Just saw this.....Bark River is no more?

jbmonkey said:
fun side note...googles ai thinks all these discussions are all basically false rumors and have no basis in truth or accuracy. its advice is to rely on bark rivers own Facebook postings and website media releases......in other words trust mike stewart............lol...you cant make this stuff up
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Lol, Google AI also says the GSO series of Survive! Knives stands for “Get Sh*t On”
 
I was never a fan, so I’m kind of not surprised. I held a couple of their knives and never thought quality and price point were where matched. Wonder how many other makers will be exposed for doing the same thing? Hinderer?
 
GrumpySoreOldBastard said:
It will be interesting to see how the value of BR knives in the secondary market hold up.
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I doubt they will. They weren't exactly stellar re-sale even before this fiasco came to light.

I understand why there's a lot of focus on Mike (and there should be), but let's also not overlook that his son, as I understand, has been doing a lot of the day-to-day running of the company for years now. Other people knew, for sure.
 
tltt said:

"@billjanke72​

2 hours ago
Unfortunately it's true. I feel horrible for the employees that didn't get a check yesterday and are now going to be struggling even more. As you mentioned the Chinese steel is also true. That was a recent thing when Bark River couldn't afford CPM steels. Every supplier cut them off and they had no money for materials and steel. Instead of just calling it a day and ending things they bought Chinese steel knife kits in bulk and told the employees to take the "Made In China" label off. The steel on those models is 9CR18MOV or supposedly equivalent to 440C but thay doesn'tmatter. It was stamped CPM-154 or in some cases 145CM which is bot true. The employees felt absolutely horrible being forced to work with "kit knives" from a large supplier as this was dishonest to the customer and the steel was going to be mislabeled on purpose. They bit their tongue and stayed quiet because they live paycheck to paycheck and 'That was payroll" Now those kit knives aren't an exact 1:1 copy using the Chinese blank as is. Mike knew people would catch on and had the employees modify the kit knives (added swedges, ground off finger grooves, ect) enough that people wouldn't put two and two together. The kit knives are as follows. Gladstone Hunter, Highwayman 4, Trailing Point, Mini Manitou, Camp Bolo, Bitterroot Caper and the Bark River Club knives (2019 and up)for Bark River Club members only. If you follow the drops you will realize these knives mentioned were the most recent runs they had and all marked CPM-154 or 154CM. So unless you have one of these models mentioned you have the real deal steel. All the rest of the knives besides those are legitimate real CPM or Bohler equivalent knife steel they used on older models. This has been confirmed by an employee and it absolutely pained them to even admit it. The employees are the real loss here. As an attendant of every single Bark River Grind in from 2021 on they are like family to me. Mike Stewart with all his flaws was like a father figure to me and this whole situation is very disturbing. The signs were always there and deep down I knew his past dealings with the knife industry.(Blackjack, Marbles) but it was because of the family connection that I continued to support and buy their knives. I worked side by side with these hard working employees and know more about them than I do about some of my own family members. I ask that people not take out their aggressions and frustrations on the employees. Some of these employees are really struggling right now and this company's abrupt ending has made their struggling even worse. I hope they get paid their last check and hope they can find employment soon."

Attribution - first pinned post on that Youtube video.

There was also talk along the same lines on the Bark River Facebook groups.
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Wow this is insane to read!
 
scorpnsnake said:
*Warning, unpopular opinion approaching

What a sham, shame I mean... Let me get this straight though. If I knowingly fraud the knife community. It's cool as long as I have a boss?

Sounds like It took a village. I hope for both financial and integrity success for all, if these reports are facts.
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This. Others had to know.

Pretend I'm an employee who clocks in and takes a rectangular bar of heat treated steel with holes punched into it and grinds it to a shape of a knife, whatever pattern is for that day. I do this for years.

Then suddenly I clock in and there are boxes of blade blanks that we didn't grind and now we just put handles on? The employees had to have known. Except for possibly new hires who hired in during the time that was done.
 
jlauffer said:
Ok, but not sure what that has to do with trying to predict who'll be next?
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It doesn’t.
my apologies. I misinterpreted your post. I thought you meant “first survive being shady and now brk.” But after reading again i see you meant “ first survive shuts down, now brk. Who is the next shady company to go under?” I didn’t mean anything by it anyway aside from a timeline sort of thing.
 
I haven't paid much attention to BRK&T in the past few years. Mainly because I can get really good custom stuff in my country for less money.

I do have a few of their knives, their A2 models with micarta handles seemed like a good deal at the time. I got a ton of use out of my Fox River and a Woodcraft (from Mike Stewart's tenure at Marble's) when I worked as a hunting guide.

I'm not on the internet as much nowadays, but I used to hang out at another forum which had a Bark River section run by Stewart, so I never got good information about the guy.

If the knife kit fiasco and steel mislabelling are proven to be true, I hope he gets sued for every penny he made.
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For people absolving the dealers of any wrong doing, I'm curious, through the years we have seen people go to the dealer when the knife steel didn't behave as expected, I assume the dealer then goes to br and gets fed a line of bs. For a fact, this has been a constant issue for YEARS on bladeforums, popping up from time to time. I find it hard to believe that people reselling these blades were oblivious. They had to have known br was selling knives in incorrect steels.

What it boils down to is they invested in the merchandise heavily, and didnt want to take a loss. So they kept selling them. In my opinion.
 
shinyedges said:
For people absolving the dealers of any wrong doing, I'm curious, through the years we have seen people go to the dealer when the knife steel didn't behave as expected, I assume the dealer then goes to br and gets fed a line of bs. For a fact, this has been a constant issue for YEARS on bladeforums, popping up from time to time. I find it hard to believe that people reselling these blades were oblivious. They had to have known br was selling knives in incorrect steels.

What it boils down to is they invested in the merchandise heavily, and didnt want to take a loss. So they kept selling them. In my opinion.
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ive seen this happen backwards in my industry..where a dealer owes a supplier so much money on their account the supplier starts to be their bank in hope to help the dealer get out of the financial hole and recoup some of their loses. nowadays they dont do that. they take out insurance on unpaid debts instead.

my point is, and im guessing, with no real facts after reading dlts explanation....maybe these dealers had prepaid so much cause they were out big money already and tried to help mike unbury himself and im sure mike had big promises of i can turn it around....huge risk regardless. they took a big gamble, if anything I said has any truth to it. sounds like they got horse traded and lost out big themselves too. this is why risk control and credit department are crucial to a solid business. sometimes an owner is too close to be able to see risk properly.

all speculation though based on a few sentences.
 
jbmonkey said:
ive seen this happen backwards in my industry..where a dealer owes a supplier so much money on their account the supplier starts to be their bank in hope to help the dealer get out of the financial hole and recoup some of their loses. nowadays they dont do that. they take out insurance on unpaid debts instead.

my point is, and im guessing, with no real facts after reading dlts explanation....maybe these dealers had prepaid so much cause they were out big money already and tried to help mike unbury himself and im sure mike had big promises of i can turn it around....huge risk regardless. they took a big gamble, if anything I said has any truth to it. sounds like they got horse traded and lost out big themselves too. this is why risk control and credit department are crucial to a solid business. sometimes an owner is too close to be able to see risk properly.

all speculation though based on a few sentences.
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Of course we don't know for sure, but it's plausible. It stands to reason, if a dealer has 10s of thousands prepaid in knives, and becomes aware of shady dealings they may be financially motivated to ignore the unscrupulous steel discrepancies to recover their $.

All I'm saying is, dealers were aware of the steel issues. For sure.
 
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