What happened to Gigand?

Yeah, that was a good company, with some nice products at a nice price point. Minimum AUS8 blades and their Titan was a pretty good liner-locker with ti handles and an ats-34 blade for like $30-40.

I hope they didn't go "under." I know they manufacture kitchen cutlery and the Harley-Davidson, etc., for United Cutlery.
 
The Gigand name belongs to a company called Master Cutlery in New York, formerly known as Double 8. This company specializes in Taiwan and Chinese imports. Master was importing the Fred Carter designs under the Gigand name. I assume that, since Carter seems to have moved his designs to United Cutlery, Gigand doesn't have any purpose any more as a brand name. It's just a guess, though. I think Carter made a good move since United Cutlery is a far more serious company. The Gigand website, by the way, was done and maintained by Mike Turber, not Master Knives, so he might be able to tell you more than I can. I guess the point is, though, that you can buy the current Fred Carter designs nearly anywhere since they are now handled by United Cutlery. Take care.
 
Thanks for the info Fred. I recently picked up a Gigang Spectrum with G-10 scales and was very impressed by the quality. I'll definately have to check out United Cutlery's Fred Carter designs.
 
The Fred Carter knives offered by United do look nice. I checked their website and found United's versions of the Spectrum line. I like the pocket clip design on United's better than on my Gigand.

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A lot of people knock United, but they offer a lot of knife for very little price. CRKT has a better cost-to-value ratio, but before they came along I think United really offered some of the best deals for what you pay. The Fred Carter designs mentioned here are one good example, as are the Colt folders (despite those iffy straight-line laser-cut serrations on some of the more recent models). Harley fans shouldn't be too disappointed with the licensed HD line, either.
 
I was looking at Knifecenter and it seems that all the designs that I loved from Gigand are indeed still going strongly with United. It's interesting to note that the descriptions of certain knives say "440 stainless" or something like that when the identical Gigand models were all AUS8. Since they are probably still being manufactured at the same place in Taiwan, this makes me wonder if this is a good marketing idea or not.
 
Fred is correct as United now has Fred Carter and Master Cutlery still owns the Gigand name.

Fred will still be doing designs for Master Cutlery but perhaps under a new name which will most likely not be Gigand. More on that later :D
 
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