Well, sir, for starters, how sharp a knife is when you buy if has NOTHING WHATEVER to do with how good the knife is. A crummy knife can be made sharp, and a quality knife could slip past Quality Control and ship with a dull edge. In the first case you'd have a sharp knife that will be dull soon. In the second you'd have a dull knife that will take a fine edge and HOLD it. (I often sharpen a new knife anyway. I can do it better than any factory can.)
You have a good point (hahaha). Like yourself I sharpen my knives and get them sharper than they are when I bought them anyway. However, since I do own a couple of CS knives let me explain what I meant by bringing up how sharp they are. The quality of the edge when it leaves the factory can be a good measure of the quality of the blade. For instance if the blade doesn’t even come from the factory sharp then you can be fairly certain that it isn’t worth much, no guarantee but it’d be a good bet. Granted judging a knife based solely on its factory edge is pretty silly, but it is a mark in its favor. I know you didn’t say they aren’t, but all the CS knives I have messed with have a great edge, and they retain that edge very, very well. His knives do have some good steel and he does put a quality bevel on them. Over-hyped to be sure, but it’s hard to really find that much wrong with the knives he makes, and you really have to respect the price.
But their DESIGNS are hokum - pure marketing hype. Lynn Thompson (the founder) is an arrogant, blowhard know-nothing, the knife world equivalent of a gun store commando. The only difference is he is a great marketing man. He is not respected by real knife people, and probably never will be.
I hear all the comments about Lynn Thompson and I have to wonder just how he pissed everybody off. Cause lets be honest, Cold Steel
does make good quality knives and he
does put a good price on them, or at least he did, recent knives have gotten a little pricey. The
only difference in design between CS knives and any others is the tanto. I completely agree that a tanto blade is not all that important. But it is true (not just hype) that a tanto tip will be stronger than another blade design (unless its like a sheepsfoot with no point at all). The hype comes in how much of a need there is for that type of point. Personally I don’t see it, however I also don’t see how superior a Sebenza is (at least not several hundred dollars superior). You will
not see me bad mouthing them though. Lynn Thompson is no Chris Reeves or Darrel Ralph and he does think pretty highly of himself, but then so does Heckler and Koch. Can his knives do everything he claims they can? I have tested them myself and they sure can. Does anybody need a knife that can go through a car door? Nah, not in an EDC they don’t. Does that make the knife useless or a joke? Not in my book. Just because a bunch of knife makers are pissed off because he wont release what is actually
in carbon V steel is no reason to knock what is actually a good knife at a great price. Cold Steel is a great company for knife beginners that don’t really know what they want and haven’t formulated what they like in a knife. They can get a good knife for a little money and later on decide that they would be better served with an Emerson Commander, or a Kershaw Boa, or a Chris Reeves Sebenza, or yada, yada, yada.