Is nothing sacred?

went to big box store today to get Fiskar loppers to cut down baby pines and a Fiskar hatchet to cut down bigger pines. Imagine my horror and shock(i actually raised some eyebrows when I cursed the brand and threw the tool down) when I found all Fiskar tools sold by Lowe's are made in china. on the brighter side, the hot dog man out front had Sabrett hot dogs and Long Island red onion sauce, so the trip was not a total waste.

Scott
Just a tired old sailor glad to be home from the sea

Scott,
Yeah they moved the manufacturing a few years back.

Quote
oldsailorsknives
went to big box store today to get Fiskar loppers to cut down baby pines and a Fiskar hatchet to cut down bigger pines. Imagine my horror and shock(i actually raised some eyebrows when I cursed the brand and threw the tool down) when I found all Fiskar tools sold by Lowe's are made in china.

During a recent visit to Lowe's I too was dismayed at the number of Fiskars products that are now made in the PRC.

The Fiskars hatchet available at the Lowe's in my area is still made in Finland.

It is, however, not the X7:
manufacturer page for Fiskars X7

but what Fiskars calls the "Small Hatchet":
manufacturer page for Fiskars Small Hatchet

If anyone has direct experience with both and can weigh in on the differences, it might be useful.

I have the Small Hatchet.

Measured weight for the Small Hatchet (without the blade cover) is 645g, which is within 1% of the weight given for the X7 on T0.1M here (though that X7 weight was reposted from somewhere else).

Length of the Small Hatchet, measuring from the end of the handle, along the straight "spine" of the handle, to the top of the bit, is 13.75 inches.

The bit of the Small Hatchet has a black coating. The X7 appears to have a grey coating in photos.

The handle surface of the Small Hatchet is hard, textured black plastic everywhere except for a ring a few millimeters wide around one side of the handle-hole, which is covered with an orange material which is softer and grippier. (Is this what the orange part of the X7 handle is covered with?)

I speculate that the X7 and Small Hatchet are equivalent aside from the differences noted above, but since I do not have them both in front of me I cannot know. I hope they are equivalent, as I may use the Small Hatchet as a comparison chopper for forum purposes at some point (hi Chum).

I don't have any direct information on Fiskars currently, but I do know a bit about dealing with China.

The first thing to consider is that the Chinese Yuan is valued at 6/1 to the US Dollar. This means that when my dollar crosses the Chinese border, it is now worth 6 Dollars. There are many that say this is an "Intentionally reduced value", which they say that the Chinese are "cheating" in the value pf their Yuan.

Considering that the Chinese makers (of any product line) are really on a level with first world countries, it is difficult to compete with with such a low cost. A product made in China will cost 6 times as much to make it in, say the USA or Japan.

I do know that Fiskars is an "Old World" business which considers profit to be a very high importance. I have been watching them since they purchased Gerber back in the day. They thought the name of "Gerber" would be very valuable long term in the USA market. They paid a very high price for Gerber, (probably double) which was doing 11M when they bought it. They put Jim Wehrs in charge (a very honest and honorable man, by the way) and he brought the company up to the 70M range. Then they dumped Jim (tacky in my opinion) and brought in the Rubbermade execs which brought it up to much much higher, mostly manufactured in China. Jim ended up creating another company which Benchmade eventually bought.

So obviously Fiskars can make greater sales at the lower price and still make higher profit. that's why many of the world companies are manufacturing in China to make more profit. This is especially true of countries that do not require Country Of Origin (COO) so they let their population just think they are made on the country of purchase.

Also, COO is not required on parts so many companies make parts in China, put them together in their own country and claim their own country as COO. Just some thoughts to share.

sal

I think the only I can say I like about New Zealand is the percentage marker they put under the COO labels. That quickly explains the origin of materials and assembly of the product.