When it's not exactly Made in the USA - Hoback

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Late to this thread, but my idea of "made in America" is about where the bulk of the manufacturing time is spent on the major aspects including cutting, machining, grinding, and finishing. It's less about where the source material came from e.g. because even if 20CV came from a U.S. steel mill, how do you know the raw iron wasn't mined in China or somewhere else? Going that deep into the supply chain is counterproductive. Another example: I don't consider CKF a Russian made knife because the bulk of the work is done in China and they just finish/assemble in Russia.
 
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.
Still having trouble accepting two people that disagree with you?

I’ll check back again later to see how you’re coping. Doesn’t seem to be going well at the moment.
 
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.
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.
 
I remember this email too, as I had a Kwaiback during this era, along with some of the Monkey Edge Frag Kwaibacks. Even according to the COO list that’s circulating, Kwaibacks have always been USA made.

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.
 
Rut roh raggy! Hoback is the new QRTRMSTR? Better than being “Surfi5ve?”, I guess?

I’m of the firm belief that if you say your knives are made in the USA by you, you better have made the damn knife in the USA, yourself.

All this mincing of words and integration of slanted smarmy definitions and terms just screams to me “you suckers are buying a $20 Chinese knife for $500. Suck it.” and he’s laughing all the way to the bank.
 
3D Anvil 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.
 
As 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!
 
3D Anvil 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.
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.
 
As 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!
Welcome to the dumpster fire 🔥
 
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.
I figured it out...Hoback's new attorney!
 
I’m really curious about when his foreign outsourcing started. Just watched a KC video with him from 6 years ago. He sure says “I make” a lot which is clearly leading dealers and consumers to believe they’re all made by him/his company, in the USA. Models that he listed as USA/China. He is complicit in the dealers mislabeling his knives COO, by his own admission. He reached out to 1 dealer! Then said he didn’t want to push the issue because he knew he’d face blowback. He knew people wouldn’t be happy so he kept his mouth shut.

In a FB post prior to the COO spreadsheet he said “not that it matters at this point but I’ll be releasing a comprehensive list of the COO of knives”. He knows he screwed the pooch on this. He could be a great guy, never met him. What he did was shady and he clearly knows it.

I had my suspicions a few months ago when I looked at his site. 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. Got a real Brous vibe from the site. If the company doesn’t mention COO on their site I assume, made overseas but that’s just me.

Seriously, what are we doin here? 66 pages with many being people arguing over FTC laws. I think all the pertinent information is in the first few pages.
 
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.
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.
 
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.
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.
 
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.
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.

Ask any woman, not telling the whole truth is the same as lying lol. I’m really curious now if he actually designed the Chinese knives or just bought the rights to them. Not trying to make accusations but his site doesn’t even state he designed them.
 
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.
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!

Second point: agree somewhat. As regards machining capacity specifically, unless the dealer watched every video he's posted, which is apparently where this info came up, the dealer wouldn't have this information. I hardly think you can expect a dealer, who sells knives from dozens of makers, if not over one hundred in some cases, to watch every social media post or tour every shop of every maker they carry.
 
He admits he knew they were mislabeling his knives and chose not to do anything.
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.

The blather about not knowing what to do is so much baloney. He damn sure figured out how to get his info out there when he decided he ought to "get ahead of it" (LOL) and thought a non-apology could salvage his reputation.

The blade show video ... Ok so the knowledge of what the dealers were stating isn't the biggest issue, this is. Here we have him, on tape, saying they make everything here. In his now deleted (but once it's on the internet it's never really gone) video and chart he states that several models are completely made in China, and some both here and there. So even if he did never tell the dealers straight out that the knives are made here (which we in this thread don't know one way or the other), he's told at least one other person, who it sounded like was interviewing him at Blade for a YouTube video or similar; he flat out lied about it based upon his own later statements.
 
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