People who blatantly and fraudulently sell knives as hand made when they are blanks..

Status
Not open for further replies.
I didn't plan on commenting in this thread again, but it seems some people are confused about what the real issue was. The entire issue was about how he represented his product, how he claimed that his knives where 100% handmade and infact they where not. He admitted all of this in this thread, that he used machined blanks and he also admitted that his claims where not 100% correct. That was the entire issue so please before you comment, stop, read and try to understand why people where upset in the first place.
 
Last edited:
brownshoe said:
You people are a hoot. Using blade blanks or making kit knives and selling them as customs has been a very old scam. If you are too stupid to know what you are buying...maybe you shouldn't buy it. :)

This guy is another reason to not buy knives on the internet. Go to a show, meet the maker, press the flesh. That being said, I've been lied to about kit knives at more than one gun show, knife show and state fair.


However, for those on your high horse, there are "well respected" knifemakers who do the same thing...it's called mid-tech knives. The only difference, is the design is theirs, but the blades, handles and sometimes even the edge are put on by the subcontractors and the maker just assembles the knife.


Then you have the well known maker...with shop help. The maker's name goes on the knife, but you see pictures of 50 blade blanks and the shop rat in the corner. Who really made the knife? The company that blanked the handles and blade for the fixed blade, the shop rat who put the edge on and assembled the knife, or the guy who's name is on the knife, but only pays the help, the subcontractors and...if you are lucky, inspects the product before shipment.

But I've seen kit knives, mid-tech knives and production knives with better design, fit and finish than many of the makers on this forum.
Click to expand...

It is sad but yes there are more people that pull the same scam as Williams knife Co. but most of them do not charge 400-600 for mass produced blanks. As for the mid tech thing the good guys are very up front that the knife is a mid tech and most will even tell you if it is hand ground or not.

Chris Williams was getting a lot of positive press from people that knew very little about knives . I think the posters in this thread were just trying to get the truth out there into the public eye to help out the people that may not know a lot about knives but are in the market for a custom.

Much respect to you Brownshoe. I am not arguing with you or your post . I just wanted to make clear why I put any time at all into this thread.

Hi, Chris I see you changed some of the wording on your web site and facebook page. Thank you for at least doing that. It is still plain to see that you will still be as vague as possible and do as little as possible to be completely transparent about how your knives are made. But hey it is a step in the right direction. Keep on steppin' .
 
Wow, I just got back to this thread. What I don't like is that he mentions his family and his kids in his posts and basically in all of his adverts. What kind of example is he leading to his kids by not being forthright. I work in and around Communications and some good PR can definitely launch some careers as well as items that are not as good as the marketing makes it to be that's for sure.

Just this weekend I visited Asbury Park, NJ on the advice of NJ Monthly magazine. The magazine took a glamour shot of the one tiny area of Asbury Park that isn't a dump and made it look grand. Lol.

Coming back to this though, if Chris Williams does have a mea culpa in his future, maybe he should own up and if he has to ... reprice his finished work as a result of this as a fallout of being honest. Ultimately selling a blade that is not custom to his customers is important for the retailers and customers to know. Why? Armed with this information the customer might potentially go somewhere else and look for other blades in the same price range. It's outright fraud and using your children and family in feel good photoshoots is just wrong to market a fraudulent product. That's like teaching your kids to get ahead at whatever costs and to value the lifestyle that materials and consumerism gets you vs the virtues of being honest.

The blades in general do look very nice. I wouldn't use the filet knife for certain because of the handle material or any of the knives that involves cutting things with an odor or that could sit in water.

I would much rather prefer something with an injection molded handle but maybe that's just me believing in the utility of a knife of that sort.

But I can see the value of his knives, just for me personally not at the price of what he is selling them for. I would much rather pick one up from a BF knife maker who is engaged with the knife community rather than someone feeding into the luxury goods market with a product that might not be as luxurious as the maker claims. Of course I could be wrong and he makes his own blades start to finish if he would just post something to that effect.
 
Last edited:
brownshoe said:
However, for those on your high horse, there are "well respected" knifemakers who do the same thing...it's called mid-tech knives. The only difference, is the design is theirs, but the blades, handles and sometimes even the edge are put on by the subcontractors and the maker just assembles the knife.
Click to expand...

You totally forgot to add the part where those makers actually advertise them as being MID TECH knives. Huge difference. They aren't trying to pass them off as custom hand made....
 
ChrisWilliams said:
I would like to add one more thing, for the person who has taken it on himself to begin emailing businesses I work with on a daily basis, that literally help me provide for my family...I honestly don't see how that does you, yourself, one bit of good. What is the benefit for you personally? If you can educate me on how this is beneficial to you, this forum community or who possibly made you the all mighty decider of what a knife business should look like, I'd appreciate it. Unfortunately it's selfish acts like these that make our society what it is today. Your email was not even factual. You will remain unnamed on here because I won't stoop to those levels, but knife forum community...take notice...is this the kind of behavior that is intended by forming this community, is this the example? I am going to think this is probably the exception.
Click to expand...

Haters gonna hate...some people have way too much time on their hands and love the drama it seems. I get why some of you take offense to someone using blanks but claiming otherwise, especially custom knife makers on here, hell, i get a lil pissed when people start talking bout the military and seeing combat when i know they haven't done either...but ultimately who cares, this guy isn't taking money out of your pockets, he's trying to feed his family. It doesn't affect any of you at all except on principle. If someone's gonna buy one of his knives then they obviously have a lot of disposable income and as long as they like how it looks who cares if it was hand forged or machined somewhere else. How does 'busting' this guy help your life or anybody else? I'm just sayin'
 
Last edited:
Speaking of people lying bout military service...how is it so much different than companies like Strider. Should Mick have to admit he's selling $100 S30V Steel knives for $500 and up? It's a free market and everyone lies a lil to make a buck. That's why i stick to Spydies and Busse's(kin). Peace
 
Others will speak for themselves, as you have in labeling members as "haters," but I thought the issue was less price than the apparently false claim that the knives were custom made from start to finish by Williams.

As for Mr. Berger (AKA "Strider") , he has received a goodly volume of critical comments, as you would know if you had been here a couple of years ago.

As for "trying to feed his family," how do you know that?
 
SidTheMuss said:
Speaking of people lying bout military service...how is it so much different than companies like Strider. Should Mick have to admit he's selling $100 S30V Steel knives for $500 and up? It's a free market and everyone lies a lil to make a buck. That's why i stick to Spydies and Busse's(kin). Peace
Click to expand...


I beg to differ. I do NOT lie (even a little) to make a buck. I am totally honest and forthright about my work and I'm absolutely sure most of the other custom makers operate the same way. You may wanna reconsider coming here with 17 posts and call people liars.
 
SidTheMuss said:
Haters gonna hate...some people have way too much time on their hands and love the drama it seems. I get why some of you take offense to someone using blanks but claiming otherwise, especially custom knife makers on here, hell, i get a lil pissed when people start talking bout the military and seeing combat when i know they haven't done either...but ultimately who cares, this guy isn't taking money out of your pockets, he's trying to feed his family. It doesn't affect any of you at all except on principle. If someone's gonna buy one of his knives then they obviously have a lot of disposable income and as long as they like how it looks who cares if it was hand forged or machined somewhere else. How does 'busting' this guy help your life or anybody else? I'm just sayin'
Click to expand...

Where exactly are we supposed to draw the line?

How about we all go to wal-mart, buy up all of the cheap imports, grind of the maker's marks and put on our own? We can then sell them for 10 or 20x their original value and claim them as customs. I mean, it's a win/win right? We start making money off of China's labors, rather than the other way around, AND we get money to feed our families...

Since when did principles become so disposable?


As for the whole Mid-Tech debate, the point of this whole thread really does go back to the issue of honesty, but at the same time, I think we are still comparing apples to oranges here. Even for the Mid-Tech production knives that are contracted out of a maker's own shop, it's very rare, if not unheard of, that a maker simply calls up a machinist, the machinist hits a button, and all of a sudden you have 50 sets of knife parts ready to screw together, box up, and sell for $300+...

Most of the time, the maker is still hand grinding blades, reaming holes, hand finishing various parts, and doing other intricate work and setups that the average machine shop may not be able to do. It's rarely as simple as just throwing a handle on and calling it a custom. That's not even considering what may amount to several hours (if not days or weeks) worth of designing and modifications to various designs in order to get to that final product.
I would guess that there are few (if any) mid tech makers that are putting out 50-75 from scratch mid techs a week, if they can even get that many done in a month..

And makers like Strider may be a bit more over priced than similar makers, but you're also paying for a warranty and a reputation. Supply and demand also has an obvious impact here, as they put out a relatively unique product in a somewhat limited quantity. That said, if you can make a similar product and charge only $100 per knife, I will gladly be your first customer.

And just so everyone's clear... No. I don't own any Striders. They're out of my price range at the moment.... ;)
 
JT Wylie, not all "custom" makers are honest about their mid-tech knives. A few months ago there was a major pissing contest on a subforum between two makers on this very subject. About 7 years ago I called out a maker and his purveyor for selling "mid-tech" knives w/o full disclosure and for the same price as a custom. The maker quit this forum to start his own, but his mid-tech knives disappeared...or did they? A few years ago one slipjoint maker made a big splash on this forum. His knives were hot, inexpensive and hand made. Turned out the parts were factory made overseas, there was some question as to if they were really the steel they were supposed to be and the only thing the "maker" did was final inspection.
 
Subscribed. I want to see where this all goes. Read thru the first few pages and unfortunately this confirms a thought I had about some knife makers.
 
The idea that if someone is wealthy enough to buy a $600 knife, they deserve to be misled because they won't know better anyway is absolutely ridiculous and unethical.

The claim that someone who lies to their clientele as a basic foundation of their business plan, "isn't taking bread off of someone else's table" is also completely wrong, and frankly just plain stupid.

When a person is confronted with serious questions about their very public business, and their main response is to diffuse the issue, proclaim their religiosity and threaten to sue anyone who dares question them, that is a tremendously disturbing turn of events. It does not speak well at all of the person being challenged.

The attitude that no one should dare question these practices, and that to do so constitutes "sitting on a high horse" or "judging from afar" is a direct affront to the basic theme of caveat emptor that's been a cornerstone of civilized commerce for centuries.


YES, folks have a right and even a duty to confront baloney when they suspect it. YES, knifemakers have a duty to be forthright and honest about what we do.

If something smells wrong, start asking questions. If you don't get straight answers immediately, find another knifemaker. There are literally hundreds of us who will happily describe everything we do, and why we do it. Why would anyone patronize or defend one of the few who won't?
 
I am surprised to see many people not seeing the point of this thread. When a "professional" misrepresents his or her work, it besmirches the entire profession. It reflects poorly on the community as a whole, and likely diminishes the perceived value of custom knives, at least by the general public. When somebody realizes they've been duped, the response is often to write off the whole market. It has happened before.

While the cost of the misrepresentation may be difficult to determine, that does not mean it is negligible. There is the direct financial loss from a limited market for high-end knives, and also the cost of the public's trust. These are not little things to people who earn their name and reputation in the field.

One's morality should not be based on "well, people should know better," or even "who cares?" The fact the the community polices itself is one of it's strongest assets, IMHO. This is a lesson, perhaps even a warning to future "bladesmiths," not just a soap opera.

I would like to see a straight answer to the question of the blade's origin as well.
 
james terrio said:
The idea that if someone is wealthy enough to buy a $600 knife, they deserve to be misled because they won't know better anyway is absolutely ridiculous and unethical.

The claim that someone who lies to their clientele as a basic foundation of their business plan, "isn't taking bread off of someone else's table" is also completely wrong, and frankly just plain stupid.

When a person is confronted with serious questions about their very public business, and their main response is to diffuse the issue, proclaim their religiosity and threaten to sue anyone who dares question them, that is a tremendously disturbing turn of events. It does not speak well at all of the person being challenged.

The attitude that no one should dare question these practices, and that to do so constitutes "sitting on a high horse" or "judging from afar" is a direct affront to the basic theme of caveat emptor that's been a cornerstone of civilized commerce for centuries.


YES, folks have a right and even a duty to confront baloney when they suspect it. YES, knifemakers have a duty to be forthright and honest about what we do.

If something smells wrong, start asking questions. If you don't get straight answers immediately, find another knifemaker. There are literally hundreds of us who will happily describe everything we do, and why we do it. Why would anyone patronize or defend one of the few who won't?
Click to expand...

This thread has taken a lot of turns, and had a more than few surprises for me.

But James, at this point I couldn't agree with you more. That was a well well thought out post you articulated nicely to sum it all up at this point.

Robert
 
james terrio said:
The idea that if someone is wealthy enough to buy a $600 knife, they deserve to be misled because they won't know better anyway is absolutely ridiculous and unethical.

The claim that someone who lies to their clientele as a basic foundation of their business plan, "isn't taking bread off of someone else's table" is also completely wrong, and frankly just plain stupid.

When a person is confronted with serious questions about their very public business, and their main response is to diffuse the issue, proclaim their religiosity and threaten to sue anyone who dares question them, that is a tremendously disturbing turn of events. It does not speak well at all of the person being challenged.

The attitude that no one should dare question these practices, and that to do so constitutes "sitting on a high horse" or "judging from afar" is a direct affront to the basic theme of caveat emptor that's been a cornerstone of civilized commerce for centuries.


YES, folks have a right and even a duty to confront baloney when they suspect it. YES, knifemakers have a duty to be forthright and honest about what we do.

If something smells wrong, start asking questions. If you don't get straight answers immediately, find another knifemaker. There are literally hundreds of us who will happily describe everything we do, and why we do it. Why would anyone patronize or defend one of the few who won't?
Click to expand...

^^^ This.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top