Ever heard of GSM Outdoors? They just bought Cold steel.

Congrats! I only started buying coldsteel the past 10 years. Demko is the only reason CS showed up on my radar.

Thanks! Im thinking I may have to get a re-grind tho. Haha.
 
I havent owned a cold steel product for 15 years. Now you enablers convinced me I should at least try the AD-15.

Ordered one today.
It's a fun knife. After playing with it for 3 days or so it has smoothed out a lot. I hope you like it!
 
Clam packs are on the way
I googled, and found this pic on one of webshops:
DSC07117.JPG


Blister packs are coming...
Soon at your nearest mall or gas station...
 
These are in the entry level Cold Steel offerings. Like the Canadian Belt Knife, Pendleton Lite Hunter, Roach Belly, Finn Bear, Western Hunter, Long Hunter. I have all of those. They are great little knives in their own right. I still use some of them for kitchen duties or for letting people slice bread, bacon or whatever themselves (hey, if they insist...). Good products at bottom level prices. Not astonished at all to see them in blister packs. They could have been for some time, it only makes sense and it's not a bad thing.
 
They’ve been selling it on a card since at least 2016. Finn Bear has been on a card since at least 2014.

Yeah, they've had clam packed and carded models for a while now. I noticed this with Amazon, the last digits/letters on the model number change a little based on box vs clam packed. So far, the most expensive model I've seen with a box or clam option is the Kobun. There isn't a drop in price no matter which you pick.

Edit - A Z added to the model number will mean Clam Packed, example -

www.coldsteel.com/ti-lite-zy-ex-handle-clam-pack-26spz .

Cold Steel was claming cheaper stuff years ago too -

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url...hUKEwiYt9Kf1MjtAhU-TDABHd2dB7UQr4kDegUIARC6AQ .
 
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CS always had cheap stuff in their catalog. I think the only significant concern to the enthusiast crowd is if the lower end stuff is all GSM continues with moving forward. It wasn't all that long ago in the overall history of CS that they started using steels like 3V, XHP, or S35VN. Won't be that awesome if we regress back to the days of Carbon V and "400 series stainless" as the only offerings.

Not that Carbon V was a bad steel, but it wasn't officially recognized as being 50100B from Sharon Steel for years. I remember when everyone speculated it was whatever carbon steel they could source and was always changing. Now they're actually going from A2 to 4034, which is a real steel change and not just fake internet lore.
 
Expanding the low end product line won't kill the brand .

Junking-up the their higher end will cost them the enthusiast interest , and make the brand much less cool .

If they want to charge a premium over the cheapest mass market , got to maintain some panache . :cool::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
Anybody actually know how many employees Cold Steel had/has? California doesn't show a WARN Act notice being filed for Cold Steel, but I don't know that the meet the threshold for the requirement.

The California WARN Act applies to companies with 75+ employees.

The California WARN Act is triggered with the closing of a facility or the layoff of 50+ employees in a 30 day period.

https://edd.ca.gov/Jobs_and_Training/Layoff_Services_WARN.htm

So if CS had fewer than 50 California employees, the provisions of the California WARN Act do not apply to the closing of their facilities - no notification of the highest elected city and county official, no 60 day notice, nothing.

From personal experience here in TEXAS, the 60 day notice was legally bypassed by the company simply paying all terminated employees 60 days pay. By simply paying each terminated employee 2 months pay, boom, done deal.

Also, the notification requirements are waived when a 60 day notice would adversely affect the company attempting to gain capital or business - a sale would most likely fall under this exemption.
 
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