Fixin' it? "Code of ethics"

Les Robertson said:
If the seller tells the buyer everything they know about the knife.

And the buyer is happy with that.

Then their shouldn't be any problems.
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Les, I got a little carried away talking about the differences in "our truths" so let me apologize. I usually don't make it personal, after all, it's just knives we are talking about.

As for the above comments of yours, I could not agree more with what you said. You were able to express, in much fewer words, exactly how I look at it myself.

Bob
 
Hi Cot,

I suspect the factories have to license the name and design.

As for other makers copying Bob's designs...you will have to ask them.
 
jjtjr said:
Coop, the Ed's article is in Blade.
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Thank you, Jim. Coop was working frantically this morning and grabbed his copy of Blade right after thumbing through Knives Illustrated. DUH! :rolleyes:

A mea culpa and apologies for such an oversight. I'll step away from the keyboard...

Roger, I love your counterpoints. Also very astute.

Coop
 
so what if a fella uses his custom knife, and through regular maintenance, refinishes the blade? He describes the knife as 'used', instead of 'refinished'? Does it matter whether he himself used it, or whether the maker used it and then he bought it direct from the maker used? :confused: Obviously describing it as 'mint' would be lying. What if the knife was used by Elvis?

Now, when it comes to selling things - anything - ethics are the root of good dealings, and lying, cheating and generally screwing people in order to make a buck will always come back and kick your ass. Hopefully:).

Respect for dignity and fairness should always be applied.
 
I don't think it is as clear cut as Ed makes it out to be. Let's say that ten years from now I have a Bose pocketknife that I am fond of using and have used it for a couple of decades. Let's say that this knife is still serviceable, but it is starting to show its age with cracked handles and a wobbly blade. What if Tony has retired from creating knives by this time? I would hope that I can find a quality maker to rehabilitate my knife. I don't see any problem in this. In fact the only thing I agree with is that it is my knife and I am free to do with it as I please.
 
Les,

Perhaps it is time we stop thinking "Loveless the maker" and we start viewing it as "Loveless the Brand name".
 
The owner of a knife can do whatever he wants with it. If the knife is sold, whatever was done to it should be fully disclosed to the prospective buyer.

I don't think that a maker is doing anything wrong by working on another maker's knife. If the maker is comfortable doing the work, that is fine. If the maker is uncomfortable doing the work, that is fine as well. There is nothing wrong or unethical about doing such work.
 
I got my copy of Blade today and I read Mr. Fowler's article. Having done this has put a lot of this discussion into context. A lot of it is not in the context of the article at all:(

I took his editorial to be one directed at newer, less experienced knife makers. It was like a cautionary tale, and I don't think that what he was saying really applies much to experienced makers. They would generally know not to refinish knives made by other people, if for no other reason than it is a pain in the ass and it doesn't pay;).

What Mr. Fowler did was to point out some of the consequences of tampering with someone else's handmade creation.

In my profession, (some people call it that) I would prefer that people who buy their bike from me bring it back to me for maintenance. Not only do I get to know the bike better, but more importantly I get to know the rider and their needs. When the time comes, and they've worn out their bike, I'll better know how to help them chose a new one.

If they're a no phat latte slurping yuppie who shows up to Starbucks on Sunday morning, wearing their matching spandex and their bike on the top of their BMer, who never ever rides the damn thing, and they get the bike detailed by another shop and then say they got it from me but the detailing work goes sideways and the person who bought it was told it was brand new never ridden, well then...well then, I would have a run-on sentence. But now the person who bought this bike off the yuppie is going to question my reputation, which I worked so hard to build.

But seriously. It's bad to screw with another man's reputation, even if you did so innocently enough. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Consequence is a force of nature that our fat modern asses have forgotten the stinging kick of.
 
Lorien said:
I got my copy of Blade today and I read Mr. Fowler's article. Having done this has put a lot of this discussion into context. A lot of it is not in the context of the article at all:(

I took his editorial to be one directed at newer, less experienced knife makers. It was like a cautionary tale, and I don't think that what he was saying really applies much to experienced makers. They would generally know not to refinish knives made by other people, if for no other reason than it is a pain in the ass and it doesn't pay;).

What Mr. Fowler did was to point out some of the consequences of tampering with someone else's handmade creation.

In my profession, (some people call it that) I would prefer that people who buy their bike from me bring it back to me for maintenance. Not only do I get to know the bike better, but more importantly I get to know the rider and their needs. When the time comes, and they've worn out their bike, I'll better know how to help them chose a new one.

If they're a no phat latte slurping yuppie who shows up to Starbucks on Sunday morning, wearing their matching spandex and their bike on the top of their BMer, who never ever rides the damn thing, and they get the bike detailed by another shop and then say they got it from me but the detailing work goes sideways and the person who bought it was told it was brand new never ridden, well then...well then, I would have a run-on sentence. But now the person who bought this bike off the yuppie is going to question my reputation, which I worked so hard to build.

But seriously. It's bad to screw with another man's reputation, even if you did so innocently enough. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Consequence is a force of nature that our fat modern asses have forgotten the stinging kick of.
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What if you're the maker, and your customer asks you to do something that you don't want to do, like a etch a picture of his late german shepard onto the knife in gold. and rehandle it with doggy bones. But... another maker can do it. Would you be OK if your customer hires another maker to modify the knife you've made?
 
why should I care if the owner wants to embellish his knife? It's none of my business.

Now, if he goes around saying he bought it from me like that or that I did the work, or worse still, sold the knife to someone else under that false pretext, I'd think he was an asshole. And he would be; a lying, asshole:)
 
Lorien said:
why should I care if the owner wants to embellish his knife? It's none of my business.
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IMO, as long as the maker's name is on the knife and his reputation in the knife then I would think he/she would care how someone else alters the knife.

Now granted, I agree the maker has little power to do anything about it as the buyer/collector owns it thus can do as he/she pleases.

And we are not just addressing embellishing a knife but possibly altering it by changing the blade profile, reshaping the handle or all sorts of things that could have a negative impact on the quality, looks, integrity and safe use of the knife.
 
Once it's sold, it's sold and the owner can do whatever he wants. If he wants to take apart one of my folders go ahead, I just hope that he can put it back together correctly.

What about repair work?

What if a maker is so backlogged that he might not get to it for a year? I know it's bad customer service.

What if the maker lives out of the country and you don't want to take the chance of sending it through customs on it's way there and back?

What if the maker is deceased and the knife needs adjustment, cleaning ect?
 
Lorien said:
In my profession, (some people call it that) I would prefer that people who buy their bike from me bring it back to me for maintenance.
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Would you consider it a "contemptible atrocity" for them to take THEIR bike to someone else for repairs / maintenance?

The point in issue is not whether it is preferable to have the original maker do the work, but whether it is morally / ethically repugnant to do otherwise.

Roger
 
Chuck Gedraitis Knives said:
Once it's sold, it's sold and the owner can do whatever he wants. If he wants to take apart one of my folders go ahead, I just hope that he can put it back together correctly.

What about repair work?

What if a maker is so backlogged that he might not get to it for a year? I know it's bad customer service.

What if the maker lives out of the country and you don't want to take the chance of sending it through customs on it's way there and back?

What if the maker is deceased and the knife needs adjustment, cleaning ect?
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Good points all.

Roger
 
Once a knife is sold, it's the buyer's and he can do with it what he pleases. Sometimes a maker's design has a flaw, that needs to be fixed. I have a custom that had a sharp point at the end of the edge, I reprofiled it with a diamond hone. The knife no longer bites me. It's an improvement.

A knife is a tool and it is expected to need maintenance, this includes sharpening, fixing tips, rehandling and new sheaths. There is nothing unethical about a maker working on anothers knife...do makers expect to live as long as their knives exist??? Not all makers have the cash flow that Fowler does. Why shouldn't they learn from working on another's blade? Fowler has always believed that a blade is "Lady Knife" thus he wants to protect her. The concept of "Lady Knife" and embodying an inaminate object with life is common, but not rational.

I've had two knives refurbished by the maker...and you can tell. Soooo, if YOU CAN'T tell if a knife is refurbished, why should I tell you? If you're too stupid to tell when a knife has been worked on, why are you collecting knives? We've had this discussion many times in the Levine subforum. Don't buy a knife if you don't know what you're buying. Don't buy a knife on the internet w/o the right of refusal. Don't blindly trust dealers, even the ethical ones can make mistakes.

Les your right, it is hypocritical to give Loveless a pass, and anyone who knows knives, knows that Loveless is NOT an exception. There are a lot of makers who put their names on blades that were actually done mostly by others in their shop. Some disclose it, few give full disclosure and most only disclose it if asked...maybe that kind of ethical requirement has helped decrease the knifemaker's guild members.


If you know the history of cutlers and custom knives, you will know that "ethics" have had little to do with it. You can walk the ailses of any knife show and readily find ethical lapses in the depiction of both custom and production knives being sold by knife makers and dealers alike.
 
RogerP said:
Would you consider it a "contemptible atrocity" for them to take THEIR bike to someone else for repairs / maintenance?

The point in issue is not whether it is preferable to have the original maker do the work, but whether it is morally / ethically repugnant to do otherwise.

Roger
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No, Roger. I don't see it that way at all. Unless the context is what I described previously.

In the context of Fowler's article, his ethical stance on the issue seems to be directed at newer makers who might not consider such things and his strong wording is kind of like the Catholic school teacher telling little Jimmy that he'll go to Hell for picking his nose in order to get him to stop.

Ed Fowler is seen by many, (and likely sees himself this way) as something as a moral authority on custom knife making.
There is rarely any talk about ethics in knife magazines, or anywhere else. So many new makers are left to their own devices when it comes to developing an ethic for business, (especially hard when you are in business for yourself).

Just imagine Podunk Paul, who makes knives for his hunting buddies, who one day is given a Warenski hunter to refinish which a buddy found at a flea market. He doesn't know anything about collectible custom knives, or Buster Warenski, only about the knives that he himself makes. He sees the opportunity to make a few bucks and butchers the Warenski.

He may never know what he did. Now, if he'd read Fowler's article, (provided he can read) he might have had second thoughts about putting his buffer to a the knife.

Fowler paints the picture in black and white in order to make a point. My feeling though, is that context is at the root of questions regarding ethics, and that there are many shades of gray.
 
There are probably plenty of makers out there that will work on anything. We don't. We have turned down several requests to work on other makers knives and will continue to turn that kind of work down. I don't know that I think that it is a "contemptible atrocity", but it is not what we want to do. Given a choice, I don't think I would want someone else working on one of our knives if we are still in the business. On top of that, we have enough to keep us busy making our own knives without taking time to work on someone else’s. The customer usually expects you to drop what you are doing to work on it and doesn't want to pay you squat for the work anyway.

I do have a problem with people that knowingly misrepresent a knife either by saying that the knife is something that it isn't or just allowing the other person to assume that a knife is something that it isn't. It doesn't matter if it is a maker, dealer, or collector, whether the knife has been made by someone else, refinished, reground, rehandled, tightened or whatever, to me it is just wrong. The people doing this have been around as long as there have been people and the only protection against them is knowledge of the product they are selling. They can always come up with a justification for what they are doing and I hope that some day they have a good one.
 
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