Linder has been around for a long time. The Rosenkaimer family (who now owns it) has own it since 1937 (I believe). Most of the knives are still made in Solingen, some are made in italy, spain, and china (and other countries, even brazil!).
The knives are good for the most part. They do produce some really nice knives. Particularly, the hunting and traditional bavarian knives (such as the nickers, and hunting daggers). The chinese made ones? Not really fond of them.
I own, and have owned many of their knives over the years (especially the nickers). Most of the stainless is 420, although the last few years they have been switching over to more 440B (more common in europe, like 440C is here). They have produced a few (I believe) in 440C, but the vast majority you find will be 440B (especially the large knives, and bowies). They also do produce some knives in german high end tool steel which you will not find here in the U.S. Some of their other knives do use high end steels we are familar with here. If you go to their site under customer service you will see a link for "tabel of steels", you will find a chart for the ones that have the German versus, american trade names. They do use some tool steels common to europe, but not here) that are not on the list.
I have a German nicker (L-6392) which has a tool steel not mentioned on the list. So sometimes these will vary.
Linder does do allot of importing these days, but you can still buy some really nice solingen made knives from them.
Stephan Rosenkaimer usually handles allot of the questions and e-mail. You can email him with any questions, he's a really good guy (and speaks good english, he went to school in the U.S., if I remember correctly, Ive talked to him many times), and very cordial. Their site is
www.linder.de
