Queen Cutlery Company Closes

[knifeswapper]

Mostly, I agree with you and knifeswapper, but there's an inherent problem with this way of looking at it-and it's based on diminishing returns. OK if we assume that Queen and other Traditional cutlery companies largely use very old and thus worn /temperemental equipment, the argument that they 'can't' really risk striking out & machining more modern (and interesting steels) like D2, 154, 440c, Sandvik 14 etc etc as it takes a toll on elderly machinery, ultimately leads to extinction. Not everybody wants or is satisfied by the mantra that a 'real' traditional pocket knife must be only in good old 1095. Moreover, sooner or later, the said machinery will also be unable to produce 1095 at acceptable levels of quality. But as pointed out by another poster, the idea of being wise like GEC and not risking their machinery on hard stuff steels does NOT explain Queen's recent abysmal build quality and suicidal price ascents. Hopefully GEC will be able to invest in newer more efficient machinery as all companies must do to remain viable.

People may like to quote the rather lazy adage of a bad workman always blames his tools, but you just try and make anything half decent consistently with worn out unreliable equipment. Try a long car journey in a worn out old banger and see if you can expect faultless performance, safety and comfort....uh uh.

I respect you, but you have somehow converted older equipment that was not made to work with very hard steels economically into "wore out equipment". And turned a business that is selling every knife they can make and making more knives each year into your example for "diminishing returns".

 

[jrawk]

I've never been on a Queen or GEC factory tour. That said, I've never really understood and bought into the "modern materials on old machinery" thing. There's a certain fixed blade manufacturer that invites the public to grind their own bevels on what i assume to be modern equipment. Maybe i'm missing the big picture here, but if your ancient blade grinders and drill presses from the turn of the 20th century dont perform well when grinding current (read: modern) steel, then perhaps a good business practice for your business would be to start planning on cycling out your old underperforming machines with new.

My record-player from the 1970's work fine and plays those led zeplin vinyls great, but that doesn't mean i never purchased a cassette player, a cd player, portable mp3 player, or cell phone.

 

[Will Power]

I respect you, but you have somehow converted older equipment that was not made to work with very hard steels economically into "wore out equipment". And turned a business that is selling every knife they can make and making more knives each year into your example for "diminishing returns".

I evidently phrased it weakly. I infer that GEC has quite old machinery and have decided not to risk it on processing harder stainless knives (don't believe any were produced in 2017) But this may suggest that it traps them in a diminishing cycle, sooner or later demand for new steels and or the demise/over use of their equipment could come to haunt them. Certainly, they are thankfully doing well, at the moment, selling out most of their production very quickly. I just meant, I hope they will be able to invest in robust modern tooling when the time comes, that can turn out carbon and stainless lines together. Your Lion Steel venture shows there certainly is demand for different steels, they have evidently invested in expensive tooling and labour is often more costly in Europe too. Because Queen was offering some variety of steels that option or choice has now vanished, we are all diminished by this as users, collectors, connoisseurs.

Regards, Will

 

[mnblade]

On a somewhat related note: Is there a traditional slipjoint manufacturer whose social media-outreach and online marketing isn't lousy? I sure wish (for THEIR sake) that they'd put in more than a token effort. This is 2018!

-- Mark

 

[White Crown]

I'm not up to speed on the intricacies of why Camillus had to close shop. Perhaps the Daniels will talk about some of the other issues they had to deal with last year.



I agree, and there are likely quite a few that know the more detailed information about how/why this happened. Especially their dealers and suppliers. And I don't think anyone is rooting against their return. Even those who always criticize Queen quality should be rooting for Queen to return new and improved.

My Queen made knives were like people. Each one was an individual with pluses and minuses. Unlike Swiss Army or Case, which are obviously much more "factory" made than hand made. I was willing to accept the "quality issues" just like with people. I think it's kind of sad that so many people "got off" on bitching about Queen. I never got one that the imperfections required it to be sent back or repaired. Just like others, I bought a diamond hone and learned how to free-hand reprofile an edge on a Queen The knife's a treasure to this day, present from family members. All this ignorant speculation about why Queen failed is sad too. Like many things there probably is not a single reason for their current closing. However, the constant denigration of their product as "intelligent knife discussion" probably didn't help.

May God help Queen's family...

What would you say is unfair about posting a picture of a Queen knife? We post pics, good and bad, of every knife here. It is not denigration.

We do this with EVERY brand, but when someone does it with a Queen specifically it seems that a few people always get upset and defensive. That causes the thread to blow up and stay alive getting more and more views. Your defensiveness of Queen causes word of their defects to spread even more.

The last Queen I bought had one blade completely unsharpened. Yes, I could (and did) spend the time to put and edge on the D2 from scratch, but when I posed a pic I was attacked for slandering the Queen name. Handmade craftsmanship aside, for $80 I expect the blades to all be sharpened, I'm not an arm shaver or paper tester either. People thinking this expectation was unreasonable and furiously accusing me of attacking the company caused my experience to reach many many more people. Great job, that's why we are talking about this today.

 

[silenthunterstudios]

This is good news to me. A couple years ago I vowed to never buy another Queen until someone else owned the company... hopefully this will play out in favor of that. I have told every "knife person" I have come across to run the other direction, so this is part my fault. I don't really feel bad.

I appreciate the idea of a family business, but when you stamp DFC on your blades and one of the DF curses you out for asking a simple question after the DF production supervisor doesn't know how your knife was produced, and the DF president doesn't give a crap because they are is family and if they said F you; then F you, well, people aren't going to want to walk around with Daniels Family knives in their pockets, especially not if they cost 80 bucks and don't even have remotely even ground blades.

...all I did was ask if they did their primary blade grinds freehand. Honestly, it was so bad it HAD to be done freehand, which would have been totally fine by me but Ryan wanted to get super defensive for some reason, so I'll never know.

I've known and dealt with Ryan for years, and we've talked about GEC finger guillotine snaps when his family were part owners, and the need of QC improvement for Queen products. We always had civil, productive conversations.

 

[silenthunterstudios]

Tuna knives from 2013-2017 were all made at Queen, since the name is owned by the Daniels. But they still own the name, and can choose to still have the knives made by GEC, or Case, or Bose, or anyone who is willing. Not that I think that will happen, but it is an option.

Personally, I think Queen isn't done yet. My hope is that the Daniels, and their newly trained master cutler, and maybe a choice few of the best/knowledgeable employees refine their process and start again in 3-6 months. They have the machines, the tooling, the building, the suppliers, the dealers all line up and ready to go. If they can get their debt issues under control, and cut out a lot of unneeded upper management, they can be making knives again for the 2018 year.

Ken and Ryan told me at the Hagerstown show last year that they had hired on a master cutler and gotten rid of some "bad producers".

A sad day indeed, although my experience with their QC was not the best. I don’t want to see another American cutlery company close its doors.
If they try to make a go with a smaller company, employing their most skilled workers with an eye towards turning out high quality knives, that sounds like Canal Street, which couldn’t stay afloat.

I think this would be best, put out high quality stuff like the Tuna Valley. Overcoming the Servitron and later QC issues, and then getting a niche market to pay custom prices for midtech work, will be difficult.

 

[silenthunterstudios]

The knife market is down all over the place. I'm looking to support friends and family as I can. Whatever Ken, Ryan and Courtney have at the Hagerstown MD and Shenandoah VA shows, I'll look at buying something. This family knows they have issues, and they, to me, were and are working hard at fixing them. I have wished Ryan well, but I can only hope for a more streamlined operation, focusing on specific steels like D2 for Queen, 1094 for Queen City, 154CM for Tuna Valley and maybe another higher end steel for Schatt. Or maybe just have Queen, Schatt and Tuna. I don't know. I haven't spent much time here, I spend most of my time on FB in the groups, mainly my own. But I see a lot of custom slipjoints, and a lot of GEC.

If you could take the looks of Queen, the FnF of GEC and the production levels of Case, you'd have a gold mine on your hands. Can't have high quality in all three though.

My wish is for the Daniels to do very well.

 

[silenthunterstudios]

1095 not 1094...

 

[White Crown]

I've known and dealt with Ryan for years, and we've talked about GEC finger guillotine snaps when his family were part owners, and the need of QC improvement for Queen products. We always had civil, productive conversations.

Well maybe I caught him on a bad day, in the spirit of honesty I will give you the play by play of our conversation and you can judge for yourself:

I was given a number by Ashley, called him, asked if the blades were freehand ground, and he said he didn't know but to send it back and he will send me a new one. I said to him thanks but I didn't necessarily need a replacement, I really liked the feathered buffalo horn covers on this particular one and just wanted to know if the uneven primary grind was from being done freehand and if so I would chalk it up to the knife having "extra character" (kind of what was mentioned above). That seemed to really irritate him and he said to give him my email and he will get back to me. Then I said, "Also the main blade pivot was drilled and pinned crooked (whittler model), and the blade had to be krinked to center between the small blades, I just wanted to let you know because whittlers aren't supposed to be krinked and it seems like someone in your factory is truing to cover up a mistake." I wasn't asking any rectification for this, just to let him know, id want to know if one of my aircraft electricians did something like that... he got more defensive instead of just saying "ok, thanks, sorry about that."

Before we hung up I said'"wait, you didn't get my email"

Ryan paused for a moment and said, "You know, I'm actually not going to email you. You are asking ridiculous questions."

I replied with, "So you were just lying to me to get me off the phone?"
...and the conversation went south from there. I was not being over-critical of their product, I wanted to keep it defects and all. After that I called the dealer and they told me ALL about the QC issues and offered to hand pick another one and send it to me, I said after that, I couldn't be happy with "DFC" riding in my pocket every day.

 

[White Crown]

Of course, here I am "unfairly slandering" again with factual information. Too bad I don't have the photographical evidence anymore, that would really be me trying to spread my opinion. I really like the Queen brand, I truly hope someone else steps in and ushers it back into glory.

 

[Rookie82]

Of course, here I am "unfairly slandering" again with factual information. Too bad I don't have the photographical evidence anymore, that would really be me trying to spread my opinion. I really like the Queen brand, I truly hope someone else steps in and ushers it back into glory.

I have no issue at all with anyone giving their honest opinion of something they bought, or an experience they had. My only thought is that folks should be rooting for Queen to be able to reopen and improve in areas needed. Not rooting for them to close completely, as that helps nobody.

 

[Steven65]

- the demise in any form of any of the these wonderful niche manufacturers is desperately sad.
Truly hope there is a way for them to turn it all around...........fingers and thumbs crossed

Well said Paul. I could not agree more.

I have a number of Queen and S&M knives and I love them. Yes they have their faults but hell, so do I.

I have spoken to Ken and Ryan for years at Blade and they were always super nice to me and very appreciative of my business even though I was only buying one or two knives a year. I wish them everything of the best and I hope that they can turn it around.

 

[Fanglekai]

I hope they are able to reopen.

 

[joeradza]

Ken and Ryan told me at the Hagerstown show last year that they had hired on a master cutler and gotten rid of some "bad producers".

This statement tells me all I need to know why the company has failed. Anytime the owner refuses to take responsibility and blames his employees is indicative of the poorest type of management which is doomed from the start. No financial entrepreneurs will help bail out a company that has that attitude. Stick a fork in them, they're done.

 

[Bartleby]

I have no issue at all with anyone giving their honest opinion of something they bought, or an experience they had. My only thought is that folks should be rooting for Queen to be able to reopen and improve in areas needed. Not rooting for them to close completely, as that helps nobody.

Well stated. We as a community often seem to tend to focus our posting on individual worst and best experiences. Sometimes sharing opinions can be a bit like bragging, other times a bit like venting but this is kind of a by product of posting. The best thing to do when there is nothing to be done is to be hopeful about the future.

 

[supratentorial]

My best wishes to the folks at Queen and their families.

 

[Peregrin]

My best wishes to the folks at Queen and their families.

I couldn't say it better.

 

[Dean51]

As traditional knife users we all value tradition patterns and there is a certain nostalgia about knives being made the way they always were.

But!

We have to realize that if if traditional knives are going to survive into the future the old ways are going to have to change or there will be no future.
GEC makes some truly great knives but they are selling to a small niche market. They are doing it with old labor intensive machinery. As labor costs go up so will their prices. Until they eventually price them selves out of the market.

Case is now competing with RR for budget knives. Buck hasn’t put out anything different as far as traditional knives go in years.
Several modern knife makers are turning out consistent quality with newer steels, blade geometry is mostly horrible but they sell.
New knife buyers are used to newer steels and consistent quality. If traditional knives are going to survive they are going to have to offer better steel and quality. Or they will not attract new buyers. Inconsistency is not considered character with these new buyers.

There will still be a market for 1095 but that is not enough to keep traditionals going into the future.
No one complains about Victorinox and their modern manufacturing process. If traditional makers don’t up their manufacturing processes and materials.
They will eventually be gone or replaced with Chinese brands. That will be a very sad day.

I’ve carried a traditional knife since some time in the 60’s. If it wasn’t for Queen I am not sure I would still be carrying a traditional knife. I won’t use the old stainless steels or the something less than 1095 Case CV. Don’t even get me started about the Teddy Roosevelt’s with the China stamp.

Queen will be missed. I truly hope they can reorganized and back on their feet.
In the mean time I sure am glad CK came out with the Roundhead and Shuffler.
Maybe as a community we should not be so quick to condemn change.
Any doubts look at the brands already lost to history.

 

[deltaboy]

Prayers sent for the folks at Queen!