I found this Post from Ernest Emerson on BladeForums dated Oct 2010..It's a fun read...
quote:
10-12-2010, 03:40
Ernest Emerson
Registered User
Emerson Calls Bullsh*t
Dear Members,
I recently became aware of a thread here concerning Emerson Knives QC problems. Inside the thread were several mentions of numerous knives, in fact a preponderance of knives that were being rejected, returned to dealers, couldn’t be sold, knives snapped in half, screws stripped, etc, etc.
Where are those knives? I repeat. Where are those knives?
Since we have the most liberal return policy in the industry they should be flooding our repair departments. Oh, I forgot, we don’t have a repair department. One of the gals simply replaces or works on the 3 or 4 knives we get every couple of weeks. Oh, by the way, most of those knives are not returned for warranty. They are in because guys want them factory sharpened or cleaned up after some serious use and abuse. I’ll tell you what, if I bought a $250.00 knife from someone and it broke, I would damn well be sending it in for warranty.
And if anyone says, “I sent them back to my dealer.” Well you can be guaranteed that the dealer wouldn’t be taking a loss of several hundred dollars. They would be sending those dozens of knives back for refund or replacement too. Yet again, no knives. Call the distributors if you don’t believe me. They will verify this fact.
And to answer one post that stated, “one of my suppliers doesn’t even sell Emersons anymore, what does that say?” It says this; we cut them off for not paying their bills. And, we weren’t the only one to cut them off. Again, verifiable fact. And yes, it’s one of the big distributors. And since then, we’ve gotten dozens of emails and phone calls from them begging to get back in our program. Ain’t gonna happen.
And, for those of you who do not know, we are moving toward direct sales to our dealers. Hence, the new Prestige Dealer Program that is driving our business through the roof. In spite of our terrible knives, our terrible service, our terrible quality we are one of the only knife companies that is growing in this economy and at the fastest rate since the company Emerson Knives was founded.
In fact, it is why we just purchased a major manufacturing facility in Southern California for several millions of dollars which will quadruple our size and capacity. I guess the truth is, that we needed the extra thousands of square feet and new employees to handle the huge volume of knives being returned to us for repair and shoddy workmanship.
Here’s something else unique to Emerson Knives. We haven’t placed any ads in years and we have an advertising budget of 0$. Funny how the other knife companies stand in awe of this. Believe me, we all speak to each other quite frequently. Now, if we don’t advertise and yet are growing every month, how can that happen? It’s because our users are our advertisers. Now, if our knives were so shoddy, weak and sub-standard, I wonder why they keep telling people to buy our knives rather than return them for the myriad of problems they possess.
“I don’t like the way they look. I don’t like the laser finish. I don’t like the fit of handles and backspacers. I don’t like the texture of the G-10.” These are opinions. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, however, we don’t get knives returned back to us for those opinions either.
And obviously, they don’t seem to matter to the hundreds of thousands of customers that already own and use Emerson Knives on a daily basis. And almost all our customers own more than one Emerson, in some cases 10 or 12 Emersons.
Broken blades, defective parts, stripped screws etc. are not opinions. They are real, tangible, physical things. Again I ask; Where are they?
In the end, I’ll say up front and always have, that my knives are not perfect, they are not pretty and they are not for collecting. Occasionally, in a manufacturing environment there are things that get through. However in our case it is by far one of the lowest error/defect rates in the entire industry. Notice we do not have a catalog of factory seconds or an 8 week stand in line repair time like some of the other companies do.
When I hear the chatter here that comes up about every year or two about how bad Emerson Knives are, I just wish, just once, that someone would step up with documented evidence, return receipts, broken knives, stripped screws (I swear it was like that out of the box, I didn’t do it.”) We talk to dozens of dealers a week. I go to shows and talk directly to tens of thousands of users and dealers a year.
Where are you, who are so vocal behind the anonymity of a user name and a keyboard? I am right here. I am a public figure. I use my real name everywhere I post on the internet. You all know where I’ll be. Where are you? Or is it bullsh*t?
Prove it. And I don’t mean “I worked in a knife store and we had dozens of returns.” Show me the knives. For they never made it back to us. I’m sure you would have wanted your couple of thousand dollars back, maybe not. Until then, pile on with the B.S. and we’ll keep checking our mailbox.
My Best Regards,
Ernest R. Emerson
Best Maker of Sub Standard Knives In The World
P.S. I stand corrected, we do have dealers who will stand eye to eye with me and voice their complaints. “We can’t get enough Emerson Knives in stock. We sell them as soon as we get them.”
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Czechvar, 
