Taiwan typically makes better knives than similar knives made in the US. Taiwan is not China. It’s a US Ally. That said it’s up to the company to ask for a certain level of quality from the Taiwan OEM. You get what you pay for.

That Green AD-15 is 100% Legit. I’ve been Using, Collecting and Carrying Cold Steel since 1997. GSM has Changed a lot including the Quality.

I don’t understand how people can’t see the basic design of a frame lock and know how to unlock it. I was selling a knife at a garage sale, and a dude was trying to close the knife by pushing the frame lock the opposite direction. Thankfully it was a robust Framelock otherwise damage would have been dealt to the lock.

I recently bought an AD15 Cold Steel chinese clone. I spent appx $70 for it. The good... carbon fiber handles, sharp AF out of the box, centered, tight everything, well made. The bad... The jimping is too sharp just like the real one, the spring is too stiff by far. I disassembled and filed the spring down 10 thou and still tight. Took it down a total of 20 thou (0.020") and it became a different knife, way better. The blade does not pivot well. Crappy pb washers which I smoothed up on a porcelain sharpening stone made it no better. I am going to try some new washers from one of the knife supply guys to see if that helps. I expect my blade to swing easily once unlocked and this one does not, unsure of how well a real one does.

Not trying to be negative, but you should look up the difference in quality between companies that outsource from Taiwan and China. It’s night and day and most in the knife world know you can’t base quality fully on that name alone.

FWIW, having been in Cold Steel's Taiwan factory, thei factory is state of the art, with the computerization & machines being state of the art with their tolerances being tighter than any custom that I own, and I'm speakin to any of Andrew Demko's, Chris Reeve's or Rick Hinderer's. Just as their is sh!t "made in the USA," there is excellent quality produced in this country, as the three aforementioned knife makers produce. The same goes for Taiwan, as most of the knife companies have top shelf factories in Taiwan, such as Cold Steel's. I'm not saying that you inferred this, I just do not want any knife newbs or those who have not seen the various Taiwanese manufacturing facilities first hand, as I also use two facilities for my company's parts, to think that "made in Taiwan" is remotely in the same neighborhood as the Temu "made in China" label is, cuz they're not even in the same continent, lolol Just my .05 worth🪙 Continued Success🍻 RP