Who is Louis Martin? And where are the knives made?

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JEM64

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Hello all,
I've been seeing many knives supposedly made by Louis Martin on eBay. I cant seem to find any info on this maker to see if its legit or just another China/Pakistan knife importer.

I purchased a knife and would like to know a little more about the maker. There's nothing on Google other than items for sale at various sites. I would post a pic, but haven't figured that out yet on here...

Link removed, read the site rules.
 
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Looks like just an importer. There’s no way you’re getting a Damascus knife like that for $42. If it’s too good to be true it usually is.
 
Phony stuff … just like Invicta … a phony line of Chinese watches by Swatch with lots of talk to make it sound impressive.

Looks like wall hangers from the photos. My guess is China, but they also make a lot of cheap blades in eastern Europe. Many of these are sold out of Germany as well as Ukraine and Croatia.
 
That is one of the many Pakistan knives being sold under different names.
 
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Question....

How do they go about making this "cheap" damascus? Does it not have to still go through all the same steps involved in normal damascus making? What is inferior about it?
 
If that where real quality damascus, the billet alone would cost 2-3 times more than the price they're currently selling that for.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Phony stuff … just like Invicta … a phony line of Chinese watches by Swatch with lots of talk to make it sound impressive.

Looks like wall hangers from the photos. My guess is China, but they also make a lot of cheap blades in eastern Europe. Many of these are sold out of Germany as well as Ukraine and Croatia.
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Thanks! The knife did sharpen well. I'll put it through hell this hunting season to see how it holds up.
 
R.C.Reichert said:
Question....

How do they go about making this "cheap" damascus? Does it not have to still go through all the same steps involved in normal damascus making? What is inferior about it?
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They use inferior steel, about anything they can find in Pakistan, pot hole covers, bumpers, springs, they are not picky.
The heat treat usually ends up with the RC in the low 50's

To be honest when you see how they make them with old grinding wheels on the dirt it is impressive they actually can make something at all.

If they had the best equipment and materials they could really turn out some quality product, they have the skill
 
12345678910 said:
New user with one - two posts posting link to ebay pakistan shit knives

shilling scam
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It's certainly possible, maybe even probable.

Although there is a chance it may actually be a person who bought one of these knives based on the photos and prices without much or any prior knowledge of knives or what makes a good one, who is honestly interested about their new purchase and so they signed up at the biggest knife forum online to ask about it.

JEM64, it'd help a bit if you filled out your profile to help avoid this suspicion, albeit a reasonable one. There are an awful lot of scammers these days, especially from Pakistan and China, and those knives scream "I'm made from scrap metal in Pakistan!" like so many others are, whose sellers will often use photos from other makers or of their very best work which probably doesn't represent the workmanship of the knife you actually receive. May not always be the case, but I'm quessing it is often enough.


~Paul
My Youtube Channel
... (Just some older videos of some knives I've made in the past)
 
R.C.Reichert said:
Question....

How do they go about making this "cheap" damascus? Does it not have to still go through all the same steps involved in normal damascus making? What is inferior about it?
Click to expand...
Pakistan is a huge buyer of scrap steel. The knives which have given the makers in that part of the world a bad rep are peddled by overwhelmingly unscrupulous sellers that misrepresent the materials used.

In addition to that, they don't appear to be following any acceptable practice in producing said scrap metal blades.

That's as nice as I can say it.

If you want to know more, start an IG account, post a picture of a knife and use any of the popular hashtags, and ready yourself for the imminent barrage of "partnership" offers.
 
I have seen many knives that were clearly from Pakistan and China marked W.F. Moran, R.A.Frazier, Scagel, etc. Almost every one was from the internet originally, but may have been traded a couple times at shows and through ebay. The knife was clearly a low quality knife, but the owner who brought it to me insisted he was told it was real by the seller. In one case the owner said I didn't know what I was talking about because he paid $400 for a ST-24 Moran knife in damascus and it was real. I pointed out that a genuine Moran ST-24 would sell for $10,000, and they were not made in damascus. The fit and finish on the knife was terrible and the sheath was brand new and made from cheap leather with brass rivets.
 
coldsteelburns said:
It's certainly possible, maybe even probable.

Although there is a chance it may actually be a person who bought one of these knives based on the photos and prices without much or any prior knowledge of knives or what makes a good one, who is honestly interested about their new purchase and so they signed up at the biggest knife forum online to ask about it.

JEM64, it'd help a bit if you filled out your profile to help avoid this suspicion, albeit a reasonable one. There are an awful lot of scammers these days, especially from Pakistan and China, and those knives scream "I'm made from scrap metal in Pakistan!" like so many others are, whose sellers will often use photos from other makers or of their very best work which probably doesn't represent the workmanship of the knife you actually receive. May not always be the case, but I'm quessing it is often enough.


~Paul
My Youtube Channel
... (Just some older videos of some knives I've made in the past)
Click to expand...
Thanks ColdSteelBurns for giving me the benefit of doubt instead of automatically thinking of the worst (Scam). I did actually buy one of these knives and it appears to be of decent quality and it is the knife in the photo, but only time will tell how long it lasts. I also updated my profile as requested with exception of adding a picture (Can't figure that out). Again, Thanks for your recommendations and you're 100% correct about me not having much knowledge of what makes a good knife or where to actually find one without being scammed.
 
JEM64 said:
Thanks ColdSteelBurns for giving me the benefit of doubt instead of automatically thinking of the worst (Scam). I did actually buy one of these knives and it appears to be of decent quality and it is the knife in the photo, but only time will tell how long it lasts. I also updated my profile as requested with exception of adding a picture (Can't figure that out). Again, Thanks for your recommendations and you're 100% correct about me not having much knowledge of what makes a good knife or where to actually find one without being scammed.
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Copy the link for the link from your image hosting site(I use Imgur), click on the picture icon next to the smiley face and paste it.
 
JEM64 said:
Thanks ColdSteelBurns for giving me the benefit of doubt instead of automatically thinking of the worst (Scam). I did actually buy one of these knives and it appears to be of decent quality and it is the knife in the photo, but only time will tell how long it lasts. I also updated my profile as requested with exception of adding a picture (Can't figure that out). Again, Thanks for your recommendations and you're 100% correct about me not having much knowledge of what makes a good knife or where to actually find one without being scammed.
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Hey no problem JEM64, and welcome to BladeForums.

These days it's pretty easy to assume the worst with any post related to knives from Pakistan, and as tkroenlein mentioned above, almost every knifemaker or anyone with knife related content on their pages on FB or IG almost inevitably gets spammed by vendors from that area and a lot of them tend to be dishonest in one way or another. But just as well, since they are surely selling plenty of their knives and for when usually seem to be great prices, it's also easy to come to the conclusion that there are quite a number of people purchasing their knives, especially by people who haven't been on these forums long enough to see a pattern of spammers/scammers here as well or hear about some of the issues related to that area of the "knife world".

But anyway, if you're trying to learn how to post pictures in a thread/post, then the links the guys above gave you will show ya how (I personally like Flickr, but a lot of guys also use Imgur... just avoid Photobucket). If you were trying to figure out how to add a profile picture, BladeForums actually requires one have at least a "Basic" paid membership in order to do that, but you can still do everything else on the forums as long as is not selling knives or other items, although you can still purchase things if you want lol. You'll notice myself and a number of other users don't have profile pics either usually due to not having a paid membership, so it's nothing to worry about. :)


~Paul
My Youtube Channel
... (Just some older videos of some knives I've made in the past)
 
Guy has a ton of these listed on ebay now, claiming they are 1095 and 15N20 damascus and offering a lifetime warranty for them.

You get what you pay for I guess.
 
R.C.Reichert said:
Question....

How do they go about making this "cheap" damascus? Does it not have to still go through all the same steps involved in normal damascus making? What is inferior about it?
Click to expand...

A Pakistani maker copied my tomahawk designs and I saw some of the build photos on Instagram. The maker was plasma cutting blanks from full sheets of "damascus" that were almost a big as a sheet of plywood. So I gather that their "damascus" is made on a large scale at a steel mill.
 
I created an account on this website just to make this post. I would also like to know where this import is sourced from. BUT KEEP IN MIND these guys that are telling you that you can’t get Damascus for $40, have no idea what they are talking about. You ABSOLUTELY CAN. They make the things on assembly lines in some places. It is not that expensive of a process. Now the quality may suffer, and occasionally you will get some laser etched mess. But you most definitely can get cheap Damascus. Question is, do you want cheap Damascus?
 
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