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

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dsutton24 said:
I don't like the idea that some of you folks are trying to make everyone involved with Bark River out to be scam artists.

It's obvious that many of you have never worked in manufacturing. You're standing at your bench for many hours a day. You have a limited set of responsibilities and a clearly defined range of digression. If something is wrong, you flag it and a supervisor makes a decision. If he says 'ship it', you ship it. It may not feel good, but it's your responsibility to do your job within the guidelines set for you. If something goes wrong and it slips by unnoticed, you are likely to get clobbered. Your choice is to work, or take your chances elsewhere. Over very large swaths of the country there aren't a lot of jobs for manual labor types.

As for the dealers, well, who knows. These guys have to sell knives, and we'll undoubtedly see a range of responses to this fiasco. They will have to strike some kind of balance between keeping their customers happy and preserving their own interests. We're consumers, we can choose who we support or don't.
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By that logic Mike is justified in what he did because finding a different job could be difficult.

There is no chance that the employees didn’t know that grinding Chinese markings off of steel, marking it CPM-154 and selling it as such was wrong. You can’t justify ripping people off by saying that you did it for less money or at a lower level than the boss.
 
wroughndt said:
By that logic Mike is justified in what he did because finding a different job could be difficult.

There is no chance that the employees didn’t know that grinding Chinese markings off of steel, marking it CPM-154 and selling it as such was wrong. You can’t justify ripping people off by saying that you did it for less money or at a lower level than the boss.
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That’s not how logic works. Mike Stewart started the scam with malicious intent, the employees presumably didn’t know about the issue until it was discovered. At that point, the employees could have conceivably been financially obligated to look the other way or face hard times looking for a new job (again, not many opportunities in Escanaba and there’s a big drug problem there that rhymes with Beth).
 
Acutereference said:
Just curious, former long time Mod then Admin in another interest area, why hasn't this been locked down? A great deal shared, a lot of repetition. At this point is it helping knife enthusiasts?
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This is a major event in the knife community. Many knife people and multiple companies are affected.

As long as members have something valid to say and they stay on topic, the thread can stay open. As you can tell from the multiple posts from multiple moderators, this thread is being actively monitored.
 
wroughndt said:
By that logic Mike is justified in what he did because finding a different job could be difficult.

There is no chance that the employees didn’t know that grinding Chinese markings off of steel, marking it CPM-154 and selling it as such was wrong. You can’t justify ripping people off by saying that you did it for less money or at a lower level than the boss.
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That makes no sense. Mike Stewart had a well proven track record of being able to start up new ventures pretty much at will and riding them into the ground. The people who worked for him worked for a skunk. They didn't make the decisions about materials or marketing. They didn't 'rip (anyone) off', their boss did. It may be that some decided to either move on or not to work for Bark River for any number of reasons. Who knows?

Look, I live not far from Effingham. Many people around here knew Stewart and watched the demise of Blackjack. The people who worked for Blackjack were pretty thoroughly hung out to dry. There are fewer 'insiders' to these goings-on than the conspiracy minded think. There have been many plant closings around here over the last forty years. The problems were not with the workforce.
 
Employees of a company (regardless what the company does) can be held legally culpable if they had knowledge of and participated in the employer's fraudulent activities irregardless if they were forced to or ordered to. "Just doing your job" is not an excuse or defence to excuse criminal actions.
In the case for BR, their culpability started or increased when ordered to turn Chinese blanks into "USA made" knives with mislabeled steels. Had they "whistle blowed" or staged a walk out it would be a different outcome
 
shinyedges said:
Someone mentioned earlier that they exist basically because of brk, so by default they were tied to Mike from the beginning. That doesn't mean they themselves were bad people, but it does have the curious question of why they overlooked Mike/Jim being lying, thieving, pervy, vindictive scumbags. If I was a dealer, and 15 years ago I had customers telling me blade steels are not behaving correctly, and I took those blades in to examine and saw they were indeed not the correct steel, it's time to do something about that.

I'm guessing the money was good enough to overlook the transgressions. But yea, it wasn't an industry secret.
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I guess this is a good time to put this story out of one of my many conversations with Mike in the late 90s maybe early 2k. This story involved a meeting Mike(Black Jack knives at the time), Gerber, and several other companies, maybe camilus. There was 4 or 5 companies at this meeting with japanese steel supplier. Mike claims to either understand or have had someone who understands japanese at this meeting. According to mike everyone was looking for 440b and 440c steel. The japanese engineer told the sales guy in japanese that they did not have either steel. The sales guy responded in japanese that the americans would know the difference. The japanese sales guy told the american knifemakers that they had all the steel in stock and available. When the steel arrive he tested it, found it wasnt what was sold and had them take it all back. The point of the story is the mike claimed they tried to screw him with the wrong steel. Interesting, considering current issues
 
Cobalt said:
I guess this is a good time to put this story out of one of my many conversations with Mike in the late 90s maybe early 2k. This story involved a meeting Mike(Black Jack knives at the time), Gerber, and several other companies, maybe camilus. There was 4 or 5 companies at this meeting with japanese steel supplier. Mike claims to either understand or have had someone who understands japanese at this meeting. According to mike everyone was looking for 440b and 440c steel. The japanese engineer told the sales guy in japanese that they did not have either steel. The sales guy responded in japanese that the americans would know the difference. The japanese sales guy told the american knifemakers that they had all the steel in stock and available. When the steel arrive he tested it, found it wasnt what was sold and had them take it all back. The point of the story is the mike claimed they tried to screw him with the wrong steel. Interesting, considering current issues
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Oof. Considering Mike was the source, it's difficult to believe just about anything he says. I don't know why Mike would have been looking for American steel from the Japanese anyway.
 
Cobalt said:
I guess this is a good time to put this story out of one of my many conversations with Mike in the late 90s maybe early 2k. This story involved a meeting Mike(Black Jack knives at the time), Gerber, and several other companies, maybe camilus. There was 4 or 5 companies at this meeting with japanese steel supplier. Mike claims to either understand or have had someone who understands japanese at this meeting. According to mike everyone was looking for 440b and 440c steel. The japanese engineer told the sales guy in japanese that they did not have either steel. The sales guy responded in japanese that the americans would know the difference. The japanese sales guy told the american knifemakers that they had all the steel in stock and available. When the steel arrive he tested it, found it wasnt what was sold and had them take it all back. The point of the story is the mike claimed they tried to screw him with the wrong steel. Interesting, considering current issues
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Huh?
Japanese rep says he does not have the steel they want. So why was an order placed?
 
ShaiHulud said:
Employees of a company (regardless what the company does) can be held legally culpable if they had knowledge of and participated in the employer's fraudulent activities irregardless if they were forced to or ordered to. "Just doing your job" is not an excuse or defence to excuse criminal actions.
In the case for BR, their culpability started or increased when ordered to turn Chinese blanks into "USA made" knives with mislabeled steels. Had they "whistle blowed" or staged a walk out it would be a different outcome
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Yes, they would have lost their jobs.

Legal culpability isn't that cut-and-dried. The law takes into account the employee's state of mind while doing their jobs. Generally speaking, an employee that is making a product that doesn't have a direct impact on life or safety is not culpable for product liability. The problem with Bark River is not a safety issue. It may be a suitability issue. It is certainly a loss of trust, and a marketing fiasco.

No prosecutor is going to go after Old Jane Higgins who shaped handle scales for six years. Her pockets aren't deep enough, and she was just working for a living. Most people who would land on a jury would identify with that. Even if it does hit a prosecutor's desk it would never survive discovery. No court is going to do a study of metallurgy and suitability for purpose. Even we, the experts, can't agree on what makes a good Bushcraft knife. Probably 90+ percent of Bushcraft knives are never used for anything more strenuous than making hot dog sticks. They don't get put to use in any life and death situation. And, honestly, very few of these guys who could tell the difference between 1084 or Magnacut without watching YouTube.

The choice of steel is certainly a cost factor. As a class the people who paid $300 for an $80 knife have every right to be miffed. Their miffedness is more properly with the manufacturer, and maybe the dealer. I can't imagine trying to go after the guy burning up belts all day long. He may not be entirely blameless, but he's waaaay at the bottom of the food chain.

Give those folks a break, they've got enough troubles right now.
 
mtice1 said:
Sadly the cost to verify your BRK knife steel will exceed the value of the knife (with shipping costs and charge for steel testing). Bark River’s are what they are to whom ever owns or buys one. The unsavory reputation is now set in stone.
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Unfortunately, this hurts the entire industry. For over 20 years a company generated hundreds of thousands of misrepresented items and they got away with it. So much for the knife publications, or using reputable dealers, knife shows or the feed back from the countless collectors who sought premium steels but never put them to the test. Yes, many did honestly question the company, but on a whole the industry failed. As they initially failed to flag Ontario knives switch from 1095 to 1075 or Survive knives and their scams.

If this keeps up they may need to set an independent underwriters rating lab to hold producers accountable for their own marketing representations.

I somehow managed to avoid owning a single Bark River knife. But, many collectors are going to get burned and that should be a concern for all of us.

N2s
 
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kreole said:
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Who was the buyer you were working with for handle material sales?
 
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