For 70 years Gerber has been known for manufacturing professional blades with an advanced design and superior materials, gaining a very impressive reputation consequently.

The Story Behind Gerber

Amazingly, blade making wasn't the original purpose of the Gerber corporation upon its inception. Portland’s Joseph Gerber founded the original company, namely Gerber Advertising, in 1910. He spent close to 30 years as an advertising executive, looking for a more advisable business opportunity to turn up.

Gerber’s opportunity eventually arrived in the year 1939, when a small number of his hand-crafted kitchen cutlery sets were presented to his foremost clients as a thank-you present during the holiday season. Little did he anticipate that the Abercrombie and Fitch company would respond with due praise to his modest cutlery gift!  The company gave Gerber a section in their sales catalog to market his gorgeous cutlery, and he then left his advertising company in order to form the company still operational today, Gerber Legendary Blades.

About fifty years afterward, Gerber Legendary Blades was acquired by Fiskars Brands, Inc. in the year. Only the acquisition did not stop Gerber even a little. Today, the Gerber company is still based in Portland, Oregon, and is currently the second greatest provider of utility tools in the USA.

Gerber was also among the first mass-market blade manufacturers to work one-on-one with custom blade creators. Throughout the ages, such artisans as David Murphy, Bob Loveless, Rick Hinderer and Ernest Emerson have all given successful sets to Gerber's catalog.

Gerber's additional noticeable feat is as the place of origin of 2 other noted blade companies. Al Mar worked at Gerber before going out to form Al Mar Knives, and Pete Kershaw was a worker at Gerber before founding Kershaw Cutlery.

Gerber Knife Examples

Today, the company makes over 120 models. Several of the well-known Gerber Legendary Knives include fixed-blade models like the Gerber Gator, the LMF II ASEK Knife and the Big Rock Camp Knife. Clip folding knives include designs like the Paraframe, the Torch, and the Gerber-Emerson Alliance. Also, Gerber's Flik is one of their most popular products.

Materials

Gerber is likewise very famous for its implementation of high-quality materials and new engineering ideas in its tool design process. Several of Gerber’s knife blades are manufactured with AUS-8 and ATS-34 steel, which are both very high tiers of high carbon stainless steel. High quality rubberized blends like Zytel and Kraton are often added in their handles. Materials such as these and so much more qualify Gerber Legendary Blades as a high-quality manufacturing company.

Additional Information

The Wikipedia's submission on Gerber is a good site to get started with additional research, as is Gerber's home on the web.