Is it just me or Cold Steel knives are general either low quality or overpriced ?

chintofong said:
I have a folding Recon Tanto I purchased online a couple of years back. I bought it for the main purpose of EDCing it because I liked the size and geometry. It was used to cut boxes and paper (never abused) and one day when I took it out from the pocket I noticed that the thumbstud disc was missing (might have fell off). I contacted them by email and later on called their customer service department, and in both instances they said they would send me a replacement part, which they never did.

It has passed more than 3 years and still no replacement part. From that moment, I stopped buying their products even if they came up with the best knife in the whole world. I still keep the folder as a reminder that their service suck. There are a lot of manufacturers that offer knives and stand by their products.

:mad::mad:
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CS doesn't send out replacement parts....

You always have to send the knife in for warranty issues.
 
Ankerson said:
CS doesn't send out replacement parts....

You always have to send the knife in for warranty issues.
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I don't know about that, I guess I'm lucky. They replaced an old Voyager (20 yrs old) with a new one and I called them a few months ago and asked them if I could buy some pocket clip replacement screws.

I took off my clip to sand down the handle so it wouldn't eat my blue jeans. They sent me an envelope that arrived 4 or 5 days later with a new set of screws for the model I mentioned. Both times were no charges and very courteous Customer Svc. :)
 
Noctis3880 said:
I find most of Cold Steel's more expensive offerings to be grossly overpriced. However, after handling the American Lawman I'm left with the impression that I got a HELL of a lot of bang for my buck.

So it seems the trick is mostly spend no more than $100 on any one knife from them:thumbup:.
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I recently bought the Cold Steel Magnum Tanto IX, not for the over $200 street price, but BNIB from a member on the Forum, for a much better price. Way over $100, but nowhere near $200. Am I happy? You betcha!!

What a knife!
 
Ankerson said:
CS doesn't send out replacement parts....

You always have to send the knife in for warranty issues.
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The rep who assisted me told me they would send me the replacement/missing parts since it was easier for them and because I lived overseas......they never mentioned that I had to ship the folder so they could replace the missing part. If they have mentioned or told me that, I would have done so.
 
Andrew Demko has been doing a great job with designing knives for Cold Steel. It wouldn't be that hard for them to improve their image, Forget all the strange marketing, Make original designs (Lawman, Spartan, Ti-Lite, Rajah) and upgrade to steel and Warranty. I have no problem with cold steel right now.
 
Mattman888 said:
Andrew Demko has been doing a great job with designing knives for Cold Steel. It wouldn't be that hard for them to improve their image, Forget all the strange marketing, Make original designs (Lawman, Spartan, Ti-Lite, Rajah) and upgrade to steel and Warranty. I have no problem with cold steel right now.
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As for the "strange marketing.," I like it... As a result of it, I have purchased:

Cold Steel Recon 1 folder with clip point blade, ultra-lock

CS Mini American Lawman... especially after I saw the youtube videos of Fred Perrin throwing the knife repeatedly at a wooden backstop. In his video, he said he had been throwing that knife every day for over a year, and the knife was still as tight as it was new. While CS didn't market the knife like that, their videos extolling the virtues of the TriAd lock got me searching for more info on their knives.

CS Black Rhino, TriAd lock

CS Magnum Tanto IX... if you haven't already, you should check out this
http://www.coldsteel.com/tantoseries.html and click on the "Must Watch Video" to see what the Master Tanto (San Mai III steel, shorter blade) will do compared to a Gerber Mark II and a traditional Japanese tanto.


All of this "strange marketing" has given me needed information to make informed buying decisions.

I'm glad Cold Steel does the vids...
 
Folderguy said:
As for the "strange marketing.," I like it... As a result of it, I have purchased:

Cold Steel Recon 1 folder with clip point blade, ultra-lock

CS Mini American Lawman... especially after I saw the youtube videos of Fred Perrin throwing the knife repeatedly at a wooden backstop. In his video, he said he had been throwing that knife every day for over a year, and the knife was still as tight as it was new. While CS didn't market the knife like that, their videos extolling the virtues of the TriAd lock got me searching for more info on their knives.

CS Black Rhino, TriAd lock

CS Magnum Tanto IX... if you haven't already, you should check out this
http://www.coldsteel.com/tantoseries.html and click on the "Must Watch Video" to see what the Master Tanto (San Mai III steel, shorter blade) will do compared to a Gerber Mark II and a traditional Japanese tanto.


All of this "strange marketing" has given me needed information to make informed buying decisions.

I'm glad Cold Steel does the vids...
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i like his marketing/vids it helps me choose my zombie killing weapons......
 
hardheart said:
That's a rather insulting outlook to take of your customers, expecting enough of them to put a three foot cheater bar on a knife that it causes you profitability problems from warranty claims.

The lack of warranty suggests a lack of faith in one of two things - your customers or your products. Neither is a good thing, imo.
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"The lack of warranty suggests a lack of faith in one of two things - your customers or your products. Neither is a good thing, imo."

That is 100% logical and thinking about it, one or maybe both would almost have to be the reason or at least part of it.
"Something" is going on at cs.
I say that because if it was "business as usual", I would tend to think the lifetime warranty would ride on as it has, but to go from a possible 50 or 75 year warranty to the original owner and all of a sudden DOWN to a 1 year warranty, something has happened and guessing a lot of broken knives and NOT from abuse or misuse as there are exclusions for that and not covered by the warranty anyhow, so it must be the "materials or workmanship".

I do have a concern for many of the cs knife owners (I own many cs knives, but do not use them, just collect some of them, so I am not worried about these breaking as they are not used)
I wonder what will happen to, let's just say me. I bought all the Tanto knives just to collect them and have had this set for about 10 or more years (lifetime warranty). I wonder what would happen if I started using them. How could someone prove they were bought with a lifetime warranty if you just have the knife (no box, receipt, etc).
Would they have to have some kind of "Proof" the knife WAS covered under warranty at time of purchase?
I am not "worried" about it for me as they are not used and I still have the boxes and may still have the receipt, but what about the cs knife users that have models that have been in production for many years?
Just thinking out loud:)
 
The only other thing I can attribute the short warranty to is the fact that CS does not produce the knives in their own facilities. They are reported to purchase the finished pieces from separate manufacturers, who almost assuredly do not work with CS exclusively. Since they don't have mass production equipment and probably don't want the expense of a large inventory of warranty parts, they limit the warranty period. Without Camillus, everything they sell comes from overseas. So the value of the currencies, political risks, and whether or not your manufacturing partner is still your partner, much less is maintaining the same tooling for a 5 year old disco'd model, all affect the warranty period decision.

It was good they replaced cziv's voyager with a new production model, at least the people handling the warranty dept. are much better than the written policy :D
 
I look forward to Andrew Demko's hint that the warranty may be increased in 2011. Not that I need it, I don't buy high end CS products, just Voyagers, Recon-1's and they're tough as nails for their price point. :thumbup:

I love my two pre-2010 Large Voyagers, lot's of use and they still have "0" blade play, and only require a few passes on a DMT fine, x-fine diafold and some stropping to keep that Japanese VG-1 hair popping sharp.

I got rid of my old, ultralock Recon-1 and replaced it with a new Triad version. What a pleasure that knife is.

I wonder why the steel is downgraded from VG-1 in the Voyagers to the Recon-1's AUS8 though?

Well, all three are very sharp and very good, bang for the buck folders. :)
 
I'm really digging my 2 CS products: 1st was a NOS/NIB black-epoxy SK5 Trailmaster (i've since voided the warranty by stripping off the black epoxy): 2nd is my American Lawman - what a GREAT knife!!! Honestly, i'll probably strip off the black epoxy on it as well.

Either way, i'm well pleased with my choices.

I'd get obviously higher performance from a custom large Bowie @ 2x and more the price for my Trailmaster. However, i see no way i'd actualize a truly tangible benefit from a folder more expensive than my AL - it simply does the job and is more solid than i hoped for - a very rare experience for me and warrants celebration.
 
Didn't know that about CS having a 2 year limit on their warranty. I'm definitely not buying their knives now. If Benchmade and Spyderco, which have fairly good customer service, look bad next to Kershaw, then that doesn't bode well for CS.
 
Quoted from Cold Steel's Customer Service department:

Thank you for your inquiry.

The best way I have found to explain our warranty policy is to compare KIA motors to Ferrari.

KIA- 10 year/100,000 mile warranty
Ferrari- 3 year limited warranty

Now, is KIA saying that their vehicles are better then Ferrari's because their warranty is longer? KIA makes a decent car, but it is no Ferrari.

Is Ferrari saying that they do not back up their products because their warranty is less then KIA's?

The fact of the matter is this- Cold Steel will do everything in its power to make the customer happy and take care of them. We know that our knives are made to take a tremendous amount of punishment, and our customers do just that- punish them! Ferrari is well aware that its customers are going to take their cars out and try to drive them at 200 mph. While they are quite capable of doing the job, there are some inherent risks with higher performance. The warranty does not cover that.

However, generally, since our knives are at the extreme high end of performance, if there is a defect in material or workmanship, it is usually evident well within the terms of the warranty. If not, we will still do whatever we can to take care of the customer. You will never hear us say, "past the warranty? Too bad."

We stand by our statement that we make the world's strongest, sharpest knives. Because of that statement, and the performance to back it up, our customers more often then not test their limits (often well beyond normal, rational use), and our warranty reflects that.


Yes, the warranty may be changing in 2011, but the current warranty is not as is because of a lack of faith in the product. It is a realistic view of how the product is often used and abused.
 
DngrRuss1 said:
Yes, the warranty may be changing in 2011, but the current warranty is not as is because of a lack of faith in the product. It is a realistic view of how the product is often used and abused.
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After reading that - maybe they'll be offering only 6 mo limited warranty on all these new models with triad locks and such.....lol Love their mindset...not!! :yawn:
 
cziv said:
After reading that - maybe they'll be offering only 6 mo limited warranty on all these new models with triad locks and such.....lol Love their mindset...not!! :yawn:
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Naturally, after all, they ARE the Ferrari of the knife world. :thumbup: :D
 
DngrRuss1 said:
Quoted from Cold Steel's Customer Service department:

Thank you for your inquiry.

The best way I have found to explain our warranty policy is to compare KIA motors to Ferrari.

KIA- 10 year/100,000 mile warranty
Ferrari- 3 year limited warranty

Now, is KIA saying that their vehicles are better then Ferrari's because their warranty is longer? KIA makes a decent car, but it is no Ferrari.

Is Ferrari saying that they do not back up their products because their warranty is less then KIA's?

The fact of the matter is this- Cold Steel will do everything in its power to make the customer happy and take care of them. We know that our knives are made to take a tremendous amount of punishment, and our customers do just that- punish them! Ferrari is well aware that its customers are going to take their cars out and try to drive them at 200 mph. While they are quite capable of doing the job, there are some inherent risks with higher performance. The warranty does not cover that.

However, generally, since our knives are at the extreme high end of performance, if there is a defect in material or workmanship, it is usually evident well within the terms of the warranty. If not, we will still do whatever we can to take care of the customer. You will never hear us say, "past the warranty? Too bad."

We stand by our statement that we make the world's strongest, sharpest knives. Because of that statement, and the performance to back it up, our customers more often then not test their limits (often well beyond normal, rational use), and our warranty reflects that.


Yes, the warranty may be changing in 2011, but the current warranty is not as is because of a lack of faith in the product. It is a realistic view of how the product is often used and abused.
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I don't find anything unreasonable in the statements above, but that is just me.
 
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