The Fairbairn Sykes Fighting Knives
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Swatting Bees

1/3/2025

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When I was a youngster my uncle and I built a toy town in the sandlot near the house. We used to play there with our toy trucks and road equipment. One day we were extremely agitated to discover our town had been taken over by a nest of bumble bees! They ran us off quite smartly. My uncle and I conspired how to rid ourselves of these unwanted guests and came up with an idea. The next day we stealthily approached with badminton rackets in hand. Soon as the bees swarmed out, the battle was on. We swatted away fiercely, killing many of them, somehow without getting stung. The bees relocated and we all got along after that.

That’s how I feel about the plethora of Pakistani knife makers swarming Ebay™ with copies of knives, advertised using my photos. I have written both the makers and Ebay™ about the impropriety of this, but it is useless. Ebay™ doesn’t care, why should they, they are getting paid.  The overseas knife makers politely apologize and just keep on doing it. There are no copyrights or patents on Commando Knives that I know of. But the use of other people’s photos with the maker’s marks of other makers is at the very least disreputable activity. The problem is, most of the makers are producing fairly good quality knives for ridiculously low prices and they will sell.

To explore this burgeoning market I ordered a knife, clearly and inappropriately advertised, as a “Randall Guardian”. I entered an offer of under $100 dollars and “won” the knife. Communication from the seller was good and the shipping time was acceptable. The knife I received is of impeccable quality and identical to a Randall. Now, Randall lists this same knife for over $400. A third-party dealer will sell you one for over $600, if you don’t want to wait for Randall. Now who are the crooks here? Greed has driven the stampede to the black-market and I totally understand why people are buying the counterfeits.
​
Pakistan (previously part of India) has been a cutlery center for centuries. It is no wonder they can crank out good knives at such low costs. When I take my car for service the dealer charges me $150/hour! I don’t think the wages in India/Pakistan are comparable. Worker’s benefits? Seriously! Insurance and retirement? I think we all know why everything costs so much “Made in the USA” and so little coming from other countries. It comes down to what the market will bear. It’s the old supply and demand thing we learned about in high school. So the moral of this story is; I am going to stop trying to swat the proliferation of Pakistani knifemakers and get on with other more important things.
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Happy New Year?

1/2/2025

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​If you scroll down some you will find a blog about the difficulty I had recovering my email account. That pales in comparison to what my daughter and I went through to recover my website. It all started when Weebly and Square merged but it didn’t become an issue until my login credentials expired and my domain name also expired. Wow, what followed was a week of emails and countless hours spent on the phone with both Weebly and Square. It was an epic merry-go-round. I will tell you this, whenever you change passwords keep the old one for reference. Do not erase it or dispose of it because it may be needed later and who actually remembers these things? I have a damned address book ½ inch thick of nothing but usernames and passwords. New years eve, and day, were both spent on the phone again trying to resolve the problem. Only today, Jan. 2nd is it finally working. I hope I never go through that again! Being hard of hearing and talking with people with foreign accents did not make the process any easier. I gave my name, Address, login info, IP address, etc etc so many times I was hearing it in my sleep. I was really beginning to wonder if it was worth it. But we persevered and are back online, thank God and some lady name Lizzy somewhere in cyberspace. Wishing you all of a safe New Year, because it is not starting off well.
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    Author:

    You can find out more about me on the "Stories" pages. My hobbies have included training in Japanese martial arts, including Kenjutsu, many forms of knife fighting, long range rifles and tactical firearms. I have written several self published books on muzzle-loading firearms, knife-fighting and textbooks on gas engines and compressors. I am working diligently on my 400+ page F-S book.

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