"2008" A VERY GOOD Year?

All I can give is how this year has been for me. It has been very good. By the end of it I will have picked up more custom knives than in any previous year, and the average price will be up as well. That, and going to Josh's has made this my best year.

I have not tried to sell any knives, so I have no idea what the secondary market has been like this year.
 
Kohai999 said:
I'm not so sure HOW varying the "opinions on the state of custom knives" is, Kevin.

You started this post as stating "I feel 2008 has been a GREAT year for custom knives" and then going on to say "Blade Show was off the charts as compared to all others I have been to. A lot of absolutely outstanding knives have already been introduced this year and we are only just past 1/2 way."

I disagreed with those two statements, primarily....I can tell you things are rough in the factory knife arena...and that is usually an indicator of the custom arena as well...NOT a solid or sole indicator, but AN indicator.

Neither myself, Joss nor Les stated that the year in custom knives was bad....just that it wasn't great, or even VERY good...doesn't mean it is time to start collecting defaulted mortgages over knives, just means there should be some balance in a discussion like this. Everyone saying "GREAT YEAR" in unison is very misleading.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
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STeven.......as for your comment about factory knives, do you think they some of these companies are starting to price themselves out of their own market with some of their products? I see some instances where companies like William Henry seem to have become almost like the "new Randall" as far as blurring the line between factory and custom not only in construction methods but also in price point. Ditto for guys like Strider, Busse and Chris Reeve. But I wonder how some of the companies are doing who make some fairly pedestrian blades that have MSRP's that are well into the price range of a goodly number of custom/handmade products.
 
jdm61 said:
STeven.......as for your comment about factory knives, do you think they some of these companies are starting to price themselves out of their own market with some of their products? .
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1. The competition for the dollar is fierce....William-Henry is very much marketed as "bladed jewelry" or "man fashion accessories", so if that market is doing well, they do well, and vice versa....

2. What makes factory stuff very competetive, more than anything else, is the "big box" stores peddling crap to the unwashed knife buying masses....Gerber is one of, if not the BIGGEST knife producers out there right now, and they make mostly garbage, by the ton, and sell the hell out of it...regardless of if we like it or not...and Joe Sixpack is none the wiser, nor does he care....Education, education, education!!!!

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
I think William Henry is unique in they have developed a nice niche market for themselves.
Many of their collectors aren't really knife collectors but WH collectors.
 
Kohai999 said:
1. The competition for the dollar is fierce....William-Henry is very much marketed as "bladed jewelry" or "man fashion accessories", so if that market is doing well, they do well, and vice versa....

2. What makes factory stuff very competetive, more than anything else, is the "big box" stores peddling crap to the unwashed knife buying masses....Gerber is one of, if not the BIGGEST knife producers out there right now, and they make mostly garbage, by the ton, and sell the hell out of it...regardless of if we like it or not...and Joe Sixpack is none the wiser, nor does he care....Education, education, education!!!!

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
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Gerber is a strange story. Back in '79, I had one of the old carbon steel Mk 1's and I still have one of the mdeium size drop point brass and rosewood handled lockback folders that I bought at Oshmans in Miami back in 81 or so and they are way better quality than anything I have seen from Gerber after about the mid-80's. To the average uneducated soldier of late 70's and early 80's or so, Gerber knives were some of the best that you could buy for a reasonable price. The next step up would have been possibly an Al Mar and then a Randall. When it came time for me to buy another field knife when I was in the Reserves in the mid to late '80's, knives like the original SOG bowie, Tomcat and Tigershark, and the Spyderco knives had taken over that niche.
 
Kevin Jones said:
I think William Henry is unique in they have developed a nice niche market for themselves.
Many of their collectors aren't really knife collectors but WH collectors.
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Like I said before.......the "new Randall" perhaps?;)
 
Chuck Ward said:
I have to disagree with Les about one thing........The 2008 Arkansas Custom Knife Show was NOT slow in terms of knife sales and attendance. A record number of knives were sold and paid attendance was over double our next best year.

The 2009 show is shaping up to be even better.

One added note, knife photography has kept ME pretty busy this year.


Chuck
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It's probably a good rule of thumb for us all to save the Show Sales Reports for the shows we actually attend rather than making assumptions and relying on second hand information. Even being there doesn't necessarily paint an accurate picture.

That's good information Chuck. As I stated earlier, I wish more shows would report both attendance and quantity/$$ amount of sales.
 
jdm61 said:
Gerber is a strange story. .
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Fiskars(the scissor people from Finland) purchased Gerber somewhere in the 1990's...In 2004, Fiskars made $881,919,237.00 in net sales....mostly on scissors and axes, but a healthy chunk of that money came out of knives as well.

Joe, this is really drifting, if you want to quiz me about American specialty cutlery manufacturing from the 1970's to present day, (I almost wrote a book about the subject, but wouldn't do it without a publisher) PM or e-mail me. Kevin deserves to have this stay on track, I brought up the subject originally to make a point, which has been made.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
I walked through the Arkansas show with Canine-Joe, was there for a couple hours, mid morning Saturday. It was very crowded, hard to walk around. A much different picture than the last few years I had a table there, been a few years ago.
 
As for Gerber...haha...
Well when it comes to being a good year or not, part of that answer probably has something to do with how many people out there, Joe Sixpacks and the like, are buying knives, in total.
There has never been, til this point-that I know of- such an abundance of relatively good quality, custom designed, affordable knives available in the marketplace. The fact that more knives than ever are being sold in the United States and elsewhere, by places like Walmart, I gather might be a barometer of how good things are in the cutlery industry. When, before the past ten years, have you been able to buy a little keychain knife for less than a buck, at a gas station?
Custom and production- both are part of the same industry, and both will fair well or poorly together, in my opinion.
 
Lorien said:
As for Gerber...haha...
Well when it comes to being a good year or not, part of that answer probably has something to do with how many people out there, Joe Sixpacks and the like, are buying knives, in total.
There has never been, til this point-that I know of- such an abundance of relatively good quality, custom designed, affordable knives available in the marketplace. The fact that more knives than ever are being sold in the United States and elsewhere, by places like Walmart, I gather might be a barometer of how good things are in the cutlery industry. When, before the past ten years, have you been able to buy a little keychain knife for less than a buck, at a gas station?
Custom and production- both are part of the same industry, and both will fair well or poorly together, in my opinion.
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I would have to strongly disagree with you on your final point.
 
I knew that someone would, maybe lots of someones. Why do you disagree?
 
One jewelry store chain here in NC is advertising WH knives in the local newspaper. (Never seen that one before) So, man-jewelry is accurate.

Without drifting too much, who decides the Blade awards for factory/production/collaboration knife of the year, and such? ..based on what criteria- ? ..is one element of judging how profitable a knife is for the company? Or, is it strictly based on the merits of individual knives submitted?

Am i right, Busse Combat has NEVER won, but William Henry wins every year?
David
 
(Pardon the intrusion, a side conversation.)

Kevin,
I didn't mean to pass over the "display only" table issue.. Thanks for what you said. I think there are a lot of people that would happily participate, showing custom collections at Blade. It needs to be investigated- getting these tables opened up to a wider variety of interests, customs especially. My perception, having been on the waiting list several years is there are some closed loop of VIPs and returning vendors that get full priority, repeating their displays yearly.Not much new life coming into this area.
David
 
2knife said:
(Pardon the intrusion, a side conversation.)

Kevin,
I didn't mean to pass over the "display only" table issue.. Thanks for what you said. I think there are a lot of people that would happily participate, showing custom collections at Blade. It needs to be investigated- getting these tables opened up to a wider variety of interests, customs especially. My perception, having been on the waiting list several years is there are some closed loop of VIPs and returning vendors that get full priority, repeating their displays yearly.Not much new life coming into this area.
David
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That's a shame as there's some great customs collections that deserve to be seen in a venue such as Blade.
Seeing Larry's Bailey's ABS Hunter collection in those beautiful wood cases was instrumental in getting me interested in Knife collecting.
 
Hi Kevin, any chance you can shed some light on why you said what you said about the point I made in my post? I am interested in why you disagreed with what I said.
 
Lorien said:
Custom and production- both are part of the same industry, and both will fair well or poorly together, in my opinion.
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Lorien said:
Hi Kevin, any chance you can shed some light on why you said what you said about the point I made in my post? I am interested in why you disagreed with what I said.
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I just believe custom and production knives are too often different in regard to why they are purchased, how they are purchased, by whom they are purchased by and what they are used for to lump into the same general category when discussing sales trends.
 
Hi Kevin,

I thought maybe you missed this since you didn't respond. So I wanted to post it again to get your "Web Expert" opinion.

Quote:
The ABS is suppose to have a state of the art website about to debut, but I'm sure you will find something wrong with that too when it does. You being the website expert.

Im no web site expert but I update mine more than every 2 years or so. Since you consider yourself to be a web site expert and an ABS expert. Any reason why they can't add the last two years Hughes Award winners, A Moran award winner and the other 2007 and 2008 Mastersmiths to the list of Mastersmiths?
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Hi Lorien,

I have to agree with Kevin on the production/custom markets.

The only thing (other than the obvious fact that they are knives) is that a decade ago the factories were smart enough to incorporate the new materials, locks and techniques that the custom makers were and are utilizing.

If you check out many for sale forums you will see custom knife makers names used...only to find out that they are factory knives.

The only reason I even know about what the factories are doing is because of what I hear from the custom knife makers who are working with them.

The cross over from factory to custom is happening quicker than it did 10 years ago...due directly to the factories working with the custom knife makers.
 
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