Imperial Schrade Closed?

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I dunno. Offshoring is a problem, but it's kinda hard to cast stones in our neck of the woods. Spyderco, Kershaw, Seki Cut, Opinel, Frost's, CRKT, Cold Steel, Boker, Puma, etc. We do enjoy our foreign made goods, and there are US companies who have fair success with knives produced overseas. It isn't a question of us buying inferior goods. Schrade is on the lower end of pricing and materials in knifedom, but they get left behind compared to Victorinox. Plus, I usually see them in stores right next to Buck, Gerber, and Kershaw, with designs that just don't grab the way the others do. I don't know who exactly competes with them for the traditional patterns and is a foreign company. Maybe I just don't pay much attention to them, but Schrade also seemed to be more commonly spotted than any $2 chinese junk when looking through hardware sections.
 
God, that's horrible. I love their knives absolutely, and many family members carry one of their old timer models. You've gotta be joking here...late april fools?

:-(
 
Knife Outlet said:
And what are income taxes? At least import duties are optional. You only pay them if you buy an imported product. You could buy an American made product and escape them altogether. I would replace income tax completely with import duties. An American could actually go through life without paying taxes. Imagine that! I'm 100% against giving away our manufacturing to other countries.
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You would think that is how it would work, the reality is the very different. You have just tried to sell import tariffs the same way politicians always do, "You only pay if you Don't buy American"

The fact is if you place a tariff on a foreign made product the end result is the american manufacturer raises his price of his product to just under the foreign product price. They don't use the tariff to give them breathing room so they can make capital improvements. They don't improve quality, design, they don't invest in technology to bring their per unit cost down. They raise prices and increase profits. Then Labor sees the increased profits and demands a share. Soon the the company is in the same pinch it was in before and crying "we can't compete with cheap imports!"

If you don't believe this is really what happens look at the american steel industry. The Bush administration gave american steel two huge gifts at all of our expense. First they placed tariffs on foreign steel. When they were forced to abandon tariffs they devalued the currency making american steel cheaper overseas and foreign steel more expensive here. Guess what american steel companies did in return for this favor? They raised prices! Ask anyone who uses steel in their manufacturing how much steel has gone up in price in the last year .U.S. steel just announced a $213 million profit for the last quarter. In the same quarter last year they had a $43 million loss.

Free trade forces manufacturers to make better product and lowers prices. Protectionism creates inflation and stagnation. Everybody gets burned when you artificially raise or lower prices.


Drew
 
Shame - my first stockman was a Schrade. I must agree with others about the lack of interlectual investment by Schrade. Whilst their traditional products stand up there with the rest I believe their lack of investment in the new steels and new designs let them down. As I recently said in another post where is the Stockman with S30V steel and real bone or for that G10 scales. Schrades have never been cheap in Australia - about $65US for a Stockman is RRP and the Asian Knockoffs are value esp. when you look at the use of 440 stainless and real bone on some of their models. You can't really blame the Chinese for filling a void that was left open to them by the US knife companies. It is to be hoped that the remaining US knifemakers take this as a warning to do better - we in Oz lack an indigenous cutlery industry and depend on the US for quality products.
 
I love Old Timers, and am going to miss them. I feel like I need to stock up now, so my grandkids will be able to share in the joy of a new Old Timer.

As for the buy American thing, that's getting harder and harder to do. Not just at Wallyword, but anywhere. Clothing, electronics, kitchenware, small appliances (large ones soon, too).
 
Drew, that scenario would make American companies more profitable so they could do R&D etc. It would also increase the number of American jobs and raise wages and salaries. It would motivate companies to bring manufacturing back home in order to be price competitive. All of those things would be positive for our economy.

And, finally, pricing is always a function of supply and demand. American companies might raise prices but they wouldn't raise them past the point that would allow them to sell the products. Products aren't priced beyond the consumer's ability to pay. If they are, they disappear from the marketplace.

Personally, I think the cheap labor countries do more to screw up competition than import duties do. You must also keep in mind that I grew up in an era when we had import duties on nearly everything. It was a time when the middle class was growing and thriving, not disappearing as it seems to be today.

If we don't have something to sell in the international marketplace that equals the amount we buy from it, eventually, we'll lose the ability to buy from it. That's just common sense.
 
It still comes down to the consumer when he or she makes the decision to purchase a product, either they buy home made or off shore. A home made product means the money stays at home and in the local economy, offshore is where the money goes, draining the local economy.

When I purchase goods for my store it galls me to buy offshore but either the quality I want is not made in North America or North Americans simply do not get the message out that their product is available. Sourcing is very difficult and time consuming. We must do a better job of getting the message out if we have a good product to sell.
 
That sucks.
I do find it ironic that everybody starts screaming about Wal-Mart in the "Schrade out of business" threads. I've bought maybe 8 Schrade knives in my lifetime, and they all came from Wal-Mart :o

Ilovetoolsteel said:
First they placed tariffs on foreign steel. When they were forced to abandon tariffs they devalued the currency making american steel cheaper overseas and foreign steel more expensive here. Guess what american steel companies did in return for this favor? They raised prices! Ask anyone who uses steel in their manufacturing how much steel has gone up in price in the last year
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Yes, let's just ignore the fact that a lot of America's steel industry has already gone under, and the rest has been suffering tremendous losses in recent years. God forbid they should try to turn a profit, so their employees can get raises for a change, and they can bring their operations up to date, or just afford to get them running properly after all this time. The tariffs should have always been there, not imposed after thousands upon thousands of jobs had been lost, businesses shut down, and America left on the verge of being totally dependant on overseas production--and just what do you think will happen to prices the day that becomes a reality?
You don't have a clue what you're talking about.
As someone who happens to be affected by all this, I'm getting my first raise in 4 years this month. Guess I should feel really guilty about it...
 
One has to ask why we cannot compete with foreign manufacturers. In my opinion it is because of onerous government regulations, which make doing business in the US absurdly expensive. What other nation forces so many regulations on business that full time employees are necessary just to ensure compliance with the laws? Any effort undertaken by a businees that does not make a profit is overhead, and overhead is just a fancy word for waste. We have two choices: make any nation that does business with us comply with our environmental and safety standards, or lower our standards to a level that we can be competitive again.
 
I agree with Gollnick's post and I do try to buy American. But at the same time I get upset when the American Flag is flown over an inferior product to get me to purchase. Look at the auto industry. And I bet that American SUV in my garage is made from more foreign components than American.

We need to wake up before it’s too late and we fall into the same cultural decline that occurred with the Roman Empire. As Gollnick pointed out regarding increasing house size, etc…. Rising housing prices in-turn creates sprawl. That with the automobile creates a loss of community and makes us weaker. Other areas we continue to weaken are Taxes, Family, Education, Self-Policing, Moral/Ethical Insanity.
 
Knife Outlet said:
Drew, that scenario would make American companies more profitable so they could do R&D etc. It would also increase the number of American jobs and raise wages and salaries. It would motivate companies to bring manufacturing back home in order to be price competitive. All of those things would be positive for our economy.

And, finally, pricing is always a function of supply and demand. American companies might raise prices but they wouldn't raise them past the point that would allow them to sell the products. Products aren't priced beyond the consumer's ability to pay. If they are, they disappear from the marketplace.

Personally, I think the cheap labor countries do more to screw up competition than import duties do. You must also keep in mind that I grew up in an era when we had import duties on nearly everything. It was a time when the middle class was growing and thriving, not disappearing as it seems to be today.

If we don't have something to sell in the international marketplace that equals the amount we buy from it, eventually, we'll lose the ability to buy from it. That's just common sense.
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You are arguing failed new deal policies. Roosevelt placed minimum prices on what products like milk or meat could be sold for to raise crop prices to keep farmers in business.

The result was people bought less and and it worsened the depression Farmers still went out of business but milk and meat was more expensive.

Let me put it this way. If your business makes $1000 a week and your costs are $500, Your profit is $500, Right?

Next week, If your business makes $1250 but your costs go up to $750 are you making more money?

Can you now afford to pay your employees more? Hire more workers?

All the tariffs in the world aren't going to make people buy a product they don't want.

Buck and Camillus are both old American knife companies,They make a similar product to Schrade, Unlike Schrade, They have lot's of new product. Schrade's problems have to do with them being content to have an ever increasing portion of a shrinking pie. Buck and Camillus are growing Despite cheap imports.

You make the claim
"pricing is always a function of supply and demand"
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This can't occur in a market where the government artificially raises the price of foreign made products. Any time you tinker with something as complex as an economy you run in to the law of unintended consequences. When Nixon instituted price controls everybody raised their price to the max allowed by law because they still had to buy materials at the price the market dictated. Price controls CAUSED INFLATION, precisely what they were supposed to halt.

Drew
 
Knife Outlet said:
And what are income taxes? At least import duties are optional. You only pay them if you buy an imported product. You could buy an American made product and escape them altogether. I would replace income tax completely with import duties. An American could actually go through life without paying taxes. Imagine that! I'm 100% against giving away our manufacturing to other countries.
Click to expand...

Yeah, import duties and income taxes are two sides of the Socialist coin.
 
OwenM said:
Yes, let's just ignore the fact that a lot of America's steel industry has already gone under, and the rest has been suffering tremendous losses in recent years. God forbid they should try to turn a profit, so their employees can get raises for a change, and they can bring their operations up to date, or just afford to get them running properly after all this time. The tariffs should have always been there, not imposed after thousands upon thousands of jobs had been lost, businesses shut down, and America left on the verge of being totally dependant on overseas production--and just what do you think will happen to prices the day that becomes a reality?
You don't have a clue what you're talking about.
As someone who happens to be affected by all this, I'm getting my first raise in 4 years this month. Guess I should feel really guilty about it...
Click to expand...


I don't have a clue? Are there some mysterious economic laws I don't know about? Rising material costs don't cause inflation? Inflation isn't bad for consumers"
If I have to pay more for a car made of your more expensive steel I am going to wait longer to buy a new car. Will that help or hurt the economy? If millions and millions of people just like me put off buying a new car, will that help or hurt the steel industry?

Is the American steel industry using these profits to improve production processes so they can make steel cheaper and better than their foreign competitors like the Japanese did 30 years ago? Probably not. Where does it end? What happens when value of the dollar rises making foreign steel competitive again and profits vanish?

Do you think restrictive American trade policies will make foreign nations open their markets to American products? Are the restrictive trade policies of foreign nations making you want to further open U.S. markets to foreign products?

Do you think a trade war with Europe and Asia will help America?
 
This is bad news for the knife community, but it's far worse for for the former employees. I wish them the best.

Paul
 
Yoohoo, Ilovetoolsteel. We aren't talking about price controls and we aren't talking about a period of time when manufacturing was growing in this country.

I can't seem to get through. Unrelated conomic theory trumps common sense. Ah well, content yourselves with buying Chinese products until you run out money to buy them any more because our economy has been thrown on the international landfill. Live for today. Who cares about tomorrow.
 
You seem to have alot of foreign, mostly Asian made, stuff for sell on your website Knifeoutlet. I wonder if you would soon be in the same shape as Schrade if you just sold American made product or raised your prices on the non-American stuff?
 
One thing that's got my brain confused is the back of the "New Products 2004" mini-catalog from SMKW that came with my order a few days ago. "New! Schrade Superknives" it says. "Limit 4 Per Order Please!" Why on earth did they decide to put their name on a new (to them) product if they were just going to shut the doors afterwards? Or is this what they're going to do - stop manufacturing and just put their name on another manufacturer's product?
 
We are our own worst enemy. In the most affluent country in the world, we as consumers demand the cheapest goods and services- hence the Walmarts and the Targets flourish. Another sad day for American workers and their families. my heart goes out to them. Next time you are about to buy something, check this web site first- www.workingfamilies.com.
 
Offshoring didn't kill Schrade, the fact that fewer and fewer people are buying and carrying pocketknives killed Schrade.

Let's face it, if they had tons of customers but still needed to cut costs, they could have moved all production to China (like damn near everyone's doing these days :mad: ). But it's not even worth paying diddly Chinese labor costs if no one is buying your products.

The bottom line is that the pocketknife industry is in the shitter and I don't see that changing. And even those who are more optimistic have to admit that those knife companies still in business are selling fewer and fewer traditional slipjoint knives (which represented a large part of Schrade's business; i.e. Old Timers and Uncle Henry).

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE slipjoint knives. I love good old carbon steel knives. But I don't know ANYONE who carries 'em. These days, most folks are sheeple and carry nothing. But if they DO carry a knife (I'm not counting boxcutters or POS knives), it's usually one of the following: SAK, multi tool, single-blade lockback, or hi-tech locking one-hand opener.

The overall decline in knife carrying is my real concern. I certainly hope the folks at AKTI are taking notes. We need to continually spread the gospel.
 
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