Hi! I thought that Barnsley doesnt exist anymore and old stock tools are just sold.
I bought a few knifes of them on their Barnsley website. But the parcels senders name was from a wood workshop or something similar. Now I received a newsletter from them. Does onyone knows if its true or not? I have no problem to buy old stock from them but dont know if one can trust their quality now.
If it is still fake i cant believe one could be so 'creative'
NEWSLETTER
News from Mowbray Street
It’s now been over a year since we launched the George Barnsley and Sons website and what a year it’s been! When we launched the website we were well aware of the interest in our famous George Barnsley name but it seemed that many people thought that the business had stopped making tools in Sheffield! The simple truth is that for many years the business had been “kept alive” by Mr C Barnsley (from whom we gratefully acquired the business) but he didn’t have the time to take the business forwards owing to other business interests. So, we put our toe in the water in April 19 and we’ve had a phenomenal response from around the world, customers from as far away as Australia, Japan, the US and Canada, as well as our closer European neighbours have been flocking to our door, we’ve even had orders from Chile and Greenland! We are most grateful for the response, its been a humbling experience for me personally to receive comments and feedback from customers (old and new) who really appreciate the quality of our tools and who understand the proud heritage of the George Barnsley name and YES , will still manufacture tools in Sheffield using our world famous Sheffield Steel. Over the past twelve months we’ve been sorting through the stock rooms here on site and have unearthed many items of new, unused “old stock” items that haven’t seen the light of day for 30 years or more, still wrapped in the original waxed packing paper and as good as the day they were made. These items have been gratefully received by our customers and comments of the sharpness and workability of the tools has been most encouraging. We’ve also been busy training up new members of staff who will help us take the business into the future and continue to manufacture our beautiful knives and tools for many long years to come. Also we’ve been redeveloping some of the older “extinct” George Barnsley designs such as the famous “Bull Dog” Pliers and the beautiful “Small French” Hammer and this is something we will continue to do.... When we launched the website we were unsure as to how the market would receive the George Barnsley name, we knew that there was a level of interest from artisan crafts people and makers, but would they buy the product? We were asked on many occasions, can this really be made in Sheffield??? We pitched our selling prices at a very competitive level (almost factory gate prices), absorbing much of the associated marketing and distribution “overhead” costs internally to help re establish the brand. We’ve now come to point in time when, in order to maintain levels of service, we need to review prices on some products to more fairly reflect our overall cost structure. With effect from this month we will be posting new prices on some of our range, some of the current “special offers” will be withdrawn, but that’s not to say that we won’t be bringing new specials out in the future! You will always be the first to learn about our new offers and special deals so keep an eye on the site! For our overseas (non UK) customers, we understand that its been more complicated than necessary when placing an order, to this end we are in the process on upgrading our post and packing offer to include overseas destinations, at the moment each shipment has to be manually assessed to price up post and packing costs! So please look out for this change , it will be so much simpler. In the meantime if you have any questions or require further information on any of our products, drop me a line. Best regards Tim Hinchliffe
@kilian From what I have gathered, there is a Sheffield company called 'Woodware' or something like that, who was re-handling much of the old George Barnsley stock. I even have one of their round knives which is marked G. Barnsley on the blade. I think they have purchased the name now.
Taking a look at their website and Instagram page, they seem to have purchased a massive collection of unsold old stock from when the factory shut down, and they are now pretending to be up and running again with phoney videos and pictures. If they were making new stuff - you'd see it!
Here's a guy pretending to forge or 'smith' a blade on an anvil that would have come from bar stock:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw-Bt6Shj_i/
Their Instagram page is full of 'freshly' produced rusted steel blades from back in the day.
Long story short, they appear to be refurbishing old stock tools while owning the name.
I had the same questions when I came across their website a while ago. I dug around and seems that, like Tim explained, the Barnsley business stopped, but was not defunct. Someone bought it and is trying to breathe new life into it.