Hey, new guy:
1. Welcome
2. You'll find a lot of opposite opinions here, but it's possible for everyone to be right.
Example: In the early days of this country goods were produced by many small manufacturers scattered across the land. Quality and price varied widely.
About the time of the gold rush, a guy named Levi started making pants out of the toughest fabric he could find. The miners found them much more durable than any other pants. The miners then started asking for pants made by Levi, and branding was born. Today your Levi's bluejeans come from the very same company.
Before television, buying a popular "brand" name was a sure way of getting high quality merchandise. Then came the marketing men who understood the "familiarity principle." Basically, if a person was very familiar with a brand name, he would attribute quality to that product. The fact that it could be of average, but serviceable, quality allowed it to be sold at a much higher price than the product would otherwise warrant. Mass communications, starting about 1950, started an era of getting your name known. Why else would we see "Budwiser Beer" signs on racing cars or "Colt" on foreign-made folding knives? It's because it sells, sells, sells.
So now here you'll find fellows swearing their favorite brand name knife is better than all the others. They're good, of course, but better? More expensive is not necessarily better. Being very proud of the fancy, expensive knife one carries gives a strong pride of ownership, but does not necessarily make it "better" for anyone else.
"Made in America" does not make it better. You can today compare the same style Buck knives made both here and in China. I have some of both from my local Walmart. I haven't found any difference, except the Chinese version costs half the American version.
Remember, for $10 today you can get a knife far better on all parameters than the knives our forefathers used to settle this country. They would certainly frown on us for suggesting their knives were not "good enough".
Today, $20 will buy you all the knife you will ever need. You can meet those same needs for $250 if you wish. But in evaluating opinions, realize some people really do "need" a $250 knife and really do "need" a famous brand name.
My advice to you is to educate yourself, and quit listening to others. I spent a whole day at Smoky Mountain Knife Works in Sievervile, Tenn. I opened, closed, inspected and cut paper with tons of knives. I was shocked to find my favorites in metal, finish, and price were from a Chinese brand named "Rough rider".
