Has anyone else noticed this?

I

Isaacherring

Joined
Oct 27, 2015
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Has anyone else noticed that a lot of knife companies own each other? Like how cutco owns kabar, fiskars owns Gerber and Kershaw and zt are owned by kai, I find this very interesting, are there any I'm missing?
 
Fiskars bought Gerber, and Kershaw branched out into ZT, Kai is the combination of the two. I have no idea about Kabar.
 
Friskars bought Gerber, and that's what screwed them up. Gerber is now moving a lot of their production back to the good old USA according to the Gerber rep (Katie) I know from the trade shows. I look for them to make a comeback.
 
As many of the smaller or older companies have closed their doors, those brands have been bought up. Sometimes rebranded with offshore made versions. Many of the older traditional brand names are owned by just one or two companies and they'll release knife runs under those names, but they aren't the same as the "old days". In some cases they're better. In many cases, much worse sadly.

The old Schrade/Uncle Henry knives come to mind. The current made ones just aren't too good imho as compared to years back.
 
Joe58 said:
As many of the smaller or older companies have closed their doors, those brands have been bought up. Sometimes rebranded with offshore made versions. Many of the older traditional brand names are owned by just one or two companies and they'll release knife runs under those names, but they aren't the same as the "old days". In some cases they're better. In many cases, much worse sadly.

The old Schrade/Uncle Henry knives come to mind. The current made ones just aren't too good imho as compared to years back.
Click to expand...

Schrade is now Taylor Cutlery, right? They also make Smith and Wesson knives IIRC.

Really, it's not that nobody else has noticed this - it's moreso that the brands that people generally bother with around here are usually single-company operations. Benchmade, Kai, Spyderco, Hogue, Chris Reeve, Emerson, Strider, Hinderer, etc.
 
KAI is thr mother company. It bought up Kerhaw, ehich spun off ZT.
Kerdhaw seems to have weathered the buyout, but I always liked their old designs.
 
Kabar bought the John Ek Knife company. Love my pre-Kabar Ek blades, Richmond, VA. They are high quality big blades; not sure of the Kabar versions.
 
At least with knives is still spread out. Want to see a monopoly, start looking into sunglasses and eyeglasses.

As a consumer its good to know the chain that gets you the products you want. That makes more of a difference to some than others. At the end of the the day, its all shiny crap to clutter up the place.
 
Victorinox bought out Wenger. Whatever became of Puma? I have one of their knives from 1980 and it is very nice, from West Germany.
 
This really is no different than any other manufactured or even non-manufactured good or service. From banks, to restaurants, to watches, etc, etc, etc
 
Welcome to the corporate world in which we live...

I came across this list a while back, with similar questions. Boring list, no fancy pictures or graphs, just real basic who's who:
http://apg2k.hegewisch.net/wow-6.html
*(not sure how up to date it is, but it's pretty in depth, and mostly it seems to be on par).
 
1985: Alcas acquires Vector Marketing Corp., owner of the "Cutco" brand.

1996: Alcas acquires KA-BAR product line, name, and assets.

2009: The Alcas Corporation name is changed to CUTCO Corporation as the company marks its 60th anniversary.
 
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