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lt632ret

lt632ret

Joined
Jan 21, 2001
Messages
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Taylor cutlery bought the IP ( right to all the Schrade trade marks patents ect ) I do not know Taylor ( a Tenn outfit ) I guess they also have other interests not strangly it would seem, all of these are not of USA origin. I was at the auction and frankly I was treated quite well ( in fact better than that ) I met some old and new friends spanning 30 years at least. Thomas is it seems was handed a loaded deck ( and knowing that still did a professional job ) the collection ( as I have said was fore gone ).

Now I wish to chose my words carefully on this so that no one mis understands or misinterprets what I say. While there were several reasons this happened ( many ) the primary reason was the purchase of the bank which held the paper on Schrade by another bank. Who called in options that they had a legal right to do. The over extension of Schrade was do to the expectations and expected backing and orders of these other sources ( not all USA ) . This was a legal probability when the contracts were signed but it made it no less of a set up. Big wheels big deal AHH SOOO

When you deal with the law nothing is implied ( as I once heard a female inmate say to another in the holding tank in Vahalla NY when referring to the blindfolded statue of justice holding the scales) That bitch may be blind but she still can hear . So those who signed those agreements are remandable but there should be some recourse in this country for companies who use rodeo riders have mottos like PROUD AMERICAN in there backround and have contributed to this country in so many ways that there demise is a moral crime. Please remember that this companies main product was knives but its real product was the generations it produced who became doctors lawyers and soldiers who contributed to the ideals of this country.

I guess it had to come to this final line. Damn us all for being so gullable to think that everyone will play fair. Oh yes and one more thing PISS on those who took advantage of that gullability because the day will come when you will call on the people who you have betrayed to defend and protect you as you have done in the past . If that happens I suggest you start your quest for supporters by asking the relatives of the familys of those on the USS ARIZONA for help. A bit bitter, you bet. Those who forget history are destined to relive it.

Hey Deb thankyou for your input your knowledge is invaluable. In fact I thinkl only Dave Swinden could do better. However you are better looking . Watch out for Phil he has a thing for ladies from the Ellenville area. LT.
 
Taylor Cutlery is based in Kingsport Tennessee. At least that is where their home office is. They manufacture (?) the Smith and Wesson knives, Coleman knives, and some specialty stuff for John Deere. They have a nice pic of a huge warehouse, but no picture of manufacturing facilities? Started in 1974. Most of their lines are tactical knives, if that is the proper term, and the Coleman line is mostly pocket knives. Can't tell from their site where they are manufactured exactly. Buy the real Schrades while you can before the "erzatz" Schrades hit the market? Surely this is the fate of the WIP. :(
 
Good post, LT.

Now that a real Lady of Ellenville has joined us, I will have to move on past that. I don' wanna put off a valuable member of our forum. Perhaps sometime, when we are slow, I'll ressurect the thread that started all of that, the knife: 'Best Emperial Collection' and see if she has any comments or knowledge of it.

Stewart Taylor has been in the knive biz for a long time (1975) and as Codger says, he is responsible for the current S&W marked blades and those marked 'Coleman'. In the past his tang markings have been 'Elk Horn", Cherokee, 'Taylor-Seto, Japan, Surgical Steel' and others. Most seem to have been made in Japan. Real heavy on Commemoratives, limited editions, fancy boxes.

The only thing that has ever put me off about Taylor is the Klu Klux Klan commemoratives he dealt in. Of course Frank Buster (fight'n rooster) and Parker have done the same. These turn up on Ebay frequently, and seem to be the most sought after (expensive) Taylor knives. Anything to sell a blade, I guess. Commemoratives celecbrating cowardly, hooded punks aren't my thing. (Ebay pulls those KKK knives whenever I notice one and complain about it-- I am a killjoy, I guess).

So will we see a Schrade knife with the dreaded 'Surgical Steel' tang marking? Who knows. Perhaps the Schrade IP was bought as an investment. Maybe the name Schrade will pop up every few years as does Marbles, Primble, Cattaraugus, Pine Knot, ect, ect.

Sold for $80+ on ebay:
KKKtaylor.jpg




Phil
 
I ordered a Smith & Wesson boot knife and a Coleman congress from SMKW a couple months ago. Mainly out of curiousity about them. They were both inexpensive. Both (it turned out) were made in China. They seemed to be well made, heck the Coleman was rather pretty, but I gave them away. I'm not interested in Chinese knives right now. Maybe in the future I'll change my mind. I used to avoid Japanese made knives because of the crappy blade on a Japanese Ka-Bar lockback pocketknife I bought in late 1979 or early 1980. But I'm very happy with Japanese knives I have bought in the last few years.

KKK? That is a shame that anyone would still market anything having to do with those jerks. Another reason not to buy Taylor Cutlery products. Shame they got ahold of Schrade's name.
 
Around Christmas of 2001, just on a whim, I bought a Smith & Wesson 150th Anniversary Golden Issue linerlock. It came in a very decorative tin, with a little ditty about Horace Smith and D. B. Wesson on the bottom. It was also identified as having been designed by Stewart A. Taylor, Taylor Cutlery. Official Exculsive Licensee/Smith & Wesson. No country of origin anywhere on the collectible tin.
Well sometime later, I broke open the plastic to check things out. Only when I pulled the knife out of it's little slot and turned it over did I see "Hammer Forged (really?) China Bullseye. :mad:
I think that was a masterful, but quite deceitful, job of marketing/packaging a collectable. Just my opinion.
Oh, by the way, I paid $19 at Big 5 Sporting Goods......$30 off the "regular" price.
I overpaid. :rolleyes:

I hope there isn't an "invasion" of Chinese Schrades.

Bill
 
I can guarantee you all that Stewart Taylor does not manufacture A THING himself.....sells licencsed products made overseas and has been doing that for a long time.

LT....do you know of any reason that Camillus did not move in to pick up the Schrade name or at least the Old Timer brand? It seemed like a logical fit to me.

Old Timers still seem to have a lot of market share, and I'm talking among the general public non knife knuts....where I live in New England, this has to be the least knife-friendly part of the country, and especially unfriendly to the tradtional slipjoint patterns.....yet I STILL see Old Timers well represented in area hardware stores and I can't say that about any other brand.
 
Listen at this point you do not need a crystal ball to figure out what happened. In poker it is a freezout, in baseball a squeeze play, in jail and on the street just a plain old FU--ING.

Schrade was a thorn in the side of the market. Quality american goods that were competing with the imports on an uneven playing field and holding there own. This was a multi faceted play. First Schrade updates to stay in the game while diversifying so that its tools and lesser lines incorporated Chinese parts ect. A necessary if unfortunate choice. This overextends them no problem the bank they are with is sticking with them knowing Schrades long term game plan.

Kind of like table stakes poker you can play what you have, but if you can't cover the raise you lose. In this case Schrade figures it can cover the play because it has a sympathetic bank covering the action. Well up comes a different banker and informs you that he now owns all your markers and wants his money now. Your choice is to fold or shoot him. Since I really don't care much about this world one way or the other I would have shot him.

Anyway, what this does is eliminate a major american player. Now our little buddies behind this probably took out more than Schrade with this bank move but, thems is big boys so we don't get that info. But Schrade was certainly one of the chips.

So now the stage is set ( as it has been on many american firms ). But you see it has gotten a bit obvious that it is not to good a policy to just move in with a zillion little people who prefer rice to bread and start bossing people around ( Remember the first car companies who started that way the resentment caused them to hire other people to tell the workers what they wanted done ) FRONT MEN you might call them ( at least that is what crime organizations call them ). Nope they just stay home and remember pearl harbor and laugh.

Now all this being said let me answer the question. Camillus, or Benchmade who did bid and is an AMERICAN firm, as well as several others who also did bid never had a chance. You see you are still thinking like an American, truth justice, fair play and all the other nonsense ( that they will put on our tombstones) had nothing to do with this deal. God could have come out of the clouds and he would have been out bid. In fact if he did I would bet the Helicopter Taylor came in on would have been newer. Taylor had a blank check book and was just a pawn in the game ( higher echelon front man ) to sell more foreign junk to good old americans like you and me. 3.65 mil or 10 mil it went right where I said from the beginning it would. Wow perhapes I should get a crystal ball if I am that good. the fact is that any A hole should have seen it.

The game plan was one take out the competition, the two get the IP ( Name trade marks ect ). Want a little more proof OK the work in progress ( that I have spoke about before ) perhapes a half of a million pounds of parts ( blades handles you name it ) went for 34 thousand dollars ( the price of a car ) it is pretty obvious where the interest in this auction was. Close up the competition and get the rights. AHH SOO.

You know I am a cynical bigoted old fart and perhapes I am all wrong. Yup it is all just a figment of my stressed imagination. So let me say that all this is just my opinion, and a hell of a coincidence that it worked out just the way I said it would. LT
 
lt632ret said:
You know I am a cynical bigoted old fart and perhapes I am all wrong. Yup it is all just a figment of my stressed imagination. So let me say that all this is just my opinion, and a hell of a coincidence that it worked out just the way I said it would. LT
Click to expand...
Bigoted old fart? Nope! More like a guy who just calls 'em as he sees 'em.

I got no problem with that. :)

- Hank
 
OK, so I understand the overextended part. Sorry to hear about that situation.

But what you're saying is that the chinese manufacturer "backed" Taylor with some big cash so that they could use the Schrade name to dump cheap crappy knives.
 
FYI, almost all manufacturing in China is owned by an arm of the Chinese military. Norenco Polytech ring a bell? Money is no object when you don't have to compete on the labor front and you have MFN trading status.
 
Not so much to dump a cheaper product but more to eliminate competition and just grab another chunk of the playing field. What difference does it make as soon as there technology equals or surpasses ours they will do what they want anyway. They pretty much are doing that now. Who knows, who cares, Schrade is gone and as time goes by we are being assimiliated and no one seems to notice. Products will cheapen ( in quality ) all by themselves when there is no competition.

I do not know if Taylor was backed but he produces nothing and deals with imports under old ( bought up ) names so what do you think. Perhapes he bought on spec or the simple goodness of his heart. Yup that must be it. Aw what the hell who cares. Its over for Schrade as well as many other old american companies and close enough to the end that it will have no effect on my life style there is still enough residue from the sacrifices of past americans to let me at least live the rest of my time enjoying those rewards and rights that they died for. The future belongs to others and they are welcome to it. Perhapes I am completly wrong I truly hope so. LT
 
I for one am at a loss as to what an outfit like Taylor Cultery will do with the Schrade name.

I think that if he tries to have "Old Timers" and "Uncle Henrys" made in China...it's hard to imagine that succeeding since those brands are already associated with high quality and American manufacture....

And Schrade in general really did not have the panache (for the name only) that would allow them to market limited editions with the Schrade name like (I guess) they do with the Smith & Wesson name...

I also can't believe that they will try to set up manufacturing inTN...and as I understand it, they did not even buy the equipment, tools, etc (someone correct me if I'm wrong).


Sooooo....could they have paid whatever they paid just to keep the name off of the market? I don't see how that would benefit Taylor, since they don't really compete (to any significant extent) with companies like Schrade..
 
I do not know perhapes time will tell. In any event he did buy it. Once again your logic and reasoning would seem to imply a third party. Perhapes taylors advantage was in seeking the kudos of that third party. Oh well just speculation on my part. LT PS I agree I do not see the manufacturing being done inTENN.
 
Here's some food for thought....you draw your own conclusion. One of the Schrade Sales Reps in the field, from the not so distant past, is affiliated with Taylor. The other party who purchased all of the equipment is a former Schrade Exec. who is "consulting"(???) with a "firm" in Tennessee. Along with all of the major, newest equipment, many of the marketing offices (fully furnished and equipped) and other offices were won in the bid, as well. Lots of puzzle pieces, but no one is able to put it all together, and so far it's all being left to the imagination. I prefer to think that one of the smartest and most innovative business minds that worked for Schrade found his own way to keep the Company alive. Unfortunately, keeping it where it was could not be any option because of taxes and high wages. The South is a perfect place to keep it going...more affordable. Maybe he collaborated with a former business associate (Sales Rep) and with one expanding an existing business and the other providing the equipment and experience, they will be able to keep it going another 100 years. I just hope they will attempt to keep it as American as possible, but unfortunately following today's pattern, that doesn't seem like an option. Don't know if this is the actual story, it's just me doing some positive guessing.
 
OK I have not mentioned it but, something is definitely in the wind, you would have to be blind and deaf not to have noticed that, even though some people were initially blind sided by all that has happened it is only the first round. I agree with Debbie but, I was not going to be the first to say it. Heck I have been on the chopping block enough and was not going to open another avenue to have to defend or explain. LT
 
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