#35 Beer and Sausage Bar Tool Knife

knifeswapper said:
GEC is going to work on knives 5 days a week, regardless of the pattern. It is much easier to work on the same pattern for months than to change it up after 1000 knives. Thus, if everything else was equal, they would not make shorter runs simply for their own benefit. They have been accused of limiting production to froth up the market for years. I don't understand it all; and frankly have stopped even trying.
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I think there is simply a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to what it takes to run a business, particularly a cutlery manufacturer. The masses want a knife, they want it now, and they want it their way (I'm generalizing, of course). If GEC upped their output, then the small batch nature of their production runs might lose its luster. GEC knives are hot right now, they have been for some time and will continue to be so as long as they keep doing what they do best. I, for one, appreciate that they do not let their business practices be influenced by the contrary opinions of those who want them to do things differently, for one reason or another.
 
knifeswapper said:
I think every person needs to be in a position before they can start speculating as to the reasons for actions. It is easy to speculate; it is very difficult to have to make the 250 decisions that has to be made on every particular run. For example, early on in conversation with GEC they were thinking about just making one handle material on the B&S. But were very concerned due to its "uniqueness" that it may be a dog. And if your pattern limits your audience; what is the intelligent thing to do? Make more variations for the subset of the crowd that would want it. Now they know, BRRT is a hit.

GEC is going to work on knives 5 days a week, regardless of the pattern. It is much easier to work on the same pattern for months than to change it up after 1000 knives. Thus, if everything else was equal, they would not make shorter runs simply for their own benefit. They have been accused of limiting production to froth up the market for years. I don't understand it all; and frankly have stopped even trying.
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I don't believe for a second that they are limiting production to affect sales. They have just become way more popular because of their excellent execution and production standards, and design elements. They are limited in the scale of production by the very way that they build their knives, hands on and many steps to the process. Again, this is what is endearing to their products. They have garnered a corner of a niche market and excelled at producing knives that are loved and admired far and wide, yet they remain a relatively small company in hands on deck and production capabilities.

From my recent searches of various vendors I have visited, a lot of them have listings still up, many listings and many patterns, with no stock available, IE empty shelves. I've also seen a dealer or two that used to specialize in GEC's gone by the wayside. It will be interesting for me to watch and see how they cope with the current conundrum. Will they just keep banging away what they can and producing in numbers that they have capacity for, will they try to expand production numbers in a volatile market? With no future SFO's will they do bigger runs to accommodate their distributors? It will be fun to watch how this episode of their career unfolds.
 
I believe that we tend to over analyze GEC and Bill Howard. One of my friends asked him why he ended the SFO’s. His answer was that he no longer wanted to make knives according to other people’s wishes. He wanted to make the knives that he wants to make, exactly how he wants to make them. I believe it is as simple as that. Bill Howard has reached the point in his life, and in the life of his company, where he has the freedom to make the knives that he wants to make. I am not going to second guess him. I am just going to enjoy it while it lasts.

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Some good comments here... theres many different ways to run a business and the owner should have the right to run it however he wants. Its good to have multiple companies making quality knives following different business models. Hopefully the quality of gec encourages some of these other companies to step it up.
 
Has anyone actually confirmed how many of each cover they are making of these? I became overwhelmed trying to search 57 pages of posts :confused: to find an answer.
 
Leslie Tomville said:
I believe that we tend to over analyze GEC and Bill Howard.
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Preach!!
"I don't think they intended for 62 pocket carver to be a carving knife. "
Ah, yes they did. Even interviewed carvers to design it.
"I don't think they named it a beard comb and intended it to be a beard comb"
Ah, yes they did.

Bill Howard is straight forward and direct. Just wants to make the knives he wants to make. I have also heard that exact sentiment from another person around Bill.
 
I completely forgot about the ebony drop tonight...good news is I have a bone on reserve, so I’ll be content with one. I’ll post pics once it comes in after vacation :)
 
knifeswapper said:
They do sell directly to eBay - which is perfectly fine in either instance. But they generally bump the knife to cover fees, etc. plus maybe a bit more margin. But not the auctions I referenced. - * I retract this paragraph as I see both sellers are more than doubling the retail price *

A dealer can sell knives however they want. I run auctions from time to time with past runs in which there were some "S" models that showed up later or a couple SFO knives had to go back thru and didn't get back to me until way later. Sometimes I also get late personal preference returns or even buy collections if customers change directions (or simply give up the hobby). Always start at $1, no reserve.

The factory has a "minimum" price policy; but no "maximum" price policy - so everything is fair game. I will refrain from offering my opinion (again) on the matter; as these are peers and I wish them all the luck in accomplishing their objectives.

Eventually the secondary market will draw more and more folks to take advantage of the market price. And, to be blunt, when you go thru what dealers go thru trying to allocate them fairly just so a subset can instantly put them on eBay - it is disheartening. Problem is that this is at least partly to blame for the stigma we are all currently feeling about the "lolly scramble". Personally I would rather the factory just list a maximum selling price for dealers. It probably wouldn't fix the flipper problem; but it would fix some of the perceptions.

To answer the question: I think GEC started shipping the bone Friday (at least that was when me shipment left); so it would surprise me if anyone not local to the Titusville area had one in hand yet. But stranger things have happened.
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Id just like to say thank you for running a great website. Ive bought a couple things from collectorknives and shipping and the product have all been great. I will be buying through you from now on :) /asskissing over
 
Jiki said:
It's Kincaid Brothers, they are an Ebay only dealer.
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there is another GEC “dealer” that does this too. I’ve talked about it in GBU GEC thread.
Amazing that the company doesn’t stop this.
 
Mass1632 said:
These seem like nice knives but they made them impossible to get. I dont understand why gec would make such a small quantity.
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It's a small company. It's as simple as that.

Leslie Tomville said:
I believe that we tend to over analyze GEC and Bill Howard. One of my friends asked him why he ended the SFO’s. His answer was that he no longer wanted to make knives according to other people’s wishes. He wanted to make the knives that he wants to make, exactly how he wants to make them. I believe it is as simple as that. Bill Howard has reached the point in his life, and in the life of his company, where he has the freedom to make the knives that he wants to make. I am not going to second guess him. I am just going to enjoy it while it lasts.

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This is also what he told me. We're gonna get some cool stuff. I'm still sad that SFOs are out, and hope to see them back. But I don't doubt they'll still be making great knives.
 
It’s an unusual situation where people are allowed to openly praise Collector Knives, but anyone who disagrees and who has had a (very) different experience gets told to go post in whine and cheese! So I guess that means I have to bite my tongue.

Anyway I will say that this is a forum where we get to express views, and I am happy to not agree that this situation is as rosy as others (who may have vested interests) make it out to be. There are a bunch of happenings in the last few years that aren’t positive, and I think this knife is one of them. I don’t agree that the knife is a hit, and remain a bit sad about how things are currently going.
 
Camillus said:
It’s an unusual situation where people are allowed to openly praise Collector Knives, but anyone who disagrees and who has had a (very) different experience gets told to go post in whine and cheese! So I guess that means I have to bite my tongue.

Anyway I will say that this is a forum where we get to express views, and I am happy to not agree that this situation is as rosy as others (who may have vested interests) make it out to be. There are a bunch of happenings in the last few years that aren’t positive, and I think this knife is one of them. I don’t agree that the knife is a hit, and remain a bit sad about how things are currently going.
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People have a very strong tendency to defend their confirmation bias , and when someone has had a different experience/opinion, they cannot clearly comprehend that whatever they perceive as status quo may not be true to others experience. It's part of the tribe/ hive mind nature of how humans in groups behave/think...
 
sitflyer said:
People have a very strong tendency to defend their confirmation bias , and when someone has had a different experience/opinion, they cannot clearly comprehend that whatever they perceive as status quo may not be true to others experience. It's part of the tribe/ hive mind nature of how humans in groups behave/think...
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Uhhh... I just bought a knife and it arrived fast that’s about where it ends.
 
Camillus said:
It’s an unusual situation where people are allowed to openly praise Collector Knives, but anyone who disagrees and who has had a (very) different experience gets told to go post in whine and cheese! So I guess that means I have to bite my tongue.

Anyway I will say that this is a forum where we get to express views, and I am happy to not agree that this situation is as rosy as others (who may have vested interests) make it out to be. There are a bunch of happenings in the last few years that aren’t positive, and I think this knife is one of them. I don’t agree that the knife is a hit, and remain a bit sad about how things are currently going.
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You should actually post about buying knives in the GBU sub.
 
Camillus said:
It’s an unusual situation where people are allowed to openly praise Collector Knives, but anyone who disagrees and who has had a (very) different experience gets told to go post in whine and cheese! So I guess that means I have to bite my tongue.

Anyway I will say that this is a forum where we get to express views, and I am happy to not agree that this situation is as rosy as others (who may have vested interests) make it out to be. There are a bunch of happenings in the last few years that aren’t positive, and I think this knife is one of them. I don’t agree that the knife is a hit, and remain a bit sad about how things are currently going.
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Why are you sad about the beer and sausage knife? Because it’s a weirder design? Because of the insane resale value? Or the low stock weve been seeing making it hard to even get at a normal price?
 
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