ZT 0777 - KAI customer service email

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kneedeep said:
Seriously? Winning the award is free publicity. Paying someone for promotional space or time is advertising and marketing. One of the complaints I was attempting to address was that Kai supposedly has massively advertised and marketed the 0777, causing insatiable demand an clearly a great deal of anguish for all those people that act like they have already paid for the knife. As far as I know Kai has actually done very little to market or advertise the 0777 other than the info that they are incredibly kind to share with us here and in other forums because they know we are interested, and that people actually asked.

I'd gladly pre-order a lightsaber, but as a cutting device they have an inherent flaw not present in a good knife; they will always destroy some of the material you are trying to cut, so perfection is not likely.
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Winning a Blade award, whether free or not, is about as big as publicity for a knife goes, and it evidently did cause a demand and anguish among some people. It has also been featured in many youtube videos including KAI's own.

I already have my lightsaber pre-ordered, theoretically I think you could narrow the beam so it destroys just a hairline of material. However I'll be very angry if it comes with late lockup.
 
I'm sorry, but if delayed production of a knife causes someone "anguish", I'm afraid I couldn't take them seriously.
 
snowreaper1 said:
Big league chew brings back memories =)
Alright, your in the lead
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More where that came from...haha
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KershawLynda said:
Here's the official word from the big man on campus.... TW asked me to share....

Just a little update on the recent story and progress on the ZT 0777:

The 0777 is an original Kai design that has/had become popular with multiple manufacturers since it won the Overall Knife of the Year in 2011. Microtech and "their" Matrix knockoff started the odd situation of others beating us to market with our own award winning design. Sad but true. Now it seems even more have jumped into deliberately copying this desired design. Boker is the latest to show off their true colors. You can see some of the unoriginality here: http://forum.guns.ru/forummessage/308/1026230-14.html

To say it's taken a bit of wind out our enthusiasm would be accurate. We have a lot to produce when it comes to both the Kershaw and ZT brands, and due to the clones (both high and low end), the project really just went to the back burner. Being that it never was intended for the masses, for better or worse, we decided that the urgency getting the 0777 to market was not a priority.

I don't think you'll see 0777's on the market this year, but they are being produced. Shipping a very small amount seemed complicated, so we will hold on prior to allocating, and look to produce a higher number before letting them hit the streets.
I figure the original will be about the 4th one to hit the streets when it makes its debut. To all those manufacturers that liked our design so much you decided to produce it and market it as your own, well you know, we know, and now everyone knows. As to who cares, well unfortunately not many I'm afraid.

It'll be soon, and while I appreciate those that still have interest, and understand those that don't...I guess we're looking for a little understanding with this whole situation. As to

I questioned whether to post a pic of the 0888 and the 0600 (both top 2012 Award winners) for those manufacturers that needed additional designs for the up coming new year, but figured they had them copied and will be ready to go shortly.


**********************************************
Thomas Welk
Director of Sales & Marketing
Kai USA ltd. - Sporting Division
Kershaw Knives, Zero Tolerance & Shun
**********************************************

Remember to play nice on the forums.
Happy holidays!
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While I can understand the discouragement to an extent I think Kershaw and Thomas are looking at this the wrong way. None of the "copies" made to date are really like the original. Tony Sr. copied the design out of spite for some BS that never even came to fruition to begin with and even if it had its not like microtech invented the D/a OTF in the first place. In fact TM and company have pretty much made a empire out of ripping off the designs of others. And IMHO the boker knife has design cues that are similar to the ZT 0777, The 0777 actually has more in common with the knives initially made by another luthier and those design similarities were initially denied and then actually let known that there was some influence there. All the copy cat BS aside and who had what first I think that it would be poor form (or rather is) for kershaw to "lose steam" as they say on a knife that so many people dropped coin for and are waiting for it. I would think it would be in better spirits to take this opportunity to really show what you can do with the design and simply make the best damn knife kershaw has ever made. Because lets face it, the copies so far have only copied the "look" of the knife. And we all know that just because a fiero can be made to look like a ferrari theres a whole lot more going on under the hood. And to say that no one cares about this debacle is wrong. Many people care. But unfortunately with the way things work on these matters most of the people who care have relatively very little they can do about it. Just because a couple of companies that are known to rip off designs in fact did rip off ZT and KAI that has not, nor will it ever detract from the 0777. It is the ferrari.
 
I really want one of these. I'd pay in full and be happy to wait.

As a collector I think it's cool KIA makes limited amounts of cool knives. As a knife lover I'm like, WTF!? Double edge blade lol
 
bucktwofive said:
I really want one of these. I'd pay in full and be happy to wait.

As a collector I think it's cool KIA makes limited amounts of cool knives. As a knife lover I'm like, WTF!? Double edge blade lol
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KIA makes Knives! Do they come with those Dancing Hamsters :D
 
It will probably never happen, but I would love to see ZT do a production version of the 0777. Of course this is for my own selfish reasons, namely that I'll never get the real thing without paying through the nose for it on the secondary market and if I did it would be a safe queen. I think that with the excitement that the 0777 has stirred up the limited run will leave a lot of unfilled demand. I'm not proposing making the 0777 a regular production item as-is since it's obviously difficult and expensive to produce and doing so would ruin the exclusivity of it. Instead I'm thinking of a lower-priced (more in line with the 0560 and 0300) version. Keep the overall profile of the handle and blade, but make it a traditional liner lock (either S/S or Ti) and get rid of the composite blade in favor of whatever steel they feel like using. Obviously they're buying tons of S30V and a bunch of Elmax so those might be contenders. Something different like S90V, M390, etc. would help differentiate it from other ZT products though. I'd love to see the carbon fiber scales stay and I'd like to see similar machining on the scales. Finally, an option for left-handed tip up carry would pretty much guarantee me a lighter wallet. Best of all, at that price range it's something I'd actually carry and use. I think that with these changes a mid-$200's street price would be attainable even with some high-end blade steel. Particularly if the liners were S/S.

I realize I'm definitely getting the cart before the horse here since the real-deal isn't out yet, but hey, a guy can dream. Anyone else wishing for something similar?
 
BLADE should allow only knives that are available for purchase to receive awards, then there would be far less complaining. It's a little silly that a knife can win "Knife of the Year" and yet still not be available for purchase over a year and a half later. I think that's where a lot of the frustration comes into play. It probably would've been better if the knife hadn't won the award.
 
Fanglekai said:
BLADE should allow only knives that are available for purchase to receive awards, then there would be far less complaining. It's a little silly that a knife can win "Knife of the Year" and yet still not be available for purchase over a year and a half later. I think that's where a lot of the frustration comes into play. It probably would've been better if the knife hadn't won the award.
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Come on now, it's a knife. Some people just have to complain about something, if it wasn't the 777, it would be something else. Go on about your life, and when it becomes available, grab you one. Or not.
 
And to think, the 0888 talk hasn't even started yet. Not looking forward to the eventual whining to ensue when that endeavor gets underway.
 
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