The lowdown:
Instroke started life through me in 1991 in Koblenz Germany. Through many partnerships and mergers it became Instroke Sports GMBH based in Ilshofen Germany. I retained the United States rights of trademark and copyright.
In 1998 I sold out my partnership to the remaining partners at Instroke GMBH in order to set up shop in the USA. I opened Instroke Sports LLC in 1999 in Colorado.
Instroke Sports USA (as we were known) purchased all of their Instroke cases from the German company under the stipulation that my production guidelines were strictly adhered to. This agreement was quickly broken and along with other issues it led to a situation where I decided to find another factory capable of producing cases to my standards.
Thus began a two year period of development of a new production of Instroke cases and a prolonged legal battle with Germany. In late 2003 we settled with Germany over the trademark issues and they must abdicate the Instroke trademark in the United States. They will also have to stop using Stroke Sports as well since it is confusingly similar, but that is another issue.
The new factory has spent over a quarter million dollars to upgrade their capability in order to produce cases which exceed my production values. A short bio is available at
www.instroke.com
This brings me to the original question and the subsequent answers on this board.
The Instroke Buffalo model was originally made from vegetable tanned, oiled leather. Because the particualr type of leather is often unavailable in exactly the same tannage, color and consistency this model has often used varying types of leather. Now, the Buffalo model from the REAL Instroke in Taiwan uses the original vegetable tanned, oiled leather. It is perhaps the best that has ever been used for this model.
As to the quality of the cases overall. The Instroke case from Taiwan is the better case by far. The reason I can say this confidently is because the cases from Germany are stuck in 1998. The original factory where I developed the mass production line and taught the designers and shop workers how to build according to my guidelines no longer exists. The cases are made in the Czech Republic in a new facility with the barest remnants of knowledge from my original vision. In other words there has been NO improvement on the basic design that I left them with in 1998. There has in fact been a degradation of quality internally. You as a consumer, would not see this immediately but I did and do. Still though, the cases from the German company are better than just about all of the competition out there.
The cases from Taiwan though are the bomb. ) The Taiwanese have outdone themselves by producing cases that have major improvements over the ones from the Czech Republic. To start with the tubes are lighter and stronger. The lining does not hand up anymore, this problem has been eliminated. The latches are practically indestructable with the new diamond latch. The tubes are padded to protect against impact and to provide a tighter fit between the exterior and the interior of the case. The nails used on the end caps are fully barbed so that they cannot work loose. The zipper pulls on the self-healing zippers are heavy duty so that they won't break. And there are several minor things that are being done to insure a top quality case. The point is that despite the rumors and misconceptions the Taiwanese Instroke is the better case point for point and is the very best Instroke case that has ever been produced during my 13 years with Instroke.
Sincerely,
John Barton
founder, designer and former owner of Instroke Cue Cases.
