By Joe Berk
I could have titled this blog “A Swing and a Miss.” That’s how I feel about a Case folder I received a few days ago. It’s going back to the retailer.
Last year, I got on a white bone handled knife kick, and I ordered several. They were all Chinese, and I even wrote a blog about a few.
One of the ones I ordered in that buying binge was the Hen and Rooster HR1341, a large folder with white bone handles. It arrived, it was perfect, and it was beautiful. It has a mirror-polished blade. I know Hen and Rooster is a weird name for a knife company, but I don’t care. I loved that knife as soon as I saw it.
In the back of my mind, though, was the China thing, and the inevitable anti-China comments I knew any blog about things made there would attract. I also knew I wanted what is the same basic design but from a U.S. manufacturer (in this “case,” pardon the literary redundancy, a Case knife). The Case I wanted was out of stock everywhere I looked. I went back to my preferred knife retailer, Smoky Mountain Knife Works, and clicked on their “Notify Me When In Stock” link. And then I forgot about it.
Smoky Mountain didn’t forget, though. A couple of weeks ago an email floated in telling me the Case white bone large folder was in stock. It was three times the cost of the Hen and Rooster, but I had to have it. Buy now, baby, and it was on its way.
I was like a kid on Christmas morning when the Case arrived, but then I opened the box. Big disappointment. The Case knife, for all its vaunted “Made in America” quality, had rivets and scales that looked like a 6-year-old installed them. What a letdown.
Some of you might wonder: Isn’t the Case a better knife with better steel? To answer your question, I don’t know. But from a cosmetics perspective, this Case is not something I want. And if they couldn’t get the cosmetics right, who’s to say they got the heat treat right? Nope. Not for me. I’ll stick with my Chinese version.