I will try and answer all your questions but here is a chronological story.
As many of you know I started selling knives at a local flea market here in Jacksonville in 1991. At the time I was ordering knives from Wuu-Jau and Double 8 (Now known as Master Cutlery). Buying knives then I had no idea what a knock off was. As silly as this may sound it was true. Over the next few years my business grew and I started carrying brand names. I first started seeing signs of trouble when I visited my first Blade Show. There I was able to see first hand what a knock off was but was confused about how they hurt the industry. I felt that someone who would buy a $400 knife is not going to buy a $4 knock off of it. I still feel this is true.
By this time my business was doing over $1 Million and most of that business was from products I bought from Double 8 (Master Cutlery). I learned more about the knife industry and learned more about who made what. Anyone who has my old catalogs can see the direction I was heading. So I decided to make the switch to name brand items only. Then I got a letter from Sal at Spyderco about knives I had in my catalog. Well my catalog was copied directly from Double 8's catalog so naturally there was a problem. Remember the cheap plastic Spyderco knock offs? Well I had some but none had the hole in the blade as shown in the catalog, just a thumb stud. Either way this was wrong and I stopped selling them. To this very day I have several in my garage and various other knives as well that I will need to get rid of. How do I do that? Who knows.
Now that all that was behind me I moved on to bigger and better things. I noticed a pattern in the knife industry. Over the last 40 years or so many knives made here shifted manufacturing to Japan to save on cost. Japan made really crappy knives at first but they increased their quality and it can now be argued as to who makes a better knife. When Japanese knife prices soared US manufacturers looked towards Taiwan. Cheaper labor, acceptable quality meant great profits. Now the Taiwan knives, although still cheaper than the US and China are having problems. China quality is getting to near that of Taiwan at roughly 15% the labor cost. So it is only a matter of time before US manufacturers look towards China.
Well that time is now. Over the last few years many US manufacturers have moved to China. Some just components and yet others the entire knife. Some of those knives you think are made in Germany are actually made in China. See there is no marking law in China or Europe so many makers ship the knives to Europe then to the US as a made in Germany or Italy product. How do I know this? I stood in the factory that makes them. These are not knock offs, these are the real thing. The new Gerber Paraframe? Made in China and the quality is incredible!
So I had an idea to create a company based on knife designs from famous and some not so famous makers. I called the new project Dragon Forge. Cool name I thought. I proposed the idea to Master Cutlery with the agreement that they stop making knock offs or at least bringing them in. I wanted to completely revamp how they did business. At first the idea seemed to be gaining acceptance but Master Cutlery had invested to many resources in their customer base and to switch all of there customers over to a new line of knives that cost more would be a virtually impossible task. I was willing to take that task on but in the end the talks broke down.
Then I met Kevin at Provantus. He was already frustrated with selling knock offs and listened intently to my idea. He agreed, a contract was written up and BOSS was born. The idea was to deplete the entire inventory of knock offs and that I would have nothing to do with that end of the business. I would help them in any way I could but BOSS had to be a separate entity unto its own. I knew I would take heat for being associated with Provantus but that was OK. The goal was sound and I could not do business in China without his help at the time.
We started launching BOSS about 6 months ago. We bought the Lile name and we already had good knives with them. Tom Anderson was getting the run around with a previous arrangement he had and I was instrumental in getting that worked out. It ain't perfect but it was a start. We had the BOSS Wolf Pup and the Lile #7.
Then we got designs from a factory in China that made really great quality stuff. I mean really damn good. So we decided to introduce some of their designs and we even had a contest here to help get even more designs. The DOD series, the Parasite, the Cheetah and the Kerambit were born as well as more Lile designs. Then a few months into the project I started getting wind of something fishy. As projected launching dates came and went with no knives I started to wonder what was wrong.
Kevin (Provantus) was being lied to from the manufacturers in China. Delay after delay was making our launch look like a dud. Then one day one of our agents in China visited a factory that made the Cheetah and noticed something odd. There were more Cheetahs than we had ordered. Only one company had the money to do this in our opinion. So we yanked the projects from all factories involved in all projects. I knew this would kill us at least for now. It did. What was still at question was "what in the hell is really going on in China?".
So off I go to China. In a matter of hours after arriving in Yong Jiang I found the answer. I can not go into much more detail at this point as many matters are still being negotiated. Let's just say that the only way to get control of the factory was to buy it. That is still in the works and I will have more info within 30 days. The BOSS project is still a go and we are making changes to designs so the knock offs are easier to spot. Look for these changes soon.
Hopefully things will work out but I have learned yet another valuable lesson. Hopefully Master Cutlery has learned their lesson and we get things worked out.
As you can see in the image below Master Cutlery is not the only problem. Alex Shelton of Joy Enterprises shown here trying to quickly remove knock offs of the BOSS line before I could take the picture PROVING she was selling them. Say Cheese Alex! The knock off queen was caught red handed. What makes this pic even more interesting was that she stated she was not selling knock offs of the BOSS line and she was not even aware of the BOSS line of knives. Well funny thing how when she noticed me taking the pictures she quick remembered which knives were BOSS knock offs huh? I was far enough from the table for her to not really see which knives I was taking pictures of but she new exactly which ones to pull. Here is their info if you want to call them and express your opinion.
Joy Enterprises
1104 53rd Court South
West Palm Beach, FL, USA
Office: 561-863-3205
Fax:561-863-3277
Folks you can do something about this problem. This is your chance to make a difference. Enjoy!
.....RDT
