I'm betting the Vaughn seconds still beat any chinamese hamer by 10x
Definitely , and the defects are only cosmetic anyways.
I'm not sure they're allowed to knowingly sell a defective tool, so you'll get the same 1080 steel with the same proper heat treat and the same tight hang.
I've got a small scar on my cheek from a childhood incident where a cheap junk hammer I was using chipped, to this day I will not touch a crap import hammer.
China, Taiwan , India, or Mexico ,forget it you couldn't pay me to take a hammer from one of these countries unless I was allowed to permanently dispose of it.
Call me snobbish or picky but I will never spend my hard earned money on a hammer unless it's American made ( nothing against europe I suppose ) and has a hickory handle, just a preference of mine that's never gonna change.