aga 11" ebony picklock

[txrpls]

i just got this in from italy. not very impressed. the blade is somewhat loose hits the sides of the liners and doesnt sit straight when folded. what would you do after paying almost 300 for this thing? i feel like throwing it in the river. what would you do?;

[txrpls]

also, the safety pulls in and out about 3mm. i guess it goes without saying that i'm fairly perturbed after spending so much money.

[sammy the blade]

I wouldn't throw it in the river, all you spent on it I'd talk to Bill and see about getting it fixed.

[JulesVane]

I know the feeling of waiting on such a piece to arrive from so far away only to be disappointed on it's arrival. Very frustrating, and the thoughts of returning it so far away can be even worse. By the pics., its obvious that the liner track is warped out of shape somehow, not straight. The safety button issue sounds awful. If this were a $60 piece, I might live with it. But, for THIS $300 piece, it most certainly deserves Bill to take a look at it. I'm sorry for your disappointment for sure.

[whippersnapper]

Unfortunately purchasing directly from Italy often leads to disappointment.

[sammy the blade]

It's a shame places do business like that, they knew there were issues with the knife when they sent it to you. Whoever sent it from Italy should be fired, and corn holed!

[DonC]

Did you order it directly from AGA or did you get it from a dealer. Either way I'd suggest contacting the seller and tell them what you've found and give them a chance to correct (repair or replace) the faults. If they ignore you then you're stuck and you have my sympathies but give the seller a chance to correct the faults.
DonC

[mick17]

Unfortunately purchasing directly from Italy often leads to disappointment.

txrpls, when I started buying from Italy I'd just assume the piece I was ordering would have something wrong and I'd factor in the price of repair along with the regular price. Make your buying decisions based on that.

This doesn't really help you now, and it kind of sucks to have to think this way, but it's the best way to approach it from my experience.

[Viking45]

Unfortunately purchasing directly from Italy often leads to disappointment.

My thoughts exactly. If it were me I would take this as a valuable lesson and in the future buy from sellers here in the USA (assuming you live here).
Most sellers on auction sites have been around a long time and are trustworthy and will provide pictures and descriptions of the exact knife you will be receiving.
Sending it back to Italy is risking loosing it altogether.

This is exactly why I spend time researching something before I make a purchase, money is something I have very little of and therefore it is important to ask questions, research and there is no better place than right here at Talk Blade to do just that.

You could look for sellers (on auction sites) that list "Trades Accepted",sell it for a small loss and reinvest or have someone do some small repairs but this will only rack-up even more bucks.

[Luke_of_Mass]

Unfortunately purchasing directly from Italy often leads to disappointment.

My thoughts exactly. If it were me I would take this as a valuable lesson and in the future buy from sellers here in the USA (assuming you live here).
Most sellers on auction sites have been around a long time and are trustworthy and will provide pictures and descriptions of the exact knife you will be receiving.
Sending it back to Italy is risking loosing it altogether.

Does this mean that the Maniago cutlers actually employ better and worse quality control tactics based on who is ordering their knives? If not, I would imagine that anybody trying to make a living or at least supplement their income in the dealing of these knives would have a tough time doing it since they'd take a $100-$200 hit every time they get a "lemon" from these guys on the boot... Either way it's a real shit stain on their reputation.

I don't want to think of people like the Beltrames or the Campolins as dirtbags but after getting a cactus up the ass from SKM, repeated garbage from AKC, and one embarrassment of a stilleto by Renzo Beltrame, it makes me wonder...

I know these guys pump out hundreds/thousands of knives every year but over many years of doing all kinds of productions for people, be it pottery, cutlery, CD duplication for independent artists, or even breeding honeybee colonies, I have never had difficulty identifying defective products and either fixing them or removing them from inventory entirely. If an odd-job yankee like me can do it, so can these guys.

[JulesVane]

Did you order it directly from AGA or did you get it from a dealer. Either way I'd suggest contacting the seller and tell them what you've found and give them a chance to correct (repair or replace) the faults. If they ignore you then you're stuck and you have my sympathies but give the seller a chance to correct the faults.
DonC

Being rather new here, is "directly from A.G.A." mean 3Knives (which I understand he is part/co owner of)? Or, would 3Knives be "a dealer"? I was under the impression, that if you purchased from 3Knives, that was Angelo directly and that was the best of A.G.A. products. I'm thinking I'm wrong here...

[TRYKER]

unfortuneitly QC consists of.....open, good.....close, good ...shipp it !!!

[Viking45]

Luke and Jules- Unfortunately I can only give a point of view from what I have seen in the past and the fact is 15 years ago ordering directly from Italy would have been an "ok" idea but this quickly turned into a "I wouldn't recommend it" kind of thing.
The internet has created such a demand on such a small industry that they are forced to slap stuff together and ship it out as quickly as possible.
When I hear the term "Quality Control" I want to laugh but if you believe there is a guy at the end of the line tossing defective knives in a bin then you are sadly confused and/or misled.
The bin at the end of the line is the "Out Box". (straight to the USA)

I suggest you buy from an individual seller that buys in bulk and weeds-out the culls and sells only the better of the bunch (note I said "better" as opposed to best)

[whippersnapper]

The dealers have always got their fair share of crap too. I have been told by a couple of the biggest state side dealers that they are lucky to get 8 out of 10 good knives. No other industry I know could continue to survive with a 20+% defect fate. This has been happening for as long as I have collected. If you are going to be a dealer you had better learn knife repair.

[whippersnapper]

PS- And if I suddenly go missing it is probably because this site is still sponsored and payed for by someone in the Italian knife building family....lol