian makers and thus also from lionsteel. Being a bit of a steel junkie I followed the nexus and mckf projects and bought some of these knives. The quality is perfect.
I really think their concern to be able to keep the quality of their products high is legitimate. I followed their business since the nexus knives and must say since they are on this forum their business grew exponential. The success of the SR1 (and the lionspy) already has some concequence because I see the regular lionsteel products dry out in European online stores. I see Kniferesearch prolonging the production date ... Please keep in mind this is actually a small company and much is still done by hand.

I think it's best for the two sides to be open about the matter and make harsh decisions instead of trying to do things that might turn out to a big disaster.
Of course it sucks that at shot things where agreed on a handshake and a week later canceled. In this week time Gianni probably had to take a step back from the awesome days at shot, look at the big picture of running his company and make some decisions.

I don't think he's doing it for the $$$
If that would be the case he would try to make the order and let the quality slip.

I completely understand the disappointment and the shock of receiving this email.
I also think this isn't necessarily a bad thing for esee with Rowen being very capable to deliver a high end product. The fact that all esee knives will be made in the USA is also a very strong selling point. In all my years on the knife fora I know how important this is for Americans.

I being an European however don't have any patriotic nationalistic feelings :o
I just shamelessly buy whatever I like ;)

I'm only trying to give some thoughts at the other side.
Jeff is a great man how he handles this case, he's got my huge respect.

To be clear I'm not affiliated with lionsteel in any way just a knifenut/ collector
Click to expand...

Best post so far and I believe it describes everything accurately. Gianni is a good man and I simply think he bit off more than he can chew and had to look at which companies he needed to focus on building for. That is not a problem with us. Like I said, we're not quite ready to go bomb Italy :D Rest assured, whoever is fortunate enough to have Gianni doing work for them is going to get a great product.
 
peterj said:
Sounds like Gianni used to be in the Italian military; where it is common practice for things such as "ineffective combat operations" and "change sides".
Click to expand...

Let's not start down that road. Having met Gianni and dealt with him on other things, he's a good man. The reason this is posted on our forum is to let our customers know why the folder is no longer being made in Italy or going to be shipping in June. This is not a thread to beat up Gianni. Trust me, this guy's quality is so good that companies are beating his door down to do their work. It appears Lion Steel just has some growing pains. Nothing more.
 
oruacat2 said:
Secondly, I was wondering if or when this would resurface:
and in spite of you broke signed contract for the Hest folder
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It does make you wonder why this just all of a sudden re-surfaced, doesn't it? ;)
 
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