I had also made an inquiry via alibaba a few days ago havent heard anything yet. that site is a direct link with the manufacturers in china, a few months ago I made an inquiry to them to see who manufacture's wusthoff knives (very expensive) (suppost to be german)and was quoted figures in the $2 dollar range for knives that are $78 dollers each here retail. And the funny thing was they had no problem with manufacturing these knives even if the brand name belonged to someone else, apparently trade-mark infringement has no meaning over there.