The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Still having trouble accepting two people that disagree with you?Heh, this debacle has hit Reddit, and oh look, a bunch of them seem to be in agreement with the majority of this thread's commentors*.
* The two trolls can sit down, not you.
That have their knives built to completion in China, and never disclose that to be the case? I'm not saying you're wrong, and I'd be just as disappointed to learn about it.RE: "... we all know lots of knife companies do that as well, but they are up front about the arrangement and origins of the products"
You think so ...? Ignorance is bliss my friend.
Out of interest, I was looking back through old emails with Jake. I ordered one of his 2nd "mid-tech" run of Kwaikens. I think the first run were made (at least put together) in his shop, but presumably with (at least some) components made elsewhere. The 2nd run was delayed, and he eventually explained that he would be having them made externally, in a machine shop they'd already been using, with his shop just doing the QC. Further delays, and then in early 2015, he sent an email including the text below. The knives arrived late 2015.
We found a new machine shop that can build the Kwaibacks for us! I will personally have a large hand in the entire process of these knives and they are going to be absolutely amazing.
We pulled out all the stops on this knife. These knives will have all of the exact same features as my custom shop work. I didn't dumb down this knife, nor cheap out on materials or hardware. This knife will rival my customs in fit/finish/materials/ and quality. I plan to make this the best knife I can possibly make it end of story. I believe my hands on approach with help immensely with this project. The machine shop will be machining and assembling the knives exactly as I would in my shop because I will be there with them every step of the way to show them how I expect it to be done.
The last couple of sentences clearly give the impression it would be a local machine shop, but I wonder now if this was already when he started outsourcing to China. The finishing on this batch of knives seemed higher than earlier ones, the choices diminished to basically plain or fancy hardware, and he stopped calling them "mid-tech" and instead started calling them "UHEP - ultra-high-end production". After this batch, he started selling through dealers and listing available knives on his website, rather than the pre-order with options model.
I think that's fair, at least with respect to the knives made entirely overseas. Except that wasn't the reason cited by the USA Made Blades guy, and given that knives can be partially made overseas and assembled in the US, it's not quite that cut and dried. I still think the dealers should have inquired before they listed a country of origin, since Hoback doesn't claim any particular COA anywhere. To me, that alone should have been a red flag for the dealers, because companies that actually produce 100% USA knives trumpet that fact everywhere.3D Anvil
I have been polite, and will continue to be so.
In layman’s terms, regarding “the fault of the dealers” argument, as far as I have been able to deduce, anything that qualifies as “made in the usa” does not need to be labeled as such unless it crosses the USA border.
Anything that comes into the USA with the majority of the parts finished needs to have a “made in China” label.
So, if I am a reseller, and I open my shipment of Hoback knives, and none of them are labeled, I am going to assume, by implication, that they are all made in the USA. Jake implied this by posting about his USA shop and no others.
If half of the shipment is not labeled and half is labeled “made in China,” I’m going to assume half is made in China, and half is made domestically.
Jake really could have avoided this if he had followed rules and regulations.
Did this help?
Disclaimer: Only my opinion from the information I have gathered from researching. I am not a customs lawyer.
Welcome to the dumpster fireAs an impartial reader of maybe half of the 66 pages since Wednesday, it is amazing that a couple people defend the years of misleading consumers and it's equally amazing that they managed to get 66 pages of replies. Trust me, you won the debate on page 1.
By the way, first post, glad to be here!
I figured it out...Hoback's new attorney!I think that's fair, at least with respect to the knives made entirely overseas. Except that wasn't the reason cited by the USA Made Blades guy, and given that knives can be partially made overseas and assembled in the US, it's not quite that cut and dried. I still think the dealers should have inquired before they listed a country of origin, since Hoback doesn't claim any particular COA anywhere. To me, that alone should have been a red flag for the dealers, because companies that actually produce 100% USA knives trumpet that fact everywhere.
Exactly my point above. Clearly, he screwed up by not pursuing it with his dealers, as he admits, but I think it's also clear that the dealers had a responsibility to verify their claims.His verbiage led me to believe they were made outside of the USA. Most makers/companies proudly state “Made in the USA” if they’re made here.
Beat that horse!Exactly my point above. Clearly, he screwed up by not pursuing it with his dealers, as he admits, but I think it's also clear that the dealers had a responsibility to verify their claims.
One could make a much more compelling case that dealers should shoulder some blame than one can make a case that Hoback shouldn’t.I think that's fair, at least with respect to the knives made entirely overseas. Except that wasn't the reason cited by the USA Made Blades guy, and given that knives can be partially made overseas and assembled in the US, it's not quite that cut and dried. I still think the dealers should have inquired before they listed a country of origin, since Hoback doesn't claim any particular COA anywhere. To me, that alone should have been a red flag for the dealers, because companies that actually produce 100% USA knives trumpet that fact everywhere.
To be clear I put most of the blame if not all of it on Hoback, not the dealers. He admits he knew they were mislabeling his knives and chose not to do anything. He abetted them in the misrepresentation which makes him guilty, to me at least.Exactly my point above. Clearly, he screwed up by not pursuing it with his dealers, as he admits, but I think it's also clear that the dealers had a responsibility to verify their claims.
First point: agree. Given that all the dealers list COO on their sites, I'm amazed that info apparently isn't required to be disclosed by the maker as part of the contracting process. (Or, if not disclosed, stated in the contract that it will be left out of the knife info on their site.) I'm betting it will be in the next round of contract renewals!One could make a much more compelling case that dealers should shoulder some blame than one can make a case that Hoback shouldn’t.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether there are/were enough red flags (for example, machining capability) that should have alerted a prudent dealer to the truth. This would be a speculative endeavor.
Reasonable people don’t engage in whatever it is you are/were doing in this thread.
This is the biggest issue, and he admitted it. And that he consciously chose not to correct it because he didn't want the negative consequences that he knew would result.He admits he knew they were mislabeling his knives and chose not to do anything.