Couldn't you say the same thing about most, if not all, non-china knives and/or tools?
blan, hola
You probably could, but I think it would be folly to assume the same causal agents are necessarily responsible for all the differences. I am certain there are sound economic reasons why the made in China as opposed to domestically made causes a difference. What I'm not convinced of is that it is attributable for all the differences.
What I have in mind here is the simple marketing mechanism that goes, if you want people to like your product more charge more for it. It appears there is an underlying assumption common to people that, you get what you pay for and quality comes at a price. Whilst no doubt it is easy to see why people would develop such dispositions in their thought tendencies, as with other generalizations it is flawed and can be exploited. There's reams of research that shows how that can be manipulated to feed back the other way, charge a lot for it punter assumes it must be fantastic. That's never more apparent than with research into things in a niche market with a high subjective value. A good example here is wine. Research shows that punters will reliably rate wine better the more you increase the cost. Punters will value the same wine they tasted five minutes ago much higher if they believe it costs $45 a bottle rather than $10. To my mind the very same thing can be seen operating quite widely in the knife buying community. For sure I don't think it is always the case but it is a niche market with a massively high subjective value component that is ripe for exploiting with that mechanism. Not wanting to name names but a company springs to mind that appears to have brilliantly turned it into an art form. The payback for the exorbitant cost is a cult of devotees. Similarly, although perhaps slightly controversial, I feel the same way about the current trend in factory production 1095 knives at the cost they are. All my life I've been able to buy knives in 1095 cheap. Some of them have multiple bevels, saw backs [yuk, buy it's a production step], and handles comprised of multiple parts. On that, even though it is a better knife in terms of end user design, it stands out like a beacon when a company offers their 1095 knives, in a no doubt far simpler to make pattern, at many times the price of any of them. While for sure a lot of the mass appeal could be attributed to the usefulness of the pattern to the end user, I'm pretty confident that much of the attraction of that package over another is the high price 1095 - must be good knife effect. For sure, it is not plain to see unless another domestic manufacturer starts to offer a similar pattern at about $30 / $40, giving folks pause to scratch their heads and wonder at the discrepancy. Still, I don't think such eye openers are like to come soon. After all, the bar has been set, and another manufacturer sees how much they could harvest for theirs. That kinda only leaves the really obvious price comparisons with the China type offerings, and that can be casually explained away as the cheep oversees production costs. But I think there's more to this than meets the eye, and I'm sure many domestically made things get away with an enormous price hike given the materials concerned because of careful manipulation of the suffering leading to liking thing. With knives having such a subjective value, as a vendor you'd be a fool not to.
Specifically back to that Mirca - Frankly, that blew me away. Although it is difficult to make decent absolute statements that Micra was uncanny. It made me run through all of those thoughts above. My amigos was a complete ringer for mine. Better, he carried it pretty much neck and neck with me over a couple of years, did identical type tasks .etc. Never did it display a difference. One was left with the overwhelming impression that the made in China wasn't sufficient explanation for mine being four times the price of his. Whilst something is at work keeping the cost of made in China down, something was at work here massively inflating the cost of mine well beyond what it was made from. After all, SAKs are made from a similar[ish] material, and although not my forte I'd hazard a guess aren't hugely different in complexity when it comes to making them, and look at the price difference.
We had a couple of collections for servicemen and most of my multitools went to them. Gerber and SOG also, big ones, did good work.
