Sal Glesser
Moderator
- Joined
- Dec 27, 1998
- Messages
- 11,619
There is a new knife line that is appearing in the marketplace. The tang stamp is "byrd".
After much thought and discussion. We have decided to create and produce a line of knives in China. It is evident that there is a market for the lower cost, lower priced knives and it is also obvious that these knives will capture a good sized percentage of the market simply because of price and in many cases, appearance.
The answer to the question, "What's goin' on?" is essentially that sal's playing around with a new line.
We did not feel that we could achieve the current Spyderco standard, (at least at this time) with a Chinese product, we didn't want to dilute the Spyderco reputation for quality and performance, so we decided to use a different brand name. The name we selected was "byrd" (TM).
We didn't feel that doing any kind of fanfare was proper, given it is a "new hatching" recently "born", and is not "deserving" of fanfare.
Will they be Spyderco quality? How can they be? We've been working with the same "expert" knifemakers for 20+ years. That type of quality is not "grown" overnight!
We'll have to find, meet and "grow up" a few good makers to meet standards that I believe we can get. We have the experience, the design capability, the testing equipment, lab and personnel to bring a safe, reliable, relatively good performing product to the market at a lower cost than our top line Spyderco products. What we bring to the table is honesty, trust, caring and skill.
That means there will be various "byrd" models being released into the market as we develop the line. The designs will be in-house, at least in the beginning. They will incorpoate our pocket clips and we've designed a "comet" shaped hole to (TM) the line's appearance. All of the models will use this hole opener shape, as Spyderco has used our round hole opener shape for the past 23 years.
The first is the "byrd" model "Harrier" (from the low flying hawk). The model is fairly robust. about 3.5" blade length. The blade is a clip with fair belly. mid-lock-back, stainless bolsters, green micarta scales. The blade steel in this model is Aichi (Japanese) made AUS-6. Catra tests indicate proper AUS-6 edge retention to be consistent with our data. The lock broke well into the heavy duty range (100 inch/lbs per inch). MSRP is $39.95. All in all, not a bad start.
1200 pieces were made. About like the original Clipit "worker" model with a 2 screw clip made in '81.
We don't plan large numbers. We are a small company and we don't want to "bend" Spyderco's way". The "byrd" line will have to grow under its own power.
My apologies for not saying anything sooner. We felt it necessary for our dealers and distributors to have them available before any public notice.
sal
After much thought and discussion. We have decided to create and produce a line of knives in China. It is evident that there is a market for the lower cost, lower priced knives and it is also obvious that these knives will capture a good sized percentage of the market simply because of price and in many cases, appearance.
The answer to the question, "What's goin' on?" is essentially that sal's playing around with a new line.
We did not feel that we could achieve the current Spyderco standard, (at least at this time) with a Chinese product, we didn't want to dilute the Spyderco reputation for quality and performance, so we decided to use a different brand name. The name we selected was "byrd" (TM).
We didn't feel that doing any kind of fanfare was proper, given it is a "new hatching" recently "born", and is not "deserving" of fanfare.
Will they be Spyderco quality? How can they be? We've been working with the same "expert" knifemakers for 20+ years. That type of quality is not "grown" overnight!
We'll have to find, meet and "grow up" a few good makers to meet standards that I believe we can get. We have the experience, the design capability, the testing equipment, lab and personnel to bring a safe, reliable, relatively good performing product to the market at a lower cost than our top line Spyderco products. What we bring to the table is honesty, trust, caring and skill.
That means there will be various "byrd" models being released into the market as we develop the line. The designs will be in-house, at least in the beginning. They will incorpoate our pocket clips and we've designed a "comet" shaped hole to (TM) the line's appearance. All of the models will use this hole opener shape, as Spyderco has used our round hole opener shape for the past 23 years.
The first is the "byrd" model "Harrier" (from the low flying hawk). The model is fairly robust. about 3.5" blade length. The blade is a clip with fair belly. mid-lock-back, stainless bolsters, green micarta scales. The blade steel in this model is Aichi (Japanese) made AUS-6. Catra tests indicate proper AUS-6 edge retention to be consistent with our data. The lock broke well into the heavy duty range (100 inch/lbs per inch). MSRP is $39.95. All in all, not a bad start.
1200 pieces were made. About like the original Clipit "worker" model with a 2 screw clip made in '81.
We don't plan large numbers. We are a small company and we don't want to "bend" Spyderco's way". The "byrd" line will have to grow under its own power.
My apologies for not saying anything sooner. We felt it necessary for our dealers and distributors to have them available before any public notice.
sal
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