Ever heard of GSM Outdoors? They just bought Cold steel.

A Cold Steel SRK was my first big boy knife.

I heard the Navy SEALs used them and thought that was awesome. Then one day at the Navy Exchange I bought a VHS video and saw a BUD/S instructor handling one. Now, at the exchange I didn't see any (there was a Buckmaster I really wanted but couldn't afford) but I eventually bought an SRK. I immediately hated the nylon sheath, bought a new sheath for a Ka-Bar, didn't like that, and then made this one. It's forever been my 'backup knife' kept in the truck or my hunting box in case I forget something more specialized. I like that knife, maybe I'll buy another.

I'm sure GSM will keep the SRK onboard, I just hope it stays the same knife I thought was super awesome when I was growing up next a Naval base.

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Well to say what I think about this:

1. Plenty of people in Facebook CS nation group were CS employees, they all said same thing as that kid on the phone.

2. Lynn has been a big knife enthusiast, true, and he did a lot for this industry, but he is also a businessman. It only makes sense for him to say what he said.
Few months ago he tried to sell us 4034SS crap as an excellent/amazing steel, remember?

3. He only cares about money latley, same reason why he let his sheaths dull people's knives for years. He doesn't give a crap about us, he is just worried this will damp the sales...

4. First thing new owners did was gut the warranty LOL
We all know what that means, he can say whatever he wants but I'm not buying it.

Cold Steel is pretty much dead for me, it was for a while honestly. I still want to get few of their old knives but as I'm also losing my job - not happening...

As someone who also lost his job at Christmas basically and slept bad last night because of that and I gotta study too since exams are closing in... this is pretty irritating to me.

I'm this stressed despite the fact I will be getting my salary for 3 months from government as social aid if I don't find something right away.
I don't know if people in US have that kind of social system.

But not to give them anything at all is a DICK MOVE!

I know it's his company and he can do whatever he wants with it, but I also know I can say whatever I want about his actions.

I hope he likes his new spot he secured on the new ship.

I also hope to see a lot more of videos of Andrew bulging his veins to cut some rope to prove edge retention of their pot metal.
Like the last cringey video, they made a contraption to cut rope and he was literally putting his weight on it to cut the rope...

Only thing I can say about CS now is WHAT A JOKE!
 
I am sorry about a few of you having a tough go. I feel you, many of us have gone through hard times. Keep working hard and prioritize what’s important in your lives. We are all rooting for you.



Cold Steel made great products. I don’t think it’s necessary to bash Lynn for making a business decision to sell after working hard for over 40 years.

Nothing lasts forever.

Except the Tri-ad lock. :)
 
MolokaiRider said:
I am sorry about a few of you having a tough go. I feel you, many of us have gone through hard times. Keep working hard and prioritize what’s important in your lives. We are all rooting for you.



Cold Steel made great products. I don’t think it’s necessary to bash Lynn for making a business decision to sell after working hard for over 40 years.

Nothing lasts forever.

Except the Tri-ad lock. :)
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I’d stick with the proven Tri-Ad knives of yesterday or just get a Demko custom. Even the Tri-Ad lock can fail if made with substandard materials. We’ll see what direction CS goes from here.
 
Quiet said:
I just posted this over in the CS section thread, and will paraphrase it here in response to your observation:

Something tells me that GSM Outdoors will most likely have tried to nail down every existing piece of Cold Steel IP, to include designs, designers, current manufacturers, marketing, etc. for their use only. About the only thing I expect candidly is that they'll scale down CS's catalog by quite a lot (all the awesome, oddball weapons will probably go away) and production will be moved to China, with the former CS manufacturing vendor(s) being told to sign a non-compete clause of some kind. Sadly, Cold Steel and its assets probably just got put into the work portfolio of some GSM employee brand manager who got told about this a week ago and he was like "...who?". So, you know we won't see any more oddball, crazy stuff from Sold Steel in the future. As there are rumors that most of Cold Steel's current personnel have been let go, that means we won't even have the people who had the passion and drive for these products and their design around anymore.

So, it's highly likely, that Cold Steel won't be making any announcements, because what can they really say? If Lynn Thompson isn't sticking around to continue running things, there's not even that to hold out for.

Incidentally, I'm a huge craft beer nerd, and have seen this exact situation countless times in the beer industry. A small, locally and widely loved brewery sells out to Inbev (a giant multinational beer conglomerate who hates independent breweries) and they always release some statement from the (now former) owners like "We're still here, and will still be making the beer you love, and it's going to be great! You'll see!" because they were told by their new masters to try to stop the inevitable customer abandonment*. They try to spin the buyout as some sort of new partnership, when really no, Inbev now owns you, and was basically just wanting to buy your customer base. Then within a year, the former owners and most of the innovators, head brewers, etc. are mysteriously gone, and the beer they're making now under that microbrewery label tastes nothing like it used to, because it's made at some big tank facility elsewhere. Additionally, all the awesome, limited run stuff that those brewers used to do, doesn't happen any longer because the innovators are gone, and also the bean-counters at Inbev didn't see any value in it. A shame all around.

* You have never seen something as fast as the fanbase evaporating the absolute MINUTE their favorite brewery gets sold to The Man, I guarantee it.
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I guess it does look pretty bleak. Too bad most countries don't have legal employee protection for this stuff.

On another note, can we please keep calling them Sold Steel now? It's brilliant!
 
SanLuisObispo said:
"Arrogant?" "Lame?" How so? He actually publicly asked for forgiveness. That's not easy to do. He noted that GSM has technical resources CS does not. Again, not easy. He also noted that GSM has the ability to "keep knives on the shelves" which could mean a great many things. Again, he was humble enough to admit it. It seems like a number of people are projecting their own issues onto LCT on this thread.
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SanLuisObispo said:
Some of the comments on this thread are most unfortunate, based largely I would guess on envy and ignorance. Some of the "insights" offered herein on CS's business are ridiculous.
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SanLuisObispo said:
You were wrong about where Cold Steel's HQ is located. Get over it.
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Just a heads up since you are new here, if you keep arguing with long time respected members like this and telling most of us we are wrong, you're stay here won't be productive or pleasant. Especially considering this is a serious topic, might want to dial back the know-it-all attitude. Take my advice or don't. Whatevs.

And for folks who think this isn't that bad, all you have to do is look at the warranty. The proof is in the pudding, as they say...
 
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MolokaiRider said:
...Cold Steel made great products. I don’t think it’s necessary to bash Lynn for making a business decision to sell after working hard for over 40 years. ...
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We are not criticizing what he did, we are criticizing how he did it. We, his customers, his dealers and his employees kept his company going and put the money in his pocket and the turd sold us out without a word of explanation. Kind of reminds me of the captain of the Concordia.

n2s
 
craytab said:
Just a heads up since you are new here, if you keep arguing with long time respected members like this and telling most of us we are wrong, you're stay here won't be productive or pleasant. Especially considering this is a serious topic, might want to dial back the know-it-all attitude. Take my advice or don't. Whatevs.

And for folks who think this isn't that bad, all you have to do is look at the warranty. The proof is in the pudding, as they say...
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Go right ahead and boot me or do whatever you do to new members who dare disagree with attacks based on malarkey. LCT's comments were hardly "arrogant" nor "lame" in this specific context. Matter of fact, they were contrite.
 
not2sharp said:
We are not criticizing what he did, we are criticizing how he did it. We, his customers, his dealers and his employees kept his company going and put the money in his pocket and the turd sold us out without a word of explanation. Kind of reminds me of the captain of the Concordia.

n2s
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That's just not true. I watched the video. I listened. Among other things LCT noted that GSMO could provide financial and technical resources to CS -- resources which are required to grow and prosper, which CS could not realize on its own. He mentioned that CS will be able to achieve a level of success with GSMO's help, which it wouldn't be able to do in something like 100 years sans the help.
 
SanLuisObispo said:
Go right ahead and boot me or do whatever you do to new members who dare disagree with attacks based on malarkey. LCT's comments were hardly "arrogant" nor "lame" in this specific context. Matter of fact, they were contrite.
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That's not all I'm talking about. Read your quotes. Those are thinly veiled if not out right insults. But you do you. I have no power here other than to try and drop some friendly advice, which you clearly have rejected. Good luck my-man!
 
SanLuisObispo said:
That's just not true. I watched the video. I listened. Among other things LCT noted that GSMO could provide financial and technical resources to CS -- resources which are required to grow and prosper, which CS could not realize on its own. He mentioned that CS will be able to achieve a level of success with GSMO's help, which it wouldn't be able to do in something like 100 years sans the help.
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Gee, I guess we should believe Mr. Thompson. Let me ask you, do you think that level of success is achievable without cutting the once great warranty down to an industry low? First thing they did was take a massive step back.

I suppose you might be right, they could make more money ruining the company, so technically they'd be more successful....
 
Maybe the warranty just went to GSM default and they will adjust after re-evaluation. This is a fresh acquisition, I would expect some adjustment period.
 
craytab said:
Gee, I guess we should believe Mr. Thompson. Let me ask you, do you think that level of success is achievable without cutting the once great warranty down to an industry low? First thing they did was take a massive step back.

I suppose you might be right, they could make more money ruining the company, so technically they'd be more successful....
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Imho all things considered Mr Thompson simply decided this was a good time to get the hell out of Dodge. :)
 
I did never buy a lot of CS offerings, but I appreciate their existence. The knife community and the knife market would be a less interesting place without them.

As to the process, I will not judge. There is just too much we don't know.

I've been involved in selling off a family business in times of uncertainty. It didn't matter much that the numbers used to be good. In unpredictable times the buyer pretty much dictates the terms, and it basically comes down to securing yourself and your family enough financially to get you going up the next hill and hopefully establish yourself on new pasture before the money runs out.

Owning and running a business is high risk and endless hours of work and worrying that you basically never get paid for.
Whatever bad deal the employees got, it doesn't take away from the fact that LCTs enduring efforts to make CS a name to be recognized in the business created these jobs in the first place.
 
As to the topic of running out to buy OG Cold steels..

...that was my kne jerk reaction as well

I never pulled the trigger though. Instead I asked myself why I would be doing that, and the answer is that nothing has changed.
I try to make every knife purchase based on what would best suit a specific need I'm looking to fulfill. And the truth is I don't need suddenly today what I didn't need yesterday. That's just FOMO.
Bying CS knives I couldn't already justify owning, just because they might disappear or go down in quality, would just be an act of collecting or investing. That's not my thing. I do have some knives more for their historical significance or novelty features rather than their usability, but that's not what CS is to me.
If I buy a CS it's because it's high performance at good value as a user knife. If good CS knives suddenly become scarce and hard to replace, they are also much less interesting to me as users.
 
jlauffer said:
Shedding staff in a buyout is to be expected, but how they were treated on the way out is what we're wondering about. With a pretty small staff, would've thought they'd be given something, especially with this happening right before Christmas. If they got nothing but a boot in the ass out the door, then that tarnishes Lynn's legacy IMO, a legacy that he seemed to care about in his video.
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This. A thousand times this.

If Lynn wanted to retire or cash out, that's fine. But a man in his position surely could have taken his time to find a better suited party that would take care of the employees, right? You can totally make that part of the deal. Now, Lynn will be forever remembered as the dude who cashed out to a faceless corporate entity and left the people that worked for him out in the cold right before christmas.
 
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