This has been an interesting thread to read through. A few months ago I started a thread asking about everyone's experience of
A. Wright & Sons knives. The end result was that most people seemed to describe their flaws about the same way, but for some people those flaws made the knives completely unappealing, and for others they were all minor and they loved the knives.
There's a lot more variety when talking about Case quality (from 'poorly made, worse than Rough Rider' to 'flawless, better than GEC'), but I suspect that there are a couple of factors going into why everyone thinks about this differently. One issue is how much impact fit and finish variations have on the customer's appreciation of the knife. How much actual variation the manufacturer allows past QC is a separate issue. Finally, there is an emotional / sentimental / identity element that definitely colors these conversations.
Customer's View of F&F - fit and finish really matters to some people, and even bringing it up seems to irritate other people. So the exact same knife may be viewed as a failure by one person, and admired as nearly flawless by someone else. This could explain why
J
JD Bear
was unhappy with their knife, and Case QC thought it was fine - perhaps JD has a more stringent standard than Case does. Doesn't mean either one is wrong - but good for the customer to know when a company doesn't share their minimum expectations.
Manufacturers Variance in F&F - poor QC doesn't mean that every knife is equally defective - it means that there is a lot of variation. Poor QC might result in one knife that has high F&F, and another that doesn't. So, just because yours was flawless, doesn't mean that someone else must be wrong when they observe low quality.
Emotional / Sentimental / Identity - if someone likes knives, and looks at a Case, they may not have any factors involved other than the knife itself. But if someone has "I'm a Case knife fan/collector" as part of their personal identity, there's a lot more at stake than just the knife in their hand. Any criticism of Case is now received as a personal attack, not just a discussion about a knife. (This is hardly unique to Case - it happens with any brand that inspires this kind of emotional connection.)
All the Case knives people are posting in this thread look great! I never had Case knives growing up, and my Dad didn't carry Case, so I don't have much connection to them other than thinking they look good and I like that they are American-made. I've thought on several occasions to buy a Case, but every one of them at the store had enough F&F flaws that I didn't get one. I want to like Case, and the older Case knives I've seen seem pretty solid. But I just haven't held a new one in my hands that was worth the money for me. I need a knife to be functional, and all the Cases I've looked at would pass that test. But I also want it to be aesthetically pleasing (which very much includes F&F for me), and none of the new Cases I've handled quite made it there for me. I think the ones I looked at would also have looked really good in forum photos, but when there are gaps or centering problems or whatever, it just kills it, for me. YMMV.
-Tyson