I'm afraid buying a company doesn't instantly make everything they then make and sell under the "NAME" they BOUGHT as good as the original companies reputation was for making quality knives.
Cutco has a serous reputation problem that they tried to upgrade by absorbing a well know quality knife maker's name, but they still make mediocre quality kitchen knives and sell them for prices that are way way above what much better knives sell for.
The USMC Kabar is a vintage design and Kabar was one of many, and the best known company to make them. They were and probably still are among the best fighting knives ever made, and I'm sure improvements could be made but the Modern Stainless Steel Cutco version is not an improvement and it's not worth twice as much as a traditionally made replica of the orginal Kabar USMC knife.
Cutco didn't "just" buy Kabar to make thing "better".
Alcas, which already owned Cutco [
Cooking
Utensil
Company] started out as a joint operation between Alcoa and Case Cutlery in 1948.
All Cutco knives were made at the Case factory or contracted out to other US knife makers (just as had been being done between the various knife companies for 100 years).
Alcas bought out Case's share of the company in 1972.
Alcas bought Kabar in 1996,
nearly 20 years ago.
However, this means they were making quality knives for
38 years before they bought Kabar.
Alcas changed it's name from Alcas to Cutco in 2009 to reflect their primary company.
With only a few exceptions, ALL knives made by Cutco, whether sold under the Cutco name or Kabar name, are made in Olean NY.
The products are good quality, although I do agree the price they hang on Cutco products is way overpriced.
Disclosure : I have never been an employee of Alcoa, Case, Cutco, Kabar, Wear-Ever, Imperial, Camillus, Utica, Schilling Forge or any other manufacturer or distributor or sales force for any of the companies that made knives for Cutco.
