What country makes the best blades?

I have had blades made in almost every country, or companies from those countries. I have had good and bad one from all of them including the USA. As said before if the a good company stands behind their blades then you should be ok.
 
I agree with Esav, Ben Dover. et al. Country of origin has no bearing on quality.
 
knarfeng said:
I agree with Esav, Ben Dover. et al. Country of origin has no bearing on quality.
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What about Pakistan? I've yet to get a good knife when I buy from that country. One would think that I would have learned my lesson by now, but how can anyone resist such cheap damascus knives
 
In the field of general-purpose outdoor sports blades, USA is the greatest for some decades I think.
 
I would say it's pretty much a tossup between the USA and Japan. Japanese makers like Moki, Mucusta, Seki Cut, and Hattori produce top shelf cutlery than can match (or excede) the quality of the best production knife companies in America.
 
godot said:
We have a lot more guys standing at grinders then any other country. Hell, we have more in Texas than most other countries.:D
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Also, you have a vast number of unionized guys standing behind your grinders who get paid reasonable wages and don't trudge through their lives under the threat of oppressive regimes or the burden of abject poverty. :thumbup:

But then, that's a whole different issue. Personally, I don't care who shed their blood, sweat, and tears to bring me my tools and knives at a reasonable price, I care primarily about the quality. The only reason I avoid Pakistani and Chinese made knives and tools is because I've had terrible experiences with them - a dramatically higher percentage of terrible experiences than with tools and knives made in Switzerland, Canada, America, Japan, or Germany.
 
I like USA made blades but I have seen some great stuff from Japan and most recently Tawain with the Spyderco Sage series.
 
C.S. Graves said:
I don't remember exactly whether it was Bob Loveless or Bill Moran, but one of them in a book on knifemaking described a centuries old Persian dagger as being beyond the skills of any maker alive today. :eek: Of course, that was a different time, but just goes to show it's a wide world of great blades. :thumbup:
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The great swords of yesteryear from Spain, Turkey, and Japan were also made to incredible standards of excellence. I am not qualified to judge if they are beyond today's state of the art, but they were very very good.
 
The UK used to make the best blades in Sheffield where I live. My family were one of the big knife makers there. There is still great steel made here but the industry has almost died out. With a few small companies and makers, along with some heavy engineering for large industrial pieces still making top quality steel products. I think the answer depends on the maker when it comes to knives. You can't generalise. There certainly seems to be a huge knife making tradition in the USA now at a local forge level. You have some great makers - most of them showing their work here. The Japanese are excellent at a manufactured/factory level. Pakistan seems to have taken over most of the Damascus making for quality guns. let's hope knives don't go that way too! From what I've seen on that front they have a long way to catch up. Some of the steel is quite good but the finish and the fit is appalling.
 
Bill1170 said:
The great swords of yesteryear from Spain, Turkey, and Japan were also made to incredible standards of excellence. I am not qualified to judge if they are beyond today's state of the art, but they were very very good.
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Wouldn't we LOVE to have more experience on the subject of all the world's bladely wares though? :D

A great story somewhat relevant is the one about Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin competing to see whose sword was the sharpest... Richard cleft an iron chain with his... Saladin threw up a bolt of silk and sliced it cleanly with his scimitar in mid-air. :eek:
 
I wonder if there is a 'best' blade. Most of my knives are European (Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, France).
 
William Rogers said:
The UK used to make the best blades in Sheffield
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Made from Swedish iron . :thumbup:

Its special property was its purity. The manganese content of the Dannemora ore caused impurities, which would otherwise have remained in the iron, to react preferentially with the manganese and to be carried off into the slag. This level of purity meant that the iron was particularly suitable for conversion to steel by being re-carburized, using the cementation process. This made it particularly suitable for making steel, oregrounds iron was an indispensable raw material for metal manufactures, particularly the Sheffield cutlery industry. Substantial quantities were also (until about 1808) bought for use by the British Navy.

This and other uses absorbed substantially the whole output of the industry. The trade in oregrounds iron was controlled from the 1730s to the 1850s by a cartel of merchants, of whom the longest enduring members were the Sykes family of Hull. Other participants were resident in (or controlling imports through) London and Bristol. These merchants advanced money to Swedish exporting houses, which in turn advanced it to the ironmasters, thus buying up the output of the forges several years in advance.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregrounds_iron


1234,,,:D
 
USA now makes the best knives and steels, IMO anyway.
Then again, I haven't really tried much else:p

I do have 3 non usa Spyderco's, and they are made very well.
 
None of them really. ;)

It all depends on what type of knife it is and or what's it going to be used for then one has to choose exactly what they want based on their own opinions and price range.

Bottom line is that as long as the quality is there it really doesn't matter were it was made, great knives come from all over the world.

The best is what the owner says it is because it's the best to them. :)
 
A lot of US bladesmiths make elegant knives, but the crown pearls lie in Japan (e.g. Rockstead).
 
I agree that the question is somewhat pointless. I find it is not so much where a knife is made, rather what company makes them. To use some popular examples, Spyderco and Cold Steel have knives made in several different countries, but the high quality is there, regardless of where a particular model was made.

So, it might make more sense to ask, which country has the best knife company? But even that is somewhat subjective. In general, if we are talking about today and not historically, I think the following countries have great knife companies, in no particular order:
Japan
USA
Germany
Sweden
Switzerland

Some may prefer one or the other, but really they are all about the same high quality. Oh, and Taiwan has some great knife factories!

This is kind of like that "which country has the most beautiful women?" question that pops up from time to time. There is no single answer, because it depends what you like. (But really the answer is Columbia!!):D
 
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