Shirogorov's Warranty is void without COA

I wonder how many knives they produce per year and how many people they have on staff?
They might have this (terrible imho) policy because they are at an awkward stage of business growth where dealing with returns costs them too much time?
Tightening up their QA would go a long way if that is the case
 
This is one reason why some knives are just nice to look at. I don't need a $800 status symbol. I have some pretty expensive knives, in the $700+ range, but if anything happens I know I can send them back and get them fixed without hoops, hurdles, or international shipping panic added in.
 
Absolutely agree.
Prices like that, along with CS like that.....no thanks.
Joe

RevDevil said:
This is one reason why some knives are just nice to look at. I don't need a $800 status symbol. I have some pretty expensive knives, in the $700+ range, but if anything happens I know I can send them back and get them fixed without hoops, hurdles, or international shipping panic added in.
Click to expand...
 
Not that I dont believe the OP but I just had a long conversation with Tom from Shirogov Knives and basically all this information is untrue according to him.
Tom is a direct representitive for Shirogorov and I had a significant conversation with him.
Per my talk I had with Tom this is what I understood.

1) If you have a knife with a COA Russian or American you can just contact Recon 1 and they should be able to help you. (A COA card not the paper they have that is basically a declaration of what the knife is to the government)
2) If you have a Shirogorov Knife but no COA card then you can contact Shirogorov directly and they should be able to help with you as to what you need to do.
3) As long as the work needing to be done is not considered abuse/misuse or cosmetic Shiro will help you. And even then they will still help you but you may have to cover expenses.
4) The warranty on any Shirogorov Knife that is/has been made by Shirorgorov is good for the life of the knife regardless of how many owners. (Not even some custom makers do that)

Understand I had/have as much dog in this fight as anybody and went directly to Shirogorov at The Gathering and talked to them. Not only did Sergey fix one of my knives with a soft detent on the spot but Tom from Shirogorov talked with me for a good 20-30 minutes answering all my questions about this specific topic.
Please also understand that this is a second hand conversation and sometimes things get forgotten or misunderstood.

Ultimately at the end of the day I trust Shirogorov their knives and warranty. If you want to label me a fan boy fine but I also did purposefully search out info and find most of the info in this thread to be incorrect.
I am happy to have more conversations about this via PM either her, the USN or email.
Please contact Tom or Shirogorov Knives directly for more direct info.

Cheers, Chad
 
Hate to sound like a broken record but just want to be clear that this is my own post.
All my comments are based on what I am saying and have interpreted from conversations with Shirogorov and are my own.
I do not and can not speak directly for Shiro and anything I may have effed up here is of my own doing.
Cheers
 
folder geek said:
1) If you have a knife with a COA Russian or American you can just contact Recon 1 and they should be able to help you. (A COA card not the paper they have that is basically a declaration of what the knife is to the government).
Click to expand...

To add on this a bit. I have contacted Recon 1 a while back like maybe 6 months or so and they will only help if you bought from them directly as i understood. I had lost a single steel bearing ball and didnt know what to do so contacted Recon 1. They told me they could help me if it was purchased from them. I even contacted Tom at Shirogorov directly and he could help but shipping a single bearing was outrageous. Consequently, I bought 100 count (good for roughly 3 SRBS knives) ceramic bearings that cost me less than shipping a single bearing from Russia. Go figure.
 
I can not speak for Recon 1 and their policies.
I would imagine shipping 1 ball bearing from Russia would seem expensive for one bearing. Last time I shipped something small to Russia it was $50 via USPS.
But they (Shirogorov) were willing to help as best they could fix a problem you created, correct?
AKS or any of the other good supply companies I bet would have what one needed. As a matter of fact that's how I have seen a lot of Shiro knife owners get bearings that were lost or to upgrade.
Cheers
 
folder geek folder geek

Yup problem i created. When i got my first Shiro i was curious about internals as i am pretty much with all new folders i get. I just like to see as well as clean up/tune up.
 
folder geek said:
Not that I dont believe the OP but I just had a long conversation with Tom from Shirogov Knives and basically all this information is untrue according to him.
Tom is a direct representitive for Shirogorov and I had a significant conversation with him.
Per my talk I had with Tom this is what I understood.

1) If you have a knife with a COA Russian or American you can just contact Recon 1 and they should be able to help you. (A COA card not the paper they have that is basically a declaration of what the knife is to the government)
2) If you have a Shirogorov Knife but no COA card then you can contact Shirogorov directly and they should be able to help with you as to what you need to do.
3) As long as the work needing to be done is not considered abuse/misuse or cosmetic Shiro will help you. And even then they will still help you but you may have to cover expenses.
4) The warranty on any Shirogorov Knife that is/has been made by Shirorgorov is good for the life of the knife regardless of how many owners. (Not even some custom makers do that)

Understand I had/have as much dog in this fight as anybody and went directly to Shirogorov at The Gathering and talked to them. Not only did Sergey fix one of my knives with a soft detent on the spot but Tom from Shirogorov talked with me for a good 20-30 minutes answering all my questions about this specific topic.
Please also understand that this is a second hand conversation and sometimes things get forgotten or misunderstood.

Ultimately at the end of the day I trust Shirogorov their knives and warranty. If you want to label me a fan boy fine but I also did purposefully search out info and find most of the info in this thread to be incorrect.
I am happy to have more conversations about this via PM either her, the USN or email.
Please contact Tom or Shirogorov Knives directly for more direct info.

Cheers, Chad
Click to expand...

For the record all my data has been collected from either Recon1 and/or whoever is running the Shirogorov forum on the USN. If I should have contacted someone else you would have thought they would have made that info easier to find?

ps. It's moot in my situation as I found older posts from the person I got my second one from and they knew it had problems beforehand that they didn't disclose so they have until the end of the month to get my money back to me. Either way Shirogorovs are off my radar now..
 
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OilMan said:
For the record all my data has been collected from either Recon1 or whoever is running the Shirogorov forum on the USN. If I should have contacted someone else you would have thought they would have made that info easier to find?

ps. It's moot in my situation as I found older posts from the person I got my second one from and they knew it had problems beforehand that they didn't disclose so they have until the end of the month to get my money back to me. Either way Shirogorovs are off my radar now..
Click to expand...

folder geek folder geek didn't do anything differently than you, Tom is the USN representative. It's a shame that someone's tinkering with their knives put you off the company.
 
I wonder how much it has to do with Shirogorov's parts being milled in China. They could put together counterfeits using parts literally identical to the originals. That is a theory anyway.

The real reason? The answer is $$$
 
OilMan said:
Recon1 is the one who told me about it. Wanted to send him a second hand Shiro I had picked up that has detent issues but he said unless I can send him a pic of the COA first it was a total no go.

ps. Just found this on a Shirogorov forum:
Q: What if I don't have such a certificate? You will never repair my knife?
A: Don't worry, we will still repair your knife. It's just that it will by default be maintenance and not warranty service. Read the text of the warranty. It covers faults on our part (be it craftsmanship or materials). Chances are, if you received a Shirogorov knife with a shortcoming, you would have contacted us on the matter already. And if something would happen to the knife (e.g. blade play after it has been used as a prybar), it would not be covered by the newly introduced warranty anyway, as blade play in this particular case would be the result of negligent action on behalf of the user.

Q: I bought a Shirogorov knife from a 3rd party, can I get a Certificate of Authenticity?
A: Sorry, no. Certificates are only provided for knives which history (up to the point of the knife reaching the user's hands) we can track. We cannot guarantee that a knife bought from a 3rd party has not been tampered with, or that it is authentic

I wasn't given the first option from Recon1 though as I might have payed for the fix initially. I do find it odd though that they can't confirm if a knife is authentic, are the clones really that good?
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Yep just as I thought. It's written between the lines right here. The clones coming out of China can be so good that even Shiro can't tell them apart. That's all part of having your authentic knives milled in China.

There have been Quartermaster knives released on the clone market that were identical to the "originals" before the quartermaster versions came out. The reasons are the same, parts milled in China.

I know Kevin John does the parts for CKF.
 
mikomonday said:
folder geek folder geek didn't do anything differently than you, Tom is the USN representative. It's a shame that someone's tinkering with their knives put you off the company.
Click to expand...

It wasn't the possible tinkering, it was the answer I received from Recon1 that told me without a COA Shiro's policy was to not look at it at all. I wasn't given any extra options for getting it repaired and might have paid myself had they determined it was not covered under warranty after at least looking at it. I'll post the whole conversation when I get home today to take any guesswork out of what was relayed to me and by who although the same things were stated on the USN in their forum by the admin..

=============================================
Well, depending on how legally binding this is..
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
The information in this transmission and the documents (if any) accompanying it contain confidential information

belonging to the sender. The information is intended only for the use of the individuals or entities named above.

Any public disclosure of its contents is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby

notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this

information is strictly prohibited.

================================================
I would assume it isn't but who knows..
 
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Lapedog said:
I wonder how much it has to do with Shirogorov's parts being milled in China. They could put together counterfeits using parts literally identical to the originals. That is a theory anyway.

The real reason? The answer is $$$
Click to expand...
Except that's not true. Shiro makes the knives, not China. Please provide evidence other wise or stop making things up.
 
OilMan said:
For the record all my data has been collected from either Recon1 and/or whoever is running the Shirogorov forum on the USN. If I should have contacted someone else you would have thought they would have made that info easier to find?

ps. It's moot in my situation as I found older posts from the person I got my second one from and they knew it had problems beforehand that they didn't disclose so they have until the end of the month to get my money back to me. Either way Shirogorovs are off my radar now..
Click to expand...


Suuuuuure.......don't worry about it because they 'should' be able to help.
Or.....I'm pretty 'sure' you'll get taken care of.
When we're talking knives > $700??? I wanna be 100%, rock solid SURE!
Don't worry about it??? I won't, because I won't buy one.
Don't blame you one bit OM and I hope you get that mess cleared up.
Have you contacted the seller?? Is he going to clear this up??
Hope so brother.
Joe
 
Mo2 said:
Except that's not true. Shiro makes the knives, not China. Please provide evidence other wise or stop making things up.
Click to expand...

I have no proof but have heard about it from the same source who told me about CFK knives being made in China by Kevin John. I later found that out to be true.

In fact I never got any proof either way about Shiro but I definitely know a thing or two about business practices in Russia. A made in Russia sticker only means that the item passed through somewhere in Russia long enough for someone to slap a sticker on it.
 
I agree with Nick and Joe if you Shiro/Rockstead money for a knife the warranty needs to be ironclad and transparent. It's $40-$60 one way to get those knives to Russia or Japan..
 
Lapedog said:
I have no proof but have heard about it from the same source who told me about CFK knives being made in China by Kevin John. I later found that out to be true.

In fact I never got any proof either way about Shiro but I definitely know a thing or two about business practices in Russia. A made in Russia sticker only means that the item passed through somewhere in Russia long enough for someone to slap a sticker on it.
Click to expand...

Man, what proof would even satisfy you? Sergey and the Shirogorov Workshop's Instagram already has pictures of his workshop in Russia with Russian people grinding blades, finishing handles, doing wire EDM on the parts. Theres a thread on USN that has detailed pictures of every step of the process in making the production and custom knives. You want a video on Russian TV where they took a camera to his workshop?


CFK has never even lied about their knives being made in China.

As for OilMan OilMan , Recon1 have rubbed some people the wrong way it seems and it's completely understandable to avoid Shirogorovs if the only way to service them reliably through the US is Recon1. (who you're having communication issues with) I still have had such a positive CS experience with them in person at shows/through Tom @ USN or email that I am confident buying their knives.
 
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