Why is it that a maker like Ken onion can make a knife with materials like titanium and s35vn and get over a $1000 for it but if a no name maker made the same knife with same quality, the price wouldn't even come close? I'm guessing that your paying for the prestige that comes with the name. What else could it be?
Years and years of experience and reputation. Making a name in a real business doesn’t happen incidentally and over night. Sent from my Glade Air Freshener
Thats half the fun of geting a new knife from a small maker . First off is it a user or a work of art . Perfect design or a few flaws. A user should give one decades of dependable use . It should be over built . I prefer small shop , were the knife gets a lot of hand work by a few masters. They try for perfection, not good enough. The old saying ( its lonely at the top) comes to play here . One at a time or made in small batches. And pride of ownership. Jake
Supply and demand. The more people that know the maker's name, the more people there are willing to pony up the bucks. Every maker stakes his reputation on each knife he makes. For a big name, that's a big bet each time. For an unknown, it's a small bet. If he puts out a lemon, he doesn't have a huge reputation to suffer. If a big name maker puts out a lemon, you can bet a lot of people are going to hear about it.
That said, I think Ken Onion damaged his reputation by pairing up with CRKT. His designs might be interesting, but with the materials used by CRKT, he seems to be the Walmart of knife makers. Not that I want to offend him. Again, his designs are interesting but the implementation is “not ideal”. Maybe it’s good for his wallet and the marker of affordable knives. He must have had some idea about it. E. g. I had a Hootenanny and I did like the shape and idea. Even the flip was nice, supported by the shape. But it was, what we call in German, an Eisenschwein (iron pig). Heavy steel handle with plastic scales, bad clip, and mediocre blade material. Give me the same knife in a decent blade steel and with a G10/Ti/carbon/whatever handle and I’m game. Sent from my Glade Air Freshener
I agree with your observations about Ken Onion's move to CRKT. I'll bet though that he suffers even more from the poor fit and finish AND functioning of so much of CRKT production than he does the materials. True, many reviewers really give demerits for the knife steel CRKT uses most often -- but Kershaw uses that same steel a LOT (8Cr13MoV). But at least the reviews I see many more demerits are handed to CRKT for the production quality. And where that is labelled 'fit and finish' I'd expect it particularly will reflect poorly on the designer, deservedly or not. L'chaim! Moshe ben David
The names escape me at the moment, but from what I remember, Ken Onion was recruited to collaborate with Kershaw by someone specific. The guy, a Kershaw employee, flew to Hawaii to meet and recruit Ken. That same guy left Kershaw to work for CRKT and Ken followed him. I have a Hootenanny, and though I have blades with nicer materials, I have no complaints about the build quality and fit and finish. Just my opinion, but the recent CRKT collabs are great. I love my Anso Pilar. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As I have heard both sides before, I ASSUME that there good and bad batches. This would mean their production is not very stable. This WOULD point to bad quality assurance and/or quality management. But I would as well assume, that there are people smarter than me working at CRKT. Kershaw on the other hand, seems to have their process under control. As a generalization I’d say, that there are barely any (minus the extremes of the bell curve) bad Kershaws out there. At least you rarely read about one. Plus, I’ve the feeling that Kershaw handles the heat treatment of their steels better than CRKT. Maybe they can profit from ZT’s production technics. There is more money in those, and this might rub off on the eco brand. But that’s all speculation and I have no clue what I’m talking about. Sent from my Glade Air Freshener
