quick question, where are montbell products made? have they already gone offshore?

are any of the big brands still made in the USA? (i know some of Arcteryx is still made in Canada)

MontBell is a Japanese brand. Many of its products are made in China.

95% of the gear out there is made in Asia. Cottage gear makers are the only ones still making gear here. I salute them for staying loyal to our country and economy...

I posted a poll one time on the backpacker.com forum asking if people cared where gear was made and at least 75% said no....

I followed up with another poll asking if people would pay 25% more for gear made in the USA and 95% said no...

So if customers don't care why should gear makers?

Montbell was founded in 1975 so I don't know if "already" is an appropriate choice of words. Did they used to be all made in Japan? All the MB I have is made in China, except for a pair of merino long johns, which were made in Japan.

I personally do care where things are made, so I tend to make things myself or buy from cottage manufacturers. With clothing, though, it's pretty hard. Melanzana and Beyond Clothing are options I will probably go with in the future.

Anyone else come across some quality performance-wear made in a country with good workers' rights laws? My Mountain Hardwear shirt is made in the US.

Edited by Jaddleman on 04/02/2010 23:11:12 MDT.

Exactly. People love to gripe about jobs being sent overseas and then buy cheap electronics at Wal-Mart, but only on sale, and then whine when they crap out in a year or less.

A crap product will always be a crap product. There are good, even excellent, textile manufacturers and manufacturers of all sorts all over Asia. Most of the crap ones are in China, but even they have some really great manufacturer's as well.

A good product will stand on it's own reputation regardless of origin. Sometimes they best products are from cottage, or otherwise independent, manufacturers and sometimes they will be mass produced ones from Taiwan.

Your poll may have been better if you had asked whether or not people would pay 25% more for a superior product. I, for one, would not bother buying "American" for the sake of buying American if the product in and of itself isn't anything spectacular. Also, where do they source their materials from? I'd be willing to bet there are a lot of cottage manufacturers who are buying fabrics from Asian textile distributors.

"Anyone else come across some quality performance-wear made in a country with good workers' rights laws? My Mountain Hardwear shirt is made in the US."

Ok, now THAT would be a good reason to not buy from a particular manufacturer. Some companies (Nemo comes to mind) make a point of stating that they work only with quality manufacturers that treat their employees well, etc.

>A crap product will always be a crap product.

Yup. While I'd prefer to buy American, I'll buy the quality, no matter where it's made. I'll even happily pay more for a product that is made well and under decent work/production guidelines.

Brands manufacture a tiny percentage in north America so they can gain Army contracts. OR makes products in Seattle.

North American made brands
Integral designs(100 made in Calgary)
Wild things(Made in USA)
Arcteryx (not 100 percent made in Vancouver)
Chlorophyll (not 100 percent made in Quebec)
Canada goose (100 made in Canada)

Edited by rcowman on 04/02/2010 23:26:06 MDT.

Please keep in mind that most of all Chinese workers are over worked employees of the government that work for super low wages so being treated well is a very subjective statement.

The textile industry as a whole doesn't pay well because they can't due to the competition. Most consumers put price in front of quality which is the reason Wal-Mart is such a large company. I personally try to buy responsibly made products any time I can and prefer to buy products made in America, Canada and Europe but sometimes thats not an option so I then look for Japanese products since they are in a different league.

In the poll I stated how most USA fabrics are tested while most Asian fabrics aren't and how asian suppliers follow no standard so products can vary in quality from item to item. Even with this in mind an overwhelming majority didnt care.

I was doing a poll because I had a tent design that I wanted to bring to market. It was going to be made in the USA using high quality materials made by union workers. Once I heard that most people didn't care I stoped the project dead in its tracks...

nm

Edited by ben2world on 04/03/2010 01:01:30 MDT.

Another good brand you can add to the list. Feathered Friends makes high-quality sleeping bags and garments in Seattle. One of my oldest sleeping bags is by FF, and also an expedition-grade parka.
--B.G.--

Wise choice Ben. You know where this is heading :(

"You know where this is heading."

Chaff. :)

It won't be chaff until someone mentions caliber.

We still manufacture lots of guns in this country ;) Off we go!

I don't own a handgun so I'm pretty ignorant of their manufacturing origin. If they're still made here, it begs the question "why"?

Two decades ago, at the height of the Japanese import 'scare' -- I read an article that automobile tires were immune because of high shipping cost. Now you see more and more of them coming from Japan, Korea and I think China too.

Back then, while almost all consumer electronics were imported, big appliances like fridge, washers and dryers were still made here. Seems like there are now more and more LG's and Samsung appliances in the stores.

Will guns be next? Just the irony of fellow Americans borrowing money from China to import Chinese guns to defend their freedom, their family and their loved ones...

Edited by ben2world on 04/03/2010 09:55:15 MDT.

chafffffffffffff time
Hey Ben, just so I can address your question and to run this train off the rails :D Lots of firearms are still manufactured here but for various reasons. Firearms are a lot like cars, in the sense that you have some really high quality foreign companies that have manufacturing sites here within the US. Think Mercedes Benz (german car) and Beretta (italian firearms) One of the largest purchasers of firearms is of course, the US military. Though we would like to think we are arming our troops with the best technology and quality there is, such is not the case. One of the biggest reasons why our troops use a beretta m9 as their standard side arm, as opposed to the sig p226, a far superior swiss firearm which performed better during military testing, was because beretta was willing to open up more manufacturing plants in the US if granted the contract. So i guess guns are still built here because, hey they provide jobs, and are a requirement by the biggest buyer there is.

Not really sure we will see many people buying chinese firearms...lets face it, the country is not synonymous with quality control, and I highly doubt anyone would want to handle something as sensitive as firearm if it had the risk of failing or even injuring the user even when used properly. Which company would take the risk of manufacturing firearms in China, to be sold in the US? The lawsuits would be out of control!!

But back to the discussion. Buying American strictly because it is American, has it costs and benefits in my mind. Yes, it supports the local economy, which we should do, especially in such times. On the other hand, if Americans strictly bought American, then i think innovation would be curtailed. To play a lil devils advocate and illustrate the argument, lets say I choose to buy a foreign product because it offers the same quality, but is cheaper than the American counterpart. I would hope this behavior would force an American company to rise above the competition by making their product more sophisticated, so that they could justify the price difference (assuming American products cost more due to onshore labor, overhead, etc) Buying foreign keeps competition up, promotes change in the market, and hopefully stimulates new ideas. I personally find myself buying products strictly based on the specs and features, or quality guarantee. This came up a while ago, when I was out looking for a Patagonia R1 and someone suggested that I buy a melanzana product because its made here. Well I honestly considered both, but after seeing how the melanzana (which was cheaper, and used the same materials) did not fit in a way that I thought optimized the use of Polartec powerdry material, I went with the foreign made patagonia product. It didn't make sense to me to by a less innovative product just because it was made in America. Its the same reason why I will never buy a Ford. On the other hand, i'd gladly buy a Caddy :)

I'm curious to know how people feel about foreign companies such as Montbell, which also provide jobs to Americans through retail locations/flagship stores...does this change anything/everything?

Some US manufacturers not mentioned already, that I like because they offer products that justify their high costs are Kifaru, Cilogear, and ColdColdWorld packs

Edited by Konrad1013 on 04/03/2010 11:01:40 MDT.

Good points, Konrad.

When it comes to "Buying American" -- I think a lot -- if not most -- of it is an emotional thing. Some people will buy a GM over a Honda -- and couldn't care less about actual local content. To them, the marque says it all. Our emotions are often a knee-jerk thing -- done without thinking too much.

I say "buy American" -- but we know of course that emotional patriotism runs through most every country.

I also think our moderators are asleep at the switch -- again! :)

Hello Roger?

I think Ben is just an agitator.