*Master Knives* SOCOM rip-off.......

Status
Not open for further replies.
Orion, bottom line, is that some of us feel strongly about ripoffs. I'm sure that this knife is a great deal.Some of the stuff as I'm sure you will agree is junk! If all things were equal these knives would not be such bargains. But all things are not equal in life(whoa this is getting deep).. Alot of people will mistake these copies for the real thing and when or if they do break, it reflects on the originals to a certain degree. This thread came up a month ago and got the same responses. Again no one is trying to change your mind or slam anyone! We just express our honest veiws on the subject, theres no wrong or right, just opinions..some stronger than others but still opinions. This is blade forums, would you expect anything less? Don't take it personal. We aren't elite or close minded because we don't buy ripoffs. Just don't have a use for them! No disrepect to anyone!! If we were all sittin around talkin, it would be different, gets hard to talk with written word.(tone) Maybe you could post your reveiw on the knife in the future in the reveiws area. You might have hit a nerve with your topic"SOCOM RIPOFF" So hey ORION I feel like I know you a little better. As I stated before it was a great thread!!!
biggrin.gif

And once again a very controversial area.
Thanks Bart
 
Orion
I understand what your saying and sure it goes without saying that MasterKnives are a deal for the price.You keep using elitist but I seriously doubt that most members here are that.What I will say is that people that post here know knives and if that makes them elitist because we can tell the difference between good and bad then so be it.I have been collecting for 35 years and have a rather large collection it runs the gamut from traditional to custom. I have no set direction since I love all knives and pick up every knife that comes my way. very rarely will I part with a knife either.No I don't have knock-offs the reason being that with me it's purely ethical.I care enough about knives to support the people and companies in the cutlery industry that feel the same way. Thats me personally. This has been an educational thread and I'm sure it will pop up again in the future.The one thing I have found on these forums is that the people here share my passion for edged tools we just don't always agree thats all.But then it would be pretty boring if we did
Bob
 
Orion, no one is saying that you can't make a knock-off that will give you as good (or maybe even better) performance per dollar.

For example the cheap Spyderco endura rip-offs are only a few dollars. An actual Spyderco which is 10 times as much will not have 10 times the cutting ability, edge retention, handle ergonomics, (or any other factor you care to mention), as the knock-off.

That however to a lot of people doesn't matter because we are not going to spend our money on something or someone that makes their living by leeching off of others.

-Cliff
 
I want to start with an answer for the gentleman who asked why anyone would knock-off an MT design for sale to the general public when most of the general public doesn't KNOW it resembles an MT:
Simply put, non-knuts don't usually buy a knockoff because they think they're getting "Microtech Quality"--like you said, they've never owned a Microtech and could care less. They buy the knockoff because they like the way the design looks or feels or whatever; they don't care who designed it. Years ago I bought a tanto from United Cutlery through SMKW. Sure, now I see that it's a cosmetic double for a CS tanto, but at the time, I'd never heard of Cold Steel. I saw the knife, it looked really neat, so I bought it.
But that's what really pisses the original designers off, IMHO. Not that the ripoff guys use their NAME to sell the knife, because most don't, but that the design is what sells the knife and they consider it THEIR design.
I got myself in trouble calling people "elitist" in the Frost Cutlery thread on Rec.KnivesII (or is that on KFC?) before I realized that no one had called anyone stupid for choosing a Frost knife; I had simply taken offense too easily.

<font size=4>BUT . . . . .</font>

I do want to make a point about prices. I know a lot of you have the money to spend on MT's, Reeves, etc. and that's cool. I love to read the reviews, I love the pictures, I love to read even Mad Dog's forums just for the hell of it. But I can not buy those knives. The reason people call members elitist is that some members simply cannot get it through their heads that greater value cannot always be the deciding factor. Yes, a Mad Dog is probably a better fixed blade than any other on the market. I believe, OK? But if you don't have more than $300 that you can afford to spend on a "mere knife" (for those that don't understand the "mere knife" concept, ask your wives) then your choices simply don't include the Mad Dog.
I DON'T HAVE $200 TO SPEND ON A MICROTECH. NO MATTER HOW MUCH MORE VALUABLE THE MT IS, THE VALUE OF THE KNIFE WILL NOT PUT $200 IN MY POCKET. If I follow the principle of spending whatever it takes to get maximum value, I'd have a shelf of Mad Dogs, a shelf of Sebenzas, a few customs, no girlfriend, no education, no car, and no home. Just me and lots of valuable metal sitting on a park bench frightening little children . . .

(BTW, this cash crunch doesn't mean I'm going to buy the knockoff. If anyone is wondering, I do think it's a knockoff and that does bother me, so I'll go for a Spyderco and maybe a CS bushman. Quality products for good prices, which is why Spydie is doing better than MT. If MT's prices do drop to a par with Spyderco, I'll take another look.)

This concludes this test of the emergency ranting system. Had this been a true rant, you would have heard the following:
"All you @%&^#%^&#ing $%@#$er@$%@#$%#$%ers are wrong! I know all! I AM YOUR KING! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!"
 
Orions, it is really not fair for you to call everyone except Mike Turber either as an elitist or biased. Just look at all the messages again:

Sal: I am concerned with R&D cost because he creates stuffs.

Adamantium: I agreed with Sal.

Bill McWilliams: I believes in patent protection.

Dennis Wright: MT is expensive, but still won't carry knock off.

Joel Pirela: Industry is not served by knock offs.

Haji: Different customers want different stuffs.

marco: If you feel MT is over priced, it's okay to try the alternative. It's all up to you.

Spear Point: The cost of knife is more than just R&D plus material cost for small companies.

Strider: Knock offs are frauds against the original designers.

longbow: Whatever sells, sell it.

James Mattis: Ripoff and homage are not the same.

Blades: How is the clip?
smile.gif



The above is just a small sample of what people are writing about. I must have missed something, but I cannot find anyone who is trying to sound better than anyone else or starting out biased. In fact, Blades just wanted to know more about the clip!!

Most people perceived the knock-off knife negatively because makers such as Sal felt that they are crimes against them, and users such as everyone else felt that it is a crime against the industry. After all, you would feel violated too if something you worked on and invested heavily in have been copied and sold for much cheaper and took away a lot of potential customers from you.

Orions, we all love each other in these forums. But when you are so angry and accused everyone else as being the elitist, it just made it that much harder for us to love you too.
smile.gif
 
Orion - you have my apologies. I did not intend to change the direction of your thread. Got carried away (we are still in conflict with Double 8).

And my issue had nothing to do with elitists, value, quality or how close it was. Although I see this as valuable sharing of information.

My issue is the royalties. Many of us choose to honor the standards that our Country has set up for each other. We pay for intellectual property. This particular company refuses to do so even when ordered to do so by an American Judge in an American court. If I have a flaw in one of my models, I want to know it so I can refine and improve. If we have a flaw in our Industry, we must occassionaly shed light.

Sorry for the row, but is was a great thread and I learned much. Orion, next time I promise to keep to the subject or keep silent.
sal
 
Hey, netizens consider it an inalienable right to go off on a tangent when replying to a post, and most threads end up with the topic wandering sooner or later.
smile.gif


-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Well it is quite apparent that we do tend to wander off track and dabble in our predilections for irrelevancy, but I feel that most points here in this thread are relevant.

True I did answer the question but that is simply because it was asked. Ask me how to make a bomb and I may tell you that to, but I would not condone making it. Nor do I condone the business practices that Double 8 follows at times. I have done over 2 million in business with them as they do carry many products I carry. I recently figured out who makes the many fine knives they carry and decided to contact the manufacturer directly and see what else they have. Well they have a lot of neat stuff and I am about to launch the Dragon Forge line of knives next week with many, if not most, of the knives coming from the very source which produces the knock off knives. And I will carry the knock off of Benchmade’s butterfly knife in the line simply because Benchmade’s decision to not carry them anymore was not based on the knock offs.

Is this wrong?
They are darn good knock offs and right or wrong I am going to carry them.

What I will not carry are knock off knives which have an air or stench surrounding them which reeks of “rip off” instead of “knock off”. Heck I carried many products for years before I even knew they were knock offs of older products I had never even seen. I was also just told today that one of the knives I am about to carry looks a lot like a Pat Crawford. Not sure which one and I am very familiar with his work but I must admit it does have the “look”.

So don’t look for Spyderco or Microtech knock offs coming from WOW.

Who knows anymore what is or is not a knock off? At some point your mind will not be able to push all influences aside when designing a knife so most every knife made will look somewhat like a previous creation. Knives that are obvious knock offs are also knock offs of those designs that stand out in the crowd. No one is bitching about the 9,842 different companies making Buck 110 design knock offs.


------------------
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
www.wowinc.com




 
Orion,
Is all you wanted to hear was things like,
"Yes, that looks like a nice copy of a nice knife" remarks?
Didn't you want some flavor in the replies,
some personality coming thru? Seems like you wanted a controlled set of replies.(IMO)
I quote you:
"I have been collecting knives for the past 15 years and I can guarantee that my collection is probably larger and worth more than 80% of the people here (I hate to sound
*elitist*...)"
Well guess what ya sound like? If you don't consider yourself elitist, how can others be?
There were good and imformative posts in spite of your resistance to them.

Off topic, I don't like knock-off software, audio, or video.(or knives)

Peace man!

Mark

 
mr. turber - i don't think there's anything wrong with carrying knockoffs. i think that each case needs to be evaluated individually. it is much too easy to say things like "all knock-offs are good" or "all knock-offs are evil". it just depends on the individual knockoff. i'm sure a lot of people see the price and quality of some knockoffs and think that spyderco, benchmade, microtech, etc. are ripping them off. i know a lot of people who buy knockoff golf clubs for exactly this reason. they have tried the real thing and the knockoff and see no difference in performance. the only difference they see is the name on the clubs. some very reputable golf shops sell knockoff clubs, and i expect it can be the same with knives.
i have afriend who is a marine, and he carries his "eagle" brand spyderco knockoff all the time for 4 years now. he loves this knife. he has used it hard for several years and it still works very well, and holds a good edge. he doesn't see any reason to buy a real spyderco or benchmade when a knockoff "works the same".
i happen to think that spydercos and benchmades are fairly priced, so there is no reason to buy a knock-off. but, if i think a knife is way overpriced, i will consider all my options.

marco
 
OK.... where to start...?

First- I never said *everyone but Turber is an elitist*. I made the statement that Mike was the only one who gave an honest answer to the question I had asked instead of forcing unsolicitated political views upon me. As a matter of fact, there were only a handful of the posters that made elitist remarks.

Second- I am well aware that the remark I made about my knife collection was *elitist*, note the *I hate to sound elitist* comment I put right after it. That entire post was in retort to someone who had questioned my love for knives by his statement that *some of us here yadda, yadda, yadda....*. It was just to let everyone know that I wasn't just some idiot with a couple of knock off knives and that just because someone else has knife A or knife B doesn't mean he loves knives or knows more about them than the next guy. That was one of the inferred *elitist* comments I was referring to.

Third- No, I did not want a controlled set of comments on the knife in question. But I didn't want to talk about politics or ethics, either. I will say this again... I bought the knife in question as a joke thinking I would get a good laugh out of it. Instead, I was mildly impressed with it. I came on here and asked if anyone else had seen the knife and wanted to know their opinions of the quality. I wanted to know if I was just seeing things, or if any of the knowledgable, well respected knife afficianados on here had the same impression I did. If you had seen the knife and were impressed, then say so. If you had seen it and weren't impressed, then tell me why. If you had not seen the knife, you could offer no input to my query especially if you had never seen the knife in question and then just start spouting stuff like *it sux, it's a piece of ****, my customers won't even look at those* because of your political views. That would be like me saying something like *Spyderco knives are a piece of **** because they're ugly* having never even put my hands on one. But the fact is, even though I do not like the way most of them look, I have handled quite a few and I can say that they are excellent quality knives. My girlfriend loves them...
Like I have said 1000 times- I agree with 98% of you totally on those views of ethics BUT- that should have been a whole other thread. If you were offended by the mention of a knock off and felt the need to state your political views, then do so and then say *because of this, I will not look at/handle/buy/sell these knock off knives so I can't really give an opinion on the quality without ever having seen it* not something like *Well, I've never seen one, but because of my political views on the subject, it's definitely a piece of *****.
But this has been a pretty nice thread and I feel I have gotten to know many of you a lot better. I never meant to piss anyone off or make any one of you *love me less*. I don't post here very often. I usually just lurk. I come here to get a lot of information and as such I have a lot of respect for some of you guys on here due to your knowledge. And Sal, from your last post you seem like a very fine fellow. I may just have to buy some more Spydercos......

Orion
 
Orion: I apologize if my previous post came out sounding either elitist or prejudiced. I was simply taking a shot in the dark to try to explain the rather emotional posts being thrown about. I'm new to both this post and to the knife industry, and I am the first to admit that many of the people here are more knowledgeable than myself. That's the main reason that I'm here.

In addition, if you're still looking for a strict discussion of quality, you may wish to delve back to the thread I posted about Master knives several weeks back. Most of the discussion there dealt exclusively with the physical aspects of the knives themselves, and the discussion of ethics never surfaced.

Lastly, I have enjoyed reading other people's views on knife ethics. It's been enlightening and intrigueing. It's unfortunate that it turned ugly towards the end, but that doesn't render the entire thread meaningless.


Mike - I haven't been able to dig up any local distributors of Double 8 knives in my area. How would I get my hands on one of them?

Ted Stewart
 
Red Twin1-
It was a very informative and enlightening thread.
I don't think it really got *ugly* so to speak... I think my problem is that when I made the initial post, I considered it *my* thread.... then I can liken the responses to people calling my answering machine to leave me messages. I just got kind of frustrated at not getting straight answers and bouncing all around the subject while receiving innuendos that I should not have even bought the knife and that by doing so I had demoted myself as a knife enthusiast in the eyes of all my peers here. I guess that best sums up how I was feeling... hence the *elitist* remarks I kept referring to.
You know, I probably missed your discusion on Master Knives entirely due to the reason that I had never taken them seriously because of the nature of the product. That should tell you about my point of view when it comes to the ethics of these types of things. I probably saw the post and never even gave it a second thought. It's exactly for that reason that I was so shocked by the quality of the SOCOM ripoff when I received it. I will definitely go back and look it up.
I was also thinking about something else that we should keep in mind... Most people that buy the cheaper knives do not subject them to the kind of abuse that some of us here do, so the cheap knives that they have will suffice just fine for whatever day to day normal use they put them to.
I spend a lot of time outdoors and on the river. I mainly use Cold Steel and Ontario fixed blades for those occasions. For the money, thay can't be beaten.... Anyway... I collect the Hibben knives put out by United. I get all the production models as well as the presentation models and even own a few that Gil has made by hand. I collect them purely for aesthetic reasons. I think Gil makes a mean looking knife. I would never take one of the United knives to the river unless I HAD to and it was the only thing I could get my hands on (now the Hibben customs are a different story, but I won't use them, period). The United's just would not stand up to what I would put it through, but for the average Joe, the United knives would probably rise above and beyond any call of duty they may ever request of it.
Oh, well.... I'm rambling......

Orion
 
I got my Master Knife SOCOM knock off today and I have to say that even though it doesn't FEEL like the real thing, it is a nice knife for the money. 4 friends already placed orders for one. By the way, has anyone seen a Sbenza knock-off yet?
 
Orion, with your 3:33am post, I understand your views and comments throughout the thread better. Maybe it takes a few posts to get a clearer picture sometimes. Thanks for your patience, and talking it out.

Mark Camp
 
Further Muddying Up the issue.....

Check out the Pro-Tech TR2 Thread in Fore Sale: Dealers.

Another knife apparently "similiar" to an earlier succesfull product.

Does the issue change if the "similiar design" sells for over $100 and is promoted as being better quality than the original?

I'm not making any friends with the dealer...but it's an interesting point to look at.

Bonus points for deciphering TTFN.
 
drshame,
I read the posts on the other forum. You are right, you aren't making friends.
smile.gif


I agree the design is reminiscent of Dalton's work. Don't know if it's better or worse, just similar.

TTFN - Ta Ta for now
TTYL - talk to ya later


 
The Pro-Tech Runt is the only copycat knife that I sell in my capacity as a dealer, and I sell it because:

1) I can get the Pro-Tech's from their source here in California for sale to civilians in California, so I'm not bending the Federal switchblade law, as I would be if I sold the Dalton.

2) I can get the Pro-Tech reliably and through normal sorts of channels, which I don't know how to do with Daltons.

3) I know where I can send a bad one for repair or replacement, which I don't know in the case of a Dalton.

4) The quality is as good as my Dalton of the same size and shape, and I like the "moderate" spring better than Dalton's overkill spring.

However, I would like to see Pro-Tech come up with something original. I don't know if Robbie Dalton has had anything to say about them.

The Taylor Cutlery/S&W "homage" to another of Dalton's California Special designs is, IMHO, of dubious quality, which is too bad, because that Wharncliff pattern blade it has would be better for package opening, which is one of the main uses for an automatic knife that small.

------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
 
Hello fellow forumites...Just wanted to say a few things.
1) I don't think this thread turned ugly, just spirited.
2) I really don't think any of us, except people involved with owning or working at knife manufacturers could feel the true brunt of copycat knives. After all as consumers we have the choice to purchase whatever we please. A knife manufacturing company,(exam. Spyderco) deals with the ethics in a different way. They are the people being ripped off! Personally this was my main reason for not buying copycats. To a small degree it hurts the companies we love to purchase from.
------------------
Now companies who build copies with the same quality/with suttle feature upgrades? That is a place I'm not even attempting to go to!!
wink.gif

CARRY IT AND USE IT!
 
There is a lot about the trade in "assisted-opening" (a nicer word than "switchblade") knives that is peculiar.

So . . . Is it an ethics violation for me to sell the clone, which is both available and legal, when the original is hard to get and, if I could get it, it would be illegal for me to sell it to my civilian customers since it had crossed a state line?

------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top