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Collector Knives has micarta liner locks in stock.
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2020 GEC 23 trying to find a dealer with stock thread
- Thread starter rschuch
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sf fanatic
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Frank’s Classic Knives has them to.
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Smooth bone liner locks available at DLT.
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I signed up early for the beaver tail cherrywood liner lock and the jigged bone LL and I received the confirmation of the order. In the mean time I was able to acquire the two blade beaver tail with cherrywood without preorder but I never did get a notification or any kind of contact from the dealer. Then I saw on the bay several from one individual who jacked the price up almost immediately after release. And there were others that had some at hefty prices. I’ve completely lost interest in GEC knives and I won’t be doing any more business with those particular dealers for any brand. The scalpers and flippers are the dealers now selling on the bay and some here on the exchange. Not only that but I find it hard to pay those kinds of prices for 1095 steel blades, about the same price as some top name brand in premium stainless. That’s nuts! They make good knives but not that good.
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Their sales would indicate that quite a few people disagree with you on that.
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Popularity is not a sign of intelligent forethought. A fool and his money soon part and there’s plenty of them. The thing is I can get a much better knife steel that will out perform 1095 in just as good or better knife. I have four different knives in S30v, S35vn and 20cv that are far better and cost a little less than some of the 23s were selling for on the secondary market.
My point is, when dealers who know they will sell out in a short time on a hot item with many customers and then they dump them on market flippers buying all they can get, they are ruining the market knowing full well the price is going to rocket because the flippers have horded a large number of sought after knives. Why don’t they have a limit per customer? Surely they could realize their customer base will be loyal if treated fairly. Just like other companies that have gone under they forget about customer loyalty and go for the quick turn over.
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Not everything is about quality of steel. You can buy a box cutter for a few bucks that will out cut most knives. People that buy GECs and collect them do so for a quality that goes beyond utilitarian ideas like type of steel.
Obviously it's not your thing, which is fine. Once again though, their sales indicate that plenty of people do find them worth the money.
knifeswapper
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You are painting with pretty broad strokes here. Most dealers do have a limit on high demand items. I personally have several policies in place to throttle flipper activity. But if a flipper buys one from each dealer that still leaves them a pretty good hoard. Also, some of those you see selling multiples on eBay are dealers - not typical flippers. There are 3 or so dealers that have decided to go straight to eBay at double the DSR on popular knives. The consumer will generally, over time, take care of this issue.
As to grading the value of a knife by the steel composition - a top steel versus 1095 is maybe a $15 difference in the knife manufacturing cost. There are many that have different priorities when buying knives. Some like the idea of buying a knife made on 100 year old equipment; like a knife from 100 years ago; fully by artisan hand. Some like the look of a knife made nearly completely from cnc'd components. When the market dries up for traditionally built knives the factory will go broke. But until then, just think about the numbers. GEC can make 100 knives a day average. Some days more, but these days many less. They have 30+ employees. So, if they make a knife that you see on a dealer website for $100; let's say the dealer cost was $80. Now if you figure all the expenses except labor into that knife - let's call it $50 for materials, utilities, pension, etc. etc. That leaves the factory clearing $30 per knife times 100 knives; so $3000 per day by 30 employees is $100 per employee for an 8 hour shift ($12.50/hr) before taxes. They can make more Bullnose in a day; but the selling price is $55 - so there is nowhere near $30 profit there. There are $150 knives; but they make about 70/day.
Traditional makers have been making knives in ATS-34 for some time; but there are plenty of 1095 knives from the same era worth much more today than those made in better steels. We are talking about 3 decades ago. So, I don't think intelligent forethought is the determining factor of the value of a knife. Also, you can't really use GEC's secondary pricing on highly demanded knives versus super steel knives shelf price. There are sprint runs, etc. in great steels that go for crazy money as well. There are just different opinions; neither of which has been disproven over decades of knife nuts buying quality knives. But generally it seems to be a supply/demand issue - not a raw materials issue. If GEC went several millions in debt to build a new factory with new equipment and hired 100 more employees; they could produce more knives and the secondary market price would go down - for as long as the market didn't hiccup and bankrupt them.
It is a complicated algorithm; but if/when all people decide that traditionally made knives with traditional steel is not satisfactory - we will waive goodbye to our last couple quality traditional makers here in the U.S.
knifeswapper
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GEC finally got their 23's back thru the factory and they are now on several dealers websites. Hopefully you have picked up what you wanted now that they are sitting on dealer shelves.
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A 40% increase the same day as they hit the shelves is a bit of a hit. There were some that got the dealer shelf price at approx $110 on the beaver tail LL and then sold out check back later. That afternoon the bay had several priced at $146 and some more. If the dealers are going straight to the secondary market and bypassing their customer that put in an order that just ain’t right and I won’t give to that arm twist. Why even have a preorder if it isn’t honored?
knifeswapper
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You are referring to a scenario in which I am not speaking to. I know of no dealers taking reservations / pre-orders and then going straight to eBay. I am talking about dealers that never offer them directly to customers; but instead take them to eBay. I doubt the scenario in which you present in this last post exist. Sorry if I did not communicate that well.
But there are dealers that are bypassing traditional customers altogether and going straight to eBay once their factory order is filled. Some only have eBay stores; others have bypassed the flippers by become one.
It is a bummer to see those eBay dealers being the flippers. By careful searching and patience I found the #23's I wanted long after the release at or slightly above retail prices both from dealers and collectors who had second thoughts and kindly sold at retail plus shipping.
Ok, so, firstly, I hear you. I understand your frustration. GECs have been hot in the last year or two and there's no sign of that slowing down. Many people who buy GECs* do it because we're collectors, not because we absolutely need a new GEC because we have things we need to cut. Are their materials not near the top end of the market? Absolutely true. I have modern folding knives that I'm decently sure I could use to chop the blade on one of my GECs in half with little issue. However, in my personal opinion, that's not really the point of them. They are simply very well made traditional slipjoints, made of attractive materials, and so there is a huge following for them.
One thing to point out is that most of the runs for the past year have been small. Virtually all of the knives we've seen come out have been in runs of 200 or so of each scale material. So, the fact is, it's not an issue created by dealers, it's created by the fact that the collector's market, and yes, the scumbag scalper market are two HUGE groups, and they are all trying to get their hands one or more of those 200 knives of each drop. Ultimately, regardless of limits per customer (which most folks can get around anyway), that is the problem. GEC only makes so many, and that number is simply dwarfed by the demand. It's why they go for so much on secondary. As for customer loyalty, well I mean, GEC watches every knife they get into their dealers' hands vanish immediately. I would imagine that looks like pretty strong loyalty to them.
* Myself included
sf fanatic
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I’ve started wondering why there aren’t any faux GECs being dumped on EBay and elsewhere (Or are they?).
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If somebody out there can make a fake GEC at GEC quality levels they should probably just make their own brand of knives instead.
I think there needs to be a relatively significant quantity to justify the tooling costs to manufacture production knives. Even though our perception is that there is a large market for GECs, in reality it is a (relatively) small number of consumers pursuing an even small number of knives.
sf fanatic
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GPKs has the Redtail in stock.
