I try to buy all my tying hooks from Larva Lace at wholesale. I have no clue what 'factory' makes their hooks, but I've had good results as far as quality/consistency goes. I have had a few hooks per thousand that have manufacturing flaws. Things like lack of points, unclosed eyes, nicks in the shanks. These I throw away. The numbers of these 'flawed' hooks runs less than one percent, which I find acceptable. Price does matter to me. I've not found that spending three or four times more per hook has resulted in getting better flies or more fish in the boat, so I don't spend that. I keep coming back in my mind to the concepts involved here. How 'good' is good enough? These are just fish hooks. They have been making them for a very long time. There are no mysteries here. None of us are going to starve, or be ostracized, fined, or die because a hook failed on a fish ( I've only had that happen once, with a Gami worm hook while bass fishing.. hook broke on small fish during a tournament...didn't effect the outcome). Still, I'm gonna let the thing go after I finish playing with it, if it gets away for ANY reason, so what?