Ontario Knife Company Sold?

It's funny how some folks believe so fiercely that companies should be exempt from moral or ethical judgements. Corporations are beholden to the law, but also subject to the marketplace, and the marketplace has opinions. You might not like certain opinions, or you may believe they're minority views too scarce to matter, but the conversation is valid. Brands live and die by their reputations all the time, and those reputations are solidified in forums like this one.

For those who believe that only the law matters, and that everything else is hyperbole... well... you're entitled to that view.
 
vanadium said:
It's funny how some folks believe so fiercely that companies should be exempt from moral or ethical judgements. Corporations are beholden to the law, but also subject to the marketplace, and the marketplace has opinions. You might not like certain opinions, or you may believe they're minority views too scarce to matter, but the conversation is valid. Brands live and die by their reputations all the time, and those reputations are solidified in forums like this one.

For those who believe that only the law matters, and that everything else is hyperbole... well... you're entitled to that view.
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my suspicion is brk will warranty the Taiwan and Chinese made stuff if they continue with it and those makers. as id bet the makers there will want the new orders and so will continue to replace defective product. the American made stuff....id bet they don't. I have no idear to what the deal was and such just speculating.

companies can buy only assets or even just some of the assets. lots of ways to buy a company. don't know what brk did with ontario....beside what we know from the news stories posted when it happened.

in the end it's all economics driven. no one's going to buy a company and the bad that comes with it if they can't make money with it.

I'm sad to see the good value American made stuff disappear, but is what it is.......
 
After years of disdainfully watching Ka-Bar turn a hipster with their "State and Union" stuff, I'm now a bit sympathetic. If adding a red spacer to a knife and and hiring Millennial Beard Man lets you sell a knife for double, I guess this is the game now.
 
Perhaps we will get some further information or an inkling of what may be to come from Ontario through this years shot show?
I will have to keep an eye out for the shot show footage on YouTube in a couple of weeks to see if I can glean anything from that. BRK is definitely not communicating their plans for the company going forward 😒
 
vanadium said:
Warranties are liabilities. Depending on the type of acquisition, liabilities may be part of what's acquired. Whether the new owner manufactured the product is irrelevant. As you must be aware, many sellers of own-branded goods don't manufacture anything these days anyway.

Examples of acquisitions where the buyer was on the hook for existing warranties, since you asked:
- HP's acquisition of Compaq
- Microsoft's acquisition of a Nokia division
- Whielpool's acquisition of Maytag
- Google's acquisition of a Motorola division
- Amazon's acquisition of Ring
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Boeing's acquisition of McDonnel-Douglas
 
Is there any good source for info on the acquisition? For example, it's not clear to me if BRK acquired the *plant* or the company, if they intend to continue manufacturing the existing line, etc. Seems hard to imagine the 499 or RAT-1 or Old Hickory going bye-bye but who knows?
 
jayjaygee said:
Is there any good source for info on the acquisition? For example, it's not clear to me if BRK acquired the *plant* or the company, if they intend to continue manufacturing the existing line, etc. Seems hard to imagine the 499 or RAT-1 or Old Hickory going bye-bye but who knows?
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It's littered through a bunch of sites and posts. Here's the best breakdown of what will actually happen /happened to the plant - https://www.oleantimesherald.com/ne...cle_fe96a0d0-21d8-11ee-9ffc-87d8c96a81a3.html .

From distributors talking to BRK, we know the flowing -

1) They definitely didn't want to run the upstate factory. It's still unclear what will happen with the tooling, machines, etc.... My guess is some other knife company buys it and some of it goes to auction. If another company buys it, they might be a BRK company subcontract later on. That's happened before.

2) They have made mention that they do want a US line/manufacturing capability. This is mainly for the ability to maintain Gov contracts.

3) They are going overseas for some things, how this will work is up in the air.

The last few months they've just been liquidating old stock and parts. At least that's what's been visible.
 
ESSE and Rowen are stripping the equipment from the old factory and hauling it to Idaho as I write this. There won't be anymore NY knives after that. Kind of the same as when Camillus closed.
 
Sidehill Gouger said:
ESSE and Rowen are stripping the equipment from the old factory and hauling it to Idaho as I write this. There won't be anymore NY knives after that. Kind of the same as when Camillus closed.
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Let’s face it Ontario was disintegrating before it was sold. They had spent the last 3 years lying about the steel used in their Spec Plus (advertising 1095 and using a lower grade of steel on everything but their military issued line). They had recently been forced to advertise “high carbon steel“ and were loosing shelf space.

We don’t know what will come out of this, but the old company was already gone before it was sold.

n2s
 
I hope Rowen being involved means at least some of the old line will remain made in the US.
 
not2sharp said:
Let’s face it Ontario was disintegrating before it was sold. They had spent the last 3 years lying about the steel used in their Spec Plus (advertising 1095 and using a lower grade of steel on everything but their military issued line). They had recently been forced to advertise “high carbon steel“ and were loosing shelf space.

We don’t know what will come out of this, but the old company was already gone before it was sold.

n2s
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It was sellers who never changed the description or were to lazy to. The switch from 1095 to 1075 was made to make the knife more durable at the cost of needing a slight more sharpening. See Pocket Knife Jimmy's (the imprisoner of great knives under glass!) thread where details are.

Now the switching of 5160 to 1075 was one that got me a bit disappointed though. I love the OKC 5160 knives.
 
My spare SP-8 box doesn't give the steel on it. The other sites stating 1095 is it not being changed there. But I found a few on OKCs own site was 1095. Some were not changed when other sites Carbon Alloyed Steel I've seen. Its all mish mash I guess.
 
So are old hickory knives now being manufactured again or are some stores still selling old inventory?
 
Muck7898 said:
So are old hickory knives now being manufactured again or are some stores still selling old inventory?
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it was said early on that ontario had a lot of stock in inventory and brk bought all the existing stock in the sale. so I'd guess that it's from that, but who knows......
 
The old hickory knives were cool, as were a couple of their machete's. Outside of that I was never a big fan.
 
Roguer said:
Probably old stock. I picked up a SP-41 yesterday for example.
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Reason I asked is there were some differences from others I’ve purchased elsewhere. Buttons on sheath were plain and label on end of box was completely different from all other OKC I have purchased.
 

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