There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
This Bestech knife is one of a few of the relatively new Chinese companies making high quality knives for the American and European market. Here's the story as I understand it.... At least a decade ago, Chinese companies were making cheap knockoffs of many US knives, you can still find a lot of them everywhere. They were simply taking a popular US made knife, and use cheap materials and cheaper Chinese labor to make these imitations. Unfortunately many people didn't know or didn't care that it was a cheap copy, so they sold a lot of knives. Several excellent US knife makers decided that to compete, they had to have their knives made where labor was cheaper, so they did and today most of the best American knives you know and love are made in asian countries. The US companies greatly improved the machining, materials, quality and standards of knife making in general overseas. The Chinese now have the same high quality machinery, know where to source the good steel, original designs (inspired by many makers) and have implemented best practices taught to them by the best American knife companies. They can do it cheaper because labor is so much less expensive in asia. The bad news is it's hurting American business, but the good news is that in the last few years, you can buy a very high quality knife, made with quality materials at about half the price of a similar knife made in the US or western countries. Kizer and Bestech are just two of these chinese companies. Kizer has a booth at Shot-Show, they are legit. For better or worse, this isn't going to change anytime soon, you'll see many more new knives from these companies soon; and Massdrop is 'All-in'. ... Me? I like them and will keep buying them. Here's a few in my collection, also check out my Patreon.com/Patriot1 site.