Nothing But Knives Ultimate US Knife Buying Guide

The US has birthed a lot of great knife companies like Buck, Gerber, and SOG, which have all created iconic American knives, and maintained a certain high reputation as American made. But at some point, all of them have had to cut costs or manage the cost of expansion by manufacturing overseas.

Now days it’s a given that a large knife company will have at least one overseas factory and split their releases along some kind of quality line. In some cases you don’t really have to worry where a knife is made because the company keeps a close eye on quality control. Spyderco, for example, is pretty strict about their products and from what I understand maintain close relationships with both their Seki and Taiwan factories.

On the other side, there’s a growing number of custom and small batch knife makers who are edging into the production world. Some are choosing to take on that extra work load themselves and expand their personal workshops, while others are making deals with larger manufacturers, either in the US or overseas, in order to mass produce their designs.

So I decided to start compiling a list of all the companies that manufacture in the USA and which designs they keep in the borders. This isn’t meant to be an admonishment of companies that outsource to other countries (but Everyday Commentary did write a decent piece on the nuance and importance of US manufacturing that’s worth a read). There are plenty of foreign knives that we love and collect. This is simply meant to be a comprehensive index of information.

It actually is a very good survey of most US knife companies. Shouldn’t be new to any regular KNIFE reader, but someone new to knives will definitely find this useful. It is hard to keep track of what company makes their knives where.

Read the whole thing:

https://www.nothingbutknives.com/american-made-knives/