On occasion, the stars align and I go to a gun show and there will be a few knife dealers there. My favorites are a couple of old f@rts that come with buckets of old knives from estate and garage sales, but there knives are about double what they should be price wise, and sometimes about half what they should be quality wise.
That being said, I have had a great chance to inspect different models from different vendors that represent domestic and offshore (Italy, Germany, China, Taiwan R.O.C., Argentina, etc.) knives side by side with their counterparts. Even when being a bit silly about things and actually comparing a $10 RR with a $125 GEC, the RRs do pretty well. With five GECs of one model lined up on a table for all to see you will find the standard complaints: off centered blades, gaps in springs, too much/not enough snap, poor fit, poor edges, and bad finish. Same with their sister knives.
Actually, it's the same with just about all knives if one is being fair about things. Not every knife is perfect.
At a show about six months ago the GEC dealer was pretty perturbed because there was a new dealer selling RR knives. He told me he had never (swearing he wasn't lying to me the whole time) seen a RR in person. As a hardened knife snob, he may have been telling the truth. He was pretty blown away with the quality, fit and finish, and didn't like the price point one bit. The GEC dealer probably had 7 - 8 different GEC patterns on the table along with a few Northfields and a Moore Maker or two as economy knives. The Rough Rider vendor had about 25 patterns on the table with different scales on some of them. The RR vendor chose wisely, and the patterns he displayed looked more like a table of CASE knives from 30 years ago than a group of RRs. All were really traditional including stockmen, canoes, more stockmen, sod busters, toothpicks, hunters, jacks, and on an on.
The GEC vendor bad mouthed RR really hard and long, but never got the idea that comparing a knife that costs 1/10th (or less!) of his knives was silly. They should never, ever, be able to compete in any way to begin with, much less hold their own. A knife that costs TEN times as much should be at least FIVE times better, right? Having the two knives side by side and seeing a volume comparison, not just one of this one and one of that one, the RRs couldn't be beat on all the points we consider to be hallmarks of a good knife.
I own three different RRs now and have gifted plenty. One wasn't a good knife, period. No worse than some of the stuff we see here, but I didn't like it at all. It ground when it opened and was rough when it closed. I know that isn't much to many here, but that's just sloppy work to me, so I wouldn't accept it. I contacted the dealer, he said to keep it as a tool box knife and he sent me a new one right away. So one out of a bunch with an easy resolution isn't bad. The folks I gifted the RRs to (those poor knives...) use the heck out of them and bring them back to me for sharpening. They have been showed no mercy, and they seem to hold up really well. There are some cracked scales from being dropped too many times, a broken point on one, a bent blade on one (I bent it back in a vise), and one that was over torqued so it doesn't close well. Overall, they are job site worthy.
I think they represent a heckuva lot of value and the have turned out to be good tools to boot.
Robert
But still... a very nice offer that I appreciate, even though I will pass on accepting.
