I've been keeping an eye on Kershaw's website, waiting to see that the new Collateral had been officially released. Checked a few days ago and noticed that the product page for both the Collateral and the smaller Turismo had been taken down. Wondered if anyone might happen to know why?
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Kershaw Collateral Disappearance
- Thread starter woodgrain
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Don't know about Kershaw but Ontario's been advertising some of their knives in the magazines that you can't even find on their website. How are we supposed to buy these if they can't even be bothered to make them available on their websites? Some of these companies need to up their game if they want to stay in contention.
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I'd chalk it up to a Kershaw website issue. Many online vendors still show the Collateral as "coming soon" or available for pre-order.
Yeah, I saw that, too. I just think it's suspicious that they both dropped off the site. The link is still available via old press releases, but when clicked, it takes you to an error page. These were introduced at SHOT 2019 and the Collateral was hailed as a top knife design...odd to see it removed. Asked about it on their FB page but got no response. If the new SLT assisted opening hadn't already been used in ZT knives, I'd wonder if they were having trouble with it in mass production. Oh well, guess I'll wait and see.
Does anybody have anymore information about this knife and the Turismo? These were some awesome designs from last year's Kershaw lineup, the best two in my opinion, which is strange that they're just gone. I'm pretty much familiar with every Kershaw folder they've released, but I just found out about these two today and now I want them, but I can't really find much information about them other than their product page on the vendor's websites. All of them say they're discontinued, but were they ever released in the first place? Did they have production problems? Possibly due to the SLT flipper mechanism? These were some awesome designs and it would be a damn shame if Kershaw just abandoned them. Especially the Turismo's design. I would love that knife in D2 or better steel. That would be awesome. If anybody has any information, I would really appreciate it. I may just have to contact Kershaw and ask them about it.
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All of the SLT knives made by KAI were discontinued last year (these two plus the ZT 0055, which had been in production since 2017). Not sure what the reason is, but production/warranty issues related to the novel mechanics is a likely culprit. It may also be that renewing their license for the SLT feature wasn't worth the cost, so they discontinued the knives that used it.
These two knives were set to release last year, but do you know if they ever were released and sold or never made it to production?
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No idea, but the fact that a few retailers have pages that say "coming soon" and "discontinued" suggests they never made it to release.
Yeah that's what I figured, but I was just curious to know why and what happened for Kershaw to abandon two of their best designs for 2019. It's such a shame they never saw the light of day. Despite having 8Cr13MoV steel, they were some really cool designs and I would've liked to have had a chance to buy these knives. It's always the ones you can't have that you want most. Maybe some day they'll release them.
In case anyone is interested, I contacted Kershaw and got in touch with one of their customer service reps and he told me why the Kershaw Collateral and Turismo were never released. Apparently they ran into issues trying to mass produce the SLT flipper mechanism, which forced them to rethink their design. That's pretty much what I had expected. The SLT flipper mechanism seems a bit more difficult to mass produce at an affordable price point and put it on a $30-40 knife while still being profitable. I'm sure there's more to it, but that makes a lot of sense. He left me hopeful though! He told me to keep an eye out for their 2021 new releases because I may see something like them. Mid January is when he believes Kershaw will announce their new models. I really liked these designs, so it would be great if they kept them and made them with a normal flipper.
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FYI, the "new" Collateral and Turismo are now available for pre-sale, with no mention of the SLT flipper.
Dude!!! You weren't kidding. I've been waiting for the 2021 line up to drop! Thank you so much for letting me know. The guy I spoke with basically hinted at it, but didn't want to outright say it. They even made my wish come true. I told him I would love to see it with maybe a normal hidden flipper with KVT and D2 steel and they freaking did it! Kershaw is going to leave me bankrupt. There's so many models I'm interested in and I haven't even seen the ZT lineup yet.
jeffsenpai
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I saw Kershaw mention on social media that they went ahead with the Collateral and Turismo, with KVT and speedsafe, since the SLT could not be done right.
soc_monki
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Why speedsafe? If you have kvt there is no need for it, and they probably didn't put a detent hole on the blade so you could deassist them. What are you thinking Kershaw?
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CRKT did basically the same thing this year, pairing a new assist mechanism (that looks identical to SpeedSafe) with IKBS bearings. I really don't get it.
I was really looking forward to the collateral because of the SLT, and I was disappointed when it never materialized. Now, I really couldn't care less about this knife.
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I’d guess that the assist is a lot easier to manufacture, since you don’t need to dial on the detent. The old design already had bearings accounted for, so that might’ve played a role; if they had tooling in place that could be reused with the new design, that’s a huge cost savings.