Actual cost of a sebenza?

lumpy grits said:
Do so-You won't be sorry.
BTW-my wife is from 'St. Mo', last name of Schofield. She is a decedent of Gen Schofield. A MOH recipient.
LG
Click to expand...

Small world! If she went to Lindbergh High School, it would be a real small world.
 
experimentjon said:
I have no experience in manufacturing or knifemaking, so I have no idea what these actually cost. And this is pure speculation.

But my best guess would be $80 for a large plain for an all-in shipped-to-the-dealer cost.

Materials: $15 (Ti, S30V, screws & other standard hardware, purchased in bulk)
Heat Treat/Stonewash/sandblast: $10 (done in batches)
Machine Time: $20 (including electricity, labor for waterjet and sharpening, clip bending, etc)
Manual Fitting: $20 (assume 1 person: 30 minutes, incl wage & benefits)
Factory Overhead: $10 (depreciation of machinery, spoilage/waste, facility rent, etc)
Packaging: $1
Warranty: $1 (the vast majority of knives, including the 8 I have owned, will have zero problems)
Shipping to dealer: $3 (done in bulk)

A large plain sells at retail for $410. Let's assume CRK sells to dealers for $300 (tight dealer margins of under 40%, but I've heard that's about where some of the margins might be.) So at $80 in all manufacturing costs, that leaves good space for margin for CRK. Between 3x to 4x markup to the dealer sounds about right for their knives. We aren't talking about manufacturing tech gadgets which often have slim margins--we're talking about a very basic knife design with two slabs of titanium and a sharp piece of S30V. That's not to lessen the quality of this knife (I love all of my CRKs). But I think people who are expecting that these cost a ton of money to make are off the mark because they're often working backwards from what they paid, which is not the right way to tackle this question. What CRK charges to the consumer and what it costs them to make are not necessarily connected for higher-end luxury objects. I'd actually be surprised if the cost was as high as $80 and would imagine that the process and scale has been refined sufficiently to drive costs down closer to $50.

Side note, I don't expect that the cost for a large plain and small plain would differ materially. The expense difference is minuscule for materials--less than $5.

From the gross profit, take out admin/accounting expenses, amortization of the initial design and CAD, marketing (they have great CS and I'm not counting this in the production cost; they've responded to emails and sent me a brochure, stickers, and replacement Umnumzaan orings for free), interest expense on any machinery or the factory if those were financed by commercial loans, taxes, and I'd expect a net margin that's more reasonable, perhaps in the 20% to 30% of sales range across their entire line.

Again, all of these are just guesses.
Click to expand...

thats pretty fair considering the knock offs are around 50-70 and 80-100 for some on that site. and they are getting so close its scary
 
I think your labor costs are way low and they leave out administration completely. Payroll includes payroll taxes, social security, health care costs, etc. Don't forget Insurance, advertising and promotion, and the people they keep on staff just to listen to us bitch and moan.
 
mrknife said:
thats pretty fair considering the knock offs are around 50-70 and 80-100 for some on that site. and they are getting so close its scary
Click to expand...

Not an apples-to-apples comparison I would say. The knock offs are made in countries with a far lower value of currency- Say, China, India, etc. Material costs for them are nothing close to what we pay in the US...Although, I doubt that they even use the right grade of Ti. I know that they don't use the same S30, S35 or insert your steel grade here version of steel. Often, cutting corners on such things as the silicon bronze swapped for ptfe (teflon is a trade name- doubt they are getting that fancy at all).
I have seen examples of whole assemblies of common high value, sought after items coming in for less than I could make 1-2 of the parts of the assembly.. Although, the same issues exist. Material properties. When 400 series copper was a requirement, it may not necessarily be what was received. Worst case scenario? BeCu. Beryllium Copper. Imagine spec'in a material for what you want to be food grade and getting something like BeCu. Hazardous stuff..I am not even allowed to machine on it because of it's properties...Probably not something you want around your food/drink...Anyway..I digress. Cert's can be provided to "prove" that this is the correct material, but in reality, you would need some material science lab to analyze the materials to have any degree of certainty.

There is alot of behind the scenes stuff that takes place in machine shops/ manufacturers that nobody even thinks of..In bulk...perhaps the numbers are close..but I am going to say that they are probably as much as 25% low in the estimation.
Cannot forget the tooling to cut these materials. As in knives..quality cutting tools cost ALOT. Think about it this way- Titanium is expensive..the tools to cut it are more expensive. Think about all the exotic materials like tool steels. The condition is the same for them all..They take expensive tools to machine them...cutting tools, and otherwise.

blah..I am droning on and on.
 
stjames said:
I think your labor costs are way low and they leave out administration completely. Payroll includes payroll taxes, social security, health care costs, etc. Don't forget Insurance, advertising and promotion, and the people they keep on staff just to listen to us bitch and moan.
Click to expand...

well the thing sorta advertises itself, the fans do a lot of the advertising for them.
 
Last edited:
I'd actually be surprised if the cost was as high as $80 and would imagine that the process and scale has been refined sufficiently to drive costs down closer to $50.
Click to expand...

This logic and these numbers look about right to me.
 
If you're looking for an apples to apples comparison, consider the Benchmade Skirmish at about $300 retail. In my experience, BM has tolerances that are just as good as CRK, materials are similar, and facing similar USA labor markets. BMs had historically sold for a street price at about 25% off MSRP. Therefore (again, with no firsthand knowledge) one would expect the dealer cost to be about 50% of MSRP (buy for $150, sell for $225). For the Skirmish to be a decent business proposition, it'd need gross margins of approx 50% of the selling price in order to leave enough to cover other operating costs...meaning it shouldn't cost BM more than about $75 to make.

Now, the Skirmish certainly has more machine time than the CRK plain Sebenza. Granted, BM probably has greater economies of scale and perhaps less personal hand-finishing work (although from their brochures, it seems like they put a lot of human love into their blue classes). But with that as a benchmark, you can put an rough upper bound on the manufacturing cost of the CRK unless BM was losing money on each and every Skirmish they sold...possible b/c ZT apparently did that with the original 777, but that's not a typical business decision. But based on that reasonableness-check comparison, I'd expect that my $80 estimate to be in the ballpark of what Sebenzas cost to build.
 
bedgoo said:
Good question OP. Never thought of it this way...
Click to expand...

Yea, ive been seeing all this great stuff about the sebenza, and I was just wondering before i consider pulling the trigger on it. It is a decent amount of money...
 
Someone I know who is a William Henry dealer, and they have set prices at MSRP just like crk. For most of those knives, he told me there is a 30-40% difference between what they are charged as dealers and the price they sell them. I imagine that crk would be about the same. That still doesn't fully answer the question of actual cost but it gets us a step closer:)
Things that crk uses and benchmade does not- such as the scale lapping machine- also drive up costs for him. We need to keep this in mind when we are calculating and comparing.
 
experimentjon said:
In my experience, BM has tolerances that are just as good as CRK,
Click to expand...

Really? I have handled a lot of REALLY nice Benchmade Knives and they were fantastic, but I'd not say that I have observed anything that would make me think their tolerances were near the order of those achieved by CRK.
 
unit said:
Really? I have handled a lot of REALLY nice Benchmade Knives and they were fantastic, but I'd not say that I have observed anything that would make me think their tolerances were near the order of those achieved by CRK.
Click to expand...


I very strongly agree, speaking as the owner of dozens of Benchmade knives. Another clue: look at the number of posts about Benchmade knives with various production "irregularities."
 
lumpy grits said:
It's easy to judge. TILL you work with Ti.
What Chris uses is the same Ti alloy used for jet engine blades.
I have machined tons of it-HATED IT!-LOL
LG
Click to expand...

I wonder if tensions with Russia will push up titanium prices...
 
mrknife said:
Yea, ive been seeing all this great stuff about the sebenza, and I was just wondering before i consider pulling the trigger on it. It is a decent amount of money...
Click to expand...

If you are wondering if they are worth the money rather than idle chat
Yes they are worth it and are very competitively priced to anything of similar quality(and some might say there is nothing of similar quality anywhere near CRK's pricing)-believe me I looked long and hard during one point in the recession and anything other than marginally cheaper was a large drop off in quality and materials. Buy one on the secondary market and the original owner will eat any profit there was in the price.
 
As far as a wholesale price, I'd guess that dealers pay 60-70% of the retail price. As far as Chris Reeve's production cost. I don't know. I hope he makes a bunch of money. I want the company to stay in business for a long time. Think how much we would have to pay on the secondary market for Sebenzas if those suckers were discontinued.
 
Peter Hartwig said:
If you are wondering if they are worth the money rather than idle chat
Yes they are worth it and are very competitively priced to anything of similar quality(and some might say there is nothing of similar quality anywhere near CRK's pricing)-believe me I looked long and hard during one point in the recession and anything other than marginally cheaper was a large drop off in quality and materials. Buy one on the secondary market and the original owner will eat any profit there was in the price.
Click to expand...

yeah i seriously am wondering, because dropping a few days pay on one knife is quite a big decision. im considering what i should buy as a gift to myself, after i pay off my school loans. Well and after the benchmade 707 sequel.
 
Like I said--;)
Be'n carry'n a Sebby for 14+ yrs.
BEST,, knife I have ever had, for EDC!!!!
Respectfully,
LG
 
lumpy grits said:
Like I said--;)
Be'n carry'n a Sebby for 14+ yrs.
BEST,, knife I have ever had, for EDC!!!!
Respectfully,
LG
Click to expand...

yeah? favorite knife? i mean the design is simple and functional. which makes it elegant. its the price tag that deters me thats all. plus i cant sharpen a knife well so id hate to have to deal with getting a butter knife like the other poster got.
 
mrknife said:
yeah? favorite knife? i mean the design is simple and functional. which makes it elegant. its the price tag that deters me thats all. plus i cant sharpen a knife well so id hate to have to deal with getting a butter knife like the other poster got.
Click to expand...

Good 'tools' are never cheap-Cheap 'tools' never save money.
Get a Spyderco Sharpmaster and be done with it-
LG
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top