[VAL] Bargman Door Handles

["Brian Jenkins" <jenkins1924@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Read "outsourcing" as Made in China. American-made metal products reached a 
zenith in quality thirty or forty years ago and it has been all downhill 
since then. The Chinese produce tools and metal products of absolutely the 
worst quality on earth. And we buy them. Or rather we have no choice but to 
buy them since virtually everything that the U.S. used to make is now 
"outsourced" to China.

One of the reasons I love my vintage trailers (made in the fifties) and my 
Land Rovers (made in the sixties) is that they were made by honest craftsmen 
who created something of lasting value. If these machines are properly 
serviced and cared for, they will last practically forever. Using a Chinese 
tool three or four times without breaking it is something of a miracle.

Bargman will tell you that they can't compete with the price of Chinese made 
goods, so they give up and let the Chinese do their manufacturing. Do you 
see any change in price? No. The increased profit from selling you cheap 
crap with their name on it goes in their pocket. That is a sorry position 
for a once proud American company to find itself in.

I am a freelance creative director, and one of my favorite clients is Cyclo. 
Cody Sutherland, the owner of Cyclo, works very hard to produce a classic 
quality American-made product that is as good or better than it was fifty 
years ago when production began. Forty-year-old Cyclo's still sell on Ebay 
for almost the price of new ones because they still work like new ones. 
Nothing, repeat Nothing coming out of China will work in forty years. You'll 
be lucky if it works for forty minutes.

Brian Jenkins