The very first DPx HEST Knives we produced were back when Jeff was "RAT Cutlery" but there was a legal dispute between them and Ontario Knives who had licensed the name. Jeff decided to get to more productive things than paying for lawyers and became "ESEE" and now he is Equatorial Solutions". Ontario continues to make RAT Cutlery knives and there is also a Randall Knives (unrelated) and there a bunch of ESEE companies out there like Embayment Seismic Excitation Experiment. I don't know what ESEE means. Something like Escuela Survival Something Something but its based on their survival training school in Peru and Colombia. So they are doers not marketers and ultimately that's why their knives are good.
But to make it simple> All the fixed DPx HEST knives were made by Shon Rowen, the logo just changed. Jeff no longer is part of DPx so since Shon runs all their product its just better to keep them separate to avoid even more confusion.
Come January/February we will have an agreement with a new knife manufacturer to make the original steel DPx HEST and the new high end stainless DPx HEST II
And DPx Gear stands for "Dangerous Places" and HEST is "Hostile Environment Survival Tools"
The little x after DP means EXtreme. Or Xtremely Sharp or Xtraordinarily Sexy or Extra Stabilicious or something... Our logo is the retro 40's DPx Gear and our mascot (and real logo) is Mr DP but he doesn't really have a name or even a marketing contract with DPx Gear. He just "is"
