Hardware store question

[Berryb]

When a hardware chain contracted with a knife maker for a bunch of knives how much input did they have on the product? Could they specify type of steel, handle material, what the bolsters looked like etc? Or did they just say " We need 10,000 barehead jacks with our name on them." If a jobber had contracts with more than one company for barehead jacks would the quality vary between companies, or from the jobber's own brand and the contract pieces? Thanks
Bruce

[kootenay joe]

I Sears did specify certain details on knives they bought from Camillus that would be branded as "Craftsman" or "Sta-Sharp" etc. Sears wanted the knives with their brand name to be not identical to the same pattern branded Camillus.
I think most large hardware businesses had enough 'clout' by the size of their order to get the manufacturers to make certain changes when requested, like different blade assortment or arrangement, different bolsters, steel liners in place of brass, etc.
kj

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

I would bet it entirely depended on the size of the opportunity and the manufacturer. You aren't going to build new tooling if the expected profit from that customer wouldn't pay for the tooling.

[LongBlade]

I would bet it entirely depended on the size of the opportunity and the manufacturer. You aren't going to build new tooling if the expected profit from that customer wouldn't pay for the tooling.

I think that was a given - they had a sense for business no different than today!!

I am assuming many of the contract companies did what the client wanted - for example Empire Knife Co (which supposedly did more contract work than their own knives I have read) no doubt did other company requests such as etches etc - Check the Shapleigh Hdwe knives made by Empire (which can be checked in Col Mayes book) - Empire did "Diamond Edge" etches on master etc... In this example the knives were no lesser quality than Empires for sale and the same knife models... Maher & Grosh also had knives made for them by Miller Bros, Schrade, Ulster and others - quality and knives no different but the etches and tang stamps were made according to the client! Believe me they knew business strategy in those days and quite frankly other than technological advances the business strategy mindsets were similar to that of today... and those companies such as Empire did not need new tooling - only the template for etches, new die stamps for the tang and some shields if they were client dependent (KJ gave you one example and Empire made "DE" shields for Shapleigh as another example) - the contract companies made money!! As an aside - I would say George Wostenholm of Sheffield fame was a great business man for many reasons - as an example he made Bowies for the states during the Civil War - while he was marketing bowies with confederate slogans he was at the same time making the same knives with Union slogans - he was covering all the markets ...

[Mumbleypeg]

We can surmise a lot just from observing the knives. What can be determined is there were many business models. And as it is today if there's enough money and a large enough opportunity to make money, you can get just about anything you want.

Looking at Case for example we can see companies like Clauss and White House contracted "private label" knives that are standard Case patterns, but having tang and/or shields customized with those company's names.

Same for Shapleigh Diamond Edge, KeenKutter, etc. Mostly the same patterns as were sold by Schrade or whoever they contracted with.

But some hardware companies were large enough and/or desired to get unique patterns made. So they paid for the special tooling or contracted for enough knives to justify the expense. We can see an example of this today with Moore Maker. Some of their patterns are readily identifiable as the identical patterns made by the supplier. But Moore Maker also owns some of their own proprietary tooling, allowing them to offer patterns different from those of the maker. There are probably variations on this model as well - exclusive rights to the pattern for x years or x number of knives manufactured, after which we can sell the pattern ourselves. Or exclusive rights forever. And so on.

So the answer to the OP question is "how many different legitimate business models can you think of?". If you can think of it and it makes business sense, it was probably done.

Ken