I've had supposedly quality hooks flatten ar the point where the wire was held by the vice. It wasn't over pressure that caused it as, I was using a Regal type vice at the time. Also several from the same make bend with the weight of the bobbin hanging from shank. A good pack had one bad hook per pack of 25. Recently I have been using a supplier of unbranded hooks. The last order was for wet fly hooks in packs of 1000. So far I have had three or four from this order that I wouldn't use. The price was ?10 ($15) per 1000. I'd have to throw away 40 to be at the same level as the so called quality hooks, When I have finished them I possibly will have found that number of defects but only wasted 1/40 of the money buying defective hooks. Now I price flies based on what I can get these hooks for. If a customer wants a specific hook then I will obtain it and use it, at a premium.

My point is that it is a "suck it and see" process. If you find that the hooks are not as good as you want don't buy them. Don't be conned into thinking that higher price means higher quality.

The other thing I realised is that machine made hooks are often more consistent than mass produced hand made hooks. Think about the hardening process. Someone making them by hand will heat the hooks until they glow a certain colour. Now I'm well into my photography so I know how much colour perception varies. Both from person to person and from day to day for one person. So the temperature will also vary. If you set up a machine with a temp of x as the lower setting and y as the upper of temperature then when the machine reaches a temperature of x-1 or y+1 the machine will stop and an alarm go off. The machine will not wake up with a hangover, or argue with the Mrs before it goes to work. I'm not talking about the people who hand craft limited numbers of hooks here. Some of those, such as the ones made by my friend Jens Pilgard will be incomparable in quality, but you wouldn't be buying these in packs of 1000 or even 25. They are sold individually (and for much more than a pack of 25 regular hooks). For mass produced hooks that most of us use most of the time, machine made will be more consistent. In this area I found the "Handmade" was another thing to avoid if I could.

Cheers,
A.