Why No Gerber Love?

I posted the exact same post as the OP a few months back...but can't find it now. There are a bunch of good points made in the prior posts.

I think that there is somewhat of a psychological/emotional investment in Old Gerber cache. Objectively, IMO, Gerber/Fiscars puts out some stuff that is still decent for the dollar... good utility users that compare with their price-point competition. But...add the "Gerber" brand, and I feel somewhat let down/cheated, as I know Old Gerber products...which were, in their day...a benchmark for many.

Add that to the many "foul-balls" that Gerber/Fiscars has hit, and the "love" fades. Let's be honest...while I may have a serviceable Gerber/Fiskars knife in my pocket, I just don't get that feeling that I have a KNIFE in my pocket that I get from carrying one of my 25 year old Gerbers. Does not make much sense, but much of what knife-nuts do does not...

I continue to look at Gerbers and occasionally buy (mostly an LST or 2)...but can't remember the last home-run that Gerber hit.

Chris
 
jackknife said:
I worked with some non knife nuts who beat up those cheap little LST's in the machine shop where we worked, and they held up fine and cut good.
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I have an LST and a Silver Knight, and both are fine pocketknives. I'd give up the SK, but never the LST. Just too much knife for the money ... and weight.
 
PayetteRucker said:
Because they are crap? I have maybe 500 dollars worth of gerber knives. All of them have the same issues: poor steel, poor finish, poor materials, poor quality control, and way too high a price. They have some damned good designs but there never was a good knife made from a bad steel.
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What compelled you to keep buying them ($500.00 worth), if you weren't happy with the first one or two?:rolleyes:
 
Boozoo Chavis said:
Puma and Gerber once made (60's - early 80's) some of the best production knives in the world - unfortunately, most of what they put out today is a disgrace compared to what they made in their heyday.

Here's a couple of great old high quality Gerbers I bought back in the 70's.(folding sportsman w/stag and a Gerber Magnum) Pay no attention to the Bear & Sons sidliner knife in the middle - it was an impulse by on the fleabay. :D

DSC00336.jpg
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I have the exact same knife as the one on the right. It is one of my favorite knives.
 
I have a few from the late seventies including the paul kife. Back then the they were all made in the usa and the quality was very good.
 
Hello All,

I repair fix bladed knives, and also do handle conversions. Last Spring a customer sent me his Gerber Bowie for a new handle. Not sure what model it was, nor what year it was from, just "Gerber" stamped in large letters, on the blade, in front of the handle. The knife had a single brass finger guard, a black rubber molded handle, with a large brass thong tube. When I cut off the rubber handle, I found the tang stamped with "Italy". Go figure??
 
I also don't like how they don't list the steel. Gerber is the knife brand sold at Target, they have two kinds of Gerbers there. Extremely cheap and slightly less cheap. On the extremely cheap ones they don't mention anything about the steel at all. And on some of the slightly less cheap ones I've seen printed "made with surgical steel!" like that's something to be proud of.

I think for the Gerbers where they don't mention anything about steel they're just using normal sheet metal cut into a knife shape.
 
There's no doubt Gerber sourced knives offshore before being bought by Fiskars.

Here's one from Japan...

IMGP1892.jpg


...and one fromTaiwan...Gerber International...

IMGP1895.jpg


IIRC, I bought these in the early 80's

Chris
 
OMG!
is this true?
Gerber made (outsourced?) a 440-A rubber handled Mark-1 look-alike for Winchester called the "Riot Boot Knife"?
www.valorcorp.com/images/products/4603625.jpg
if this is fact, why not a true Gerber per se?
always did enjoy the heft of the classic Gerber Mark 1.
and never understand why folks paid just as much for far-eastern clones back then.
 
I have a couple of Gerbers. They have some half decent ones and some total crap ones. Gerber Evo, and Paraframes are junk, I took my mini paraframe apart for the washers when I needed them for another knife. The Profile and AR 3.0 are pretty good work knives and their imported fixed blades are okay. The Prodigy and LMF fixed blades are their best and actually are on the level of quality as other knives in the same price range.
 
I have an LST from early 90-ties and a Folding sportsman 1 from middle 80-ties. Bouth are very good knifes. Some of my dreamknifes is still Gerbers like old LST from micarta or the Folding sportsmans sibling the classic. They also did a loveless folder that would be more than nice to own.

Bosse
 
I have a Gerber fixed blade from the Armorhide series which is a great knife. It has a handle made from a metal/fiber composite type handle that is very comfortable and not slippery at all with a high chrome high speed tool steel ? I think. I also, have a Brass frame small Folding Hunter FHII I think and a Boot knife designed by Bob Loveless. These were purchased back arround 1978 or 79. They are some of the best knives made in this country but when Gerber was sold most of it's line was cheapened but a few of the Usa knives were still good. I have a couple of Gerber/Fiskars hatchets bought in the late eighties early nineties that are fine well made hactchets and a folding saw that is excellent bought in 2003or 2004. Much of Gerber's stuff today is junk. Sad to see but as someone else has said, Jack knife I think, Pete gerber did not want to modernize and he lost Kershaw and Al.

RKH
 
My folding sporsman is actually awesome. A little oldish in its squary look but the craftmanship is topnotch. Werry well working tang wit a halfstop in the rounded tangshape. Realy better tang then Ive seen on any other folder. Bosse
 
yes they make some god awful junk, but they offer them at an extremely low price point, so there obviously is a market. Most of their line is chinese import, some taiwan and yes a few stateside, they arent the only one doing this. i actually wish i'd have picked up the Freeman from cabelas they had a S30v special model that looked really nice:thumbup:
No they arent the company of old... BUT
not all their offerings are crap.
these are the 5 gerbers in my house, that i have used and or abused
1) Freeman folder built like a tank, holds a good edge, not crazy about the sheath or the steel finish but it functions flawlessly, big beefy folder
2) Hinderer Rescue knife, once again a tank, very big actually and mighty cool looking too:D
3) Mini fastdraw, abused by me more than any knife i own, has every right to have broke but hasnt even had the thing in the atlantic ocean still functions fine!
4) Gerber profile, fixed blade, nice size, sharpens ok and holds it alright definitely not bad for $20
5) Artifact, kinda cool but ive cut myself with it more than a couple of times, kinda weird opening and closing.
in my experience these are all good:thumbup:
i try not to write off much of anything until i have tried it out:)
ivan
 
I bought a 154CM Gator a year or so ago for $40 off Amazon--its actually a decent knife. It just doesn't have that KNIFE feeling as stated before as my old 70's and 80's Gerbers.
 
I have two Gerbers myself, genuine 80s, mark II and bolt action, but not to long ago I was in the Gerber stand in a Norwegian exhibition, watching the knives, and as so many of us I was wondering a little about the Mystery steel.
And suddenly I found out what kind of steel it is, as another possible customer ask the salesman about the steel of one of those knives.
The salesman clearly gather his wits for a moment, then he strongly look the possible customer in the eyes, and answer; GERBER-STEEL!
timann
 
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