All small Beckers discontinued?!? YES!

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Plainsman

Joined
Apr 5, 1999
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I just spent a bunch of time searching for BK-11,13 and 14’s online and all three seem to be discontinued and out of stock!!!

Anybody know what Kabar is up to?

Thanks!
 
I contacted KA-BAR again to inquire why, and the response was, "Typically items are discontinued due to sales not meeting expectations."

I can't help to wonder why sales on the 11 and 14 in particular were not too good. Great little knives. I wonder if sales went down because the of the 16?
 
1066vik said:
I'm betting market saturation.
There are a LOT of 3" blades out there currently, and with everything else going on in the economy, streamlining makes sense.
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This is probably the heart of it. Honestly, most people that I talk to that are getting into knives are starting with a limited budget and are getting a lot of their info from shorts posted on social media. Kizer, ESEE, Boker, etc come up a lot, but the Karbar Becker line is not cranking out new models, so nobody is talking about them. I'd take a BK-11 in good old 1095 with me any day of the week, but I'm going to buy 1 (ok, maybe 2-3, because that's me) and it will last me for 25 year or so. When you've got the Izula in S35VN or Kizer Drop Bear fixed blades in the $40-50 range with scales, a new enthusiast is going to more likely gravitate toward cheaper or premium steel for just a little more out of pocket.
 
kabar doesn't seem to advertise very hard, except via email lists which someone needs to sign up to...

other companies SATURATE social media. a lot of people are going to probably buy a knife at a Wmart, or big box hardware store, they're not knife nuts cruising forums and juggling multiple vendors looking for things. maybe someday, but not now...

people aren't wanting to spend actual money on "quality" they don't know about. they want sharp enough, cheap enough.

box cutters are probably the big sellers...
 
I think Bladite's onto it.
Consumers chase newness. You can't exactly re-release the same model over and over just because it's a great design. Becker's had a really nice moment as Ka-Bar was taking over the line and tooling up for the old models again, but things have quite reasonably slowed down.

In that situation, you'd have to market the snot out of your existing lineup.
 
Plainsman said:
That’d be nice!

Has Ethan been busy designing?

Has anybody had contact with him recently? Hows he doing?
BTW, do I dare ask how old hes getting to be?

Thanks!
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Ethan is doing great. Just spent a week with him in Las Vegas. Best he has been doing in 3 or 4 years. He is living his best life. A lot of projects in the works. Only time models get discontinued is when sales become so poor it doesn't make sense (or money) to run them again. A few products are being phased out to make room for other models, but there is no ETA or additional information to be shared at this time (if you are reading between the lines, please don't spam our customer service with requests for more information)
 
OFFICIAL_KA-BAR said:
Ethan is doing great. Just spent a week with him in Las Vegas. Best he has been doing in 3 or 4 years. He is living his best life. A lot of projects in the works. Only time models get discontinued is when sales become so poor it doesn't make sense (or money) to run them again. A few products are being phased out to make room for other models, but there is no ETA or additional information to be shared at this time (if you are reading between the lines, please don't spam our customer service with requests for more information)
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Thanks for the update!!
 
That is sad to hear about the BK 11. That model was my first Becker knife and is really responsible in large part for getting me into Bushcraft related fixed blade outdoor knives. I remember at the time I received the 11 working at a bulk kitchen in which I would have to process hundreds and hundreds of pounds of pork chicken and beef to be smoked overnight for the person coming in the next morning.

Wish I still had the picture of the BK 11 sitting at top what looked like a mountain of meat... That little blade was absolute magic and made me enjoy my job so much more as I would sometimes be sitting there for hours just cutting and cutting. This is where I first learned in a real world application how much geometry matters beyond steel type. I was starting to get a little bit snobby into what I would carry but the fact that this somewhat soft 1095 blade that was ground pretty thin would just cut and cut and cut.

I'm glad Ethan is doing well thanks for the update. Not long after having the job I just described above I remember writing him just to tell him how much I enjoyed his designs and how useful they had been for me. He took time out of his day to not only hand write me a letter in reply but sent me a bunch of patches and some kind words to go along with it. I still wear a hat with one of the patches he gave me over 10 (15?) years ago.

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Unless they bring back the Saber Grind BK-16, IMHO the BK-18 is the most versatile Tweener.
 
Yes, very sad to hear.

Yet I completely understand. I walked into a big box store around the Holidays and saw 3.5", full tang, fixed blade, stainless steel, with a nice plastic/composite sheath. For $5 each. I bought the last 5 and when I got home, they all were hair popping sharp. That is a hard deal to pass up. I still have and love all my Beckers but it is nice to have some blades that you wouldn't be upset if you lost or broke one or leave in different go bags and not worry about rusting.

It obvious as the nose on our faces that most of the modern kids would rather have a video game controller in their hands rather than a good quality, USA made knife. That's just the facts. I'm 62 now and can still remember my first knife. It was a Case fisherman knife.
 
The super steel craze Andover saturation has caused a lot of good knives to be gone or at the least not be as popular. Glad I have 2 of each bk11 and 14’s in my rotation. Keep one on my turkey vest and will be rocking that in another month!
 
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