Kershaw Lockbacks Made in China!!

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Kershaw is only producing a few models in China, a over whelming proportion of their production knives will be USA made, also other major companies as well produce a few affordable knives made in China.
 
James0723 said:
Congratulations Thomas, with those three sentences you turned me from an avid supporter of Kershaw to someone who will never buy one of their knives again.

I feel like Kershaw has lied to us, their marketing campaign is all about "Made in the US! Made in the US!" Now we find out they make knives in China?!

So do the Chinese made Kershaws still come in the American flag box? Or do you put them in Chinese flag boxes? (as you should do otherwise it's deceptive)
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Hi James

We've had a goal to produce 90% of our knives in the US, and we make a lot of knives. Currently were at 75-80%. It would be great if we could make them all here, but we do have capacity restrictions, as well as limitations on exactly what we can produce. In a perfect world...

Our imports do not have US flags on the box's, only the USA made products do, as this would be only proper. We've never tried to hide where our knives are produced, just as we've shouted mightily for those we manufacture right here in Oregon.

I'm unsure of the marketing campaign you speak of. :confused:

Hopefully, this will give you a bit of perspective on where we are coming from.
 
James0723 said:
Ask anyone here, most will tell you Gerber and CRKT are the worst brands of knives on the market right now because of things like this.
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James, how much of the knife buying public do you think resides here on BF's?

Gerber and CRKT have destroyed their brands...
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How so James?
 
hwpaintballer said:
Kershaw is only producing a few models in China, a over whelming proportion of their production knives will be USA made, also other major companies as well produce a few affordable knives made in China.
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The fact is if a company makes any knives at all in China that is a sign that they value profit over making quality knives.

Especially for a company that markets itself like Kershaw does and makes it seem like all their knives are made in the US. It seems somewhere a long the line they lost sight of what's important. Their height was the blade show of 2005, but it's been a slippery slope downward since then and the mentality that won them so many awards that year has worn off. If they now aspire to be like Gerber and CRKT and be the king of Wal-Mart knives than so be it, but I won't have any part of it.
 
RJ Martin designed Chill - G-10 Flipper $29.95 MSRP

Picture452.jpg


This is a beautiful, purposeful looking knife. Any chance it would be offered with a part serrated blade? At the above mentioned price I could have both. :D





:)
 
Ridiculous. Quality has NOTHING to do with country of manufacture. It has everything to do with the quality control standards imposed by the manufacturer.

Gerber took a big hit in quality when Fiskars took over and neglected the knife line. CRKT has never been primarily about high end knives. They do go for style and innovation, but market many lower end steels to the mass market.

Kershaw is a division of KAI, a Japanese company with properties in China. Both KAI and Kershaw have a long history of top quality and innovative designs. Keshaw makes most of its knives in the US. By offshoring to China, they are only expanding an otherwise overtasked production line, and since they can get that part of the job done cheaper, they can also compete in the non-knife-knut market.

But sorry, you can't buy ANY Kershaw now because they have sullied the purity of the American dream ...

Get real.
 
James0723 said:
The fact is if a company makes any knives at all in China that is a sign that they value profit over making quality knives.

Especially for a company that markets itself like Kershaw does and makes it seem like all their knives are made in the US. It seems somewhere a long the line they lost sight of what's important. Their height was the blade show of 2005, but it's been a slippery slope downward since then and the mentality that won them so many awards that year has worn off. If they now aspire to be like Gerber and CRKT and be the king of Wal-Mart knives than so be it, but I won't have any part of it.
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No imports don't come in boxes with the American flag on 'em,
No I can tell you for a fact Thomas doesn't value profit over quality, he treats customers #1, other wise he wouldn't be talking to you.
At blade show this year the won a couple of awards ;)
Also the Kershaw knives at Wal-mart are produced in the USA.
 
babakanoosh45 said:
RJ Martin designed Chill - G-10 Flipper $29.95 MSRP

Picture452.jpg


This is a beautiful, purposeful looking knife. Any chance it would be offered with a part serrated blade? At the above mentioned price I could have both. :D





:)
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:D The above mentioned price was MSRP, now think about street price :eek:.
 
James0723 said:
Especially for a company that markets itself like Kershaw does and makes it seem like all their knives are made in the US....If they now aspire to be like Gerber and CRKT and be the king of Wal-Mart knives than so be it, but I won't have any part of it.
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We have 6 knives in Wal-Mart James, they're all produced from our US facility.:thumbup:
 
James0723 said:
The fact is if a company makes any knives at all in China that is a sign that they value profit over making quality knives.

Especially for a company that markets itself like Kershaw does and makes it seem like all their knives are made in the US.
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If a company does not value profit, they will follow Schrade and Camillus into the dustbin of history. If they profit enough off low end knives to finance more US production, WE ALL WIN: the low end buyers, the high end buyers, the America-only buyers. But if you want America-only production, you're living in another century.

Buy with your wallet to fill your needs, not with your flag, to bedazzle your emotions.
 
If you don't mind Thomas I would like to bump this question back up since this threads seems to have cooled off.

hwpaintballer said:
Is the volt 299.95? There is an extremely good chance I mixed up the prices somewhere along the way, but I thought some new knife coming out was going to be 249.95, :o again sorry to bug you Thomas.
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Thomas W said:
We have 6 knives in Wal-Mart James, they're all produced from our US facility.:thumbup:
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Yes but from what you've said it seems like Kershaw is trying to change that. Where will the Chinese made knives, to give you folders in "that $19-$39 category", be sold? Something tells me probably at Wal-Mart.

This is not an emotional reason for not buying the knives Benyamin. This has a real effect, even if it's only 15% of a companies knives made in China that's still significantly hurting us by taking jobs away, and it's hurting China because those factories over there are terrible places to work and they don't pay them a living wage. If you're a business owner and have a choice, either pay more for the manufacture and use normal labor, or pay less for the manufacture but use slave labor, which are you going to choose? I as a consumer I will not support a company that exploits workers to such a degree. I would rather pay more for my products instead of buying cheap ones that I know were built on human misery and tears.
 
James0723 said:
Yes but from what you've said it seems like Kershaw is trying to change that. Where will the Chinese made knives, to give you folders in "that $19-$39 category", be sold? Something tells me probably at Wal-Mart.

This is not an emotional reason for not buying the knives Benyamin. This has a real effect, even if it's only 15% of a companies knives made in China that's still significantly hurting us by taking jobs away, and it's hurting China because those factories over there are terrible places to work and they don't pay them a living wage. If you're a business owner and have a choice, either pay more for the manufacture and use normal labor, or pay less for the manufacture but use slave labor, which are you going to choose? I as a consumer I will not support a company that exploits workers to such a degree. I would rather pay more for my products instead of buying cheap ones that I know were built on human misery and tears.
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No Wal-Mart is picky about knives actually, they more than likely wouldn't sell a Kershaw knife made in China. I could be wrong on this though.

And who said Kershaw is using a sweat shop to produce knives? I mean really you are paraphrasing here.
 
James0723 said:
Gerber and CRKT have destroyed their brands and Kershaw and Spyderco are trying as hard as they can to follow. Kershaw is dead to me now.
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How dramatic. Make sure you throw out any other Chinese made products in your house. I bet a nickle the computer you're typing on has Chinese made parts if it isn't entirely made in China. Shop at Walmart much? Most of the products on the shelves are made in China or other foreign countries. I do on occasion....grabbed some Kershaws there just a week ago...all made in the U.S.A. :eek:

If you don't like Chinese made knives, don't buy them. There are plenty of quality American made Kershaws (and other brands of course) that shouldn't jam your "U.S.A only" radar. I do however doubt you apply the same standards of manufacture to the rest of your purchases.
 
James0723 said:
This is not an emotional reason for not buying the knives Benyamin. This has a real effect, even if it's only 15% of a companies knives made in China that's still significantly hurting us by taking jobs away, and it's hurting China because those factories over there are terrible places to work and they don't pay them a living wage. If you're a business owner and have a choice, either pay more for the manufacture and use normal labor, or pay less for the manufacture but use slave labor, which are you going to choose? I as a consumer I will not support a company that exploits workers to such a degree. I would rather pay more for my products instead of buying cheap ones that I know were .
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Totally clueless ignorance. China is undergoing an industrial revolution. At the low end, it draws starving farmers into miserable sweatshops. This is the only way any known society has transformed weakness and misery into industrial, financial, and national power.

At the high end, Chinese factories are also capable of white-room electronic manufacturing. Slaves? Buying homes and cars and fashionable clothes? I doubt it.

Read, learn, think, then preach.
 
hwpaintballer said:
No Wal-Mart is picky about knives actually, they more than likely wouldn't sell a Kershaw knife made in China. I could be wrong on this though.
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Are you being serious? Consider that the only Spyderco knives Wal-Mart used to carry were the ones made in China. And most of the other knives they carry are made in China. Don't take my word for it, you can go to your local Wal-Mart and take inventory of where the 30 or so knives they carry are made yourself, my guess is that except for the current Kershaws (which we now know will probably change soon) all the knives are made in China.

Wal-Mart is one step up from the dollar store, you think they're being picky about anything they carry? They are only picky about one thing, "is this product cheap enough?".
 
By the way, my Hebrew name is Esav Benyamin, two personal names, like Joe Bob. It's not a personal name and family name. Esav by itself is OK. :)
 
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