Are the flippers / scalpers going to ruin the the fun?

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BITEME

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Just been buying a lot of Civivi & cjrb knives as of late,why? because it is very tough and time consuming to keep pace with all the sprint runs,my thought is that I have basically lost interest in Spyderco and even benchmade knives, I still buy them if I get lucky and I got the cash at the time,but flippers are killing the fun and I am not sure how much the manufacturer really cares,what can be done?are the flippers going to ruin things for Spyderco, Benchmade, Kershaw ?
 
Make it less profitable for them by not patronizing them. When the profit motive goes away, so will they.

The manufacturers and vendors have little control...and many vendors throttle the number of knives that a customer can order, but as with anything else, there are many clever little ways that these miscreants knuckleheads can do an end run around the barriers the vendors attempt to impose.

I agree that chasing limited editions and exclusives can be wearing...so sometimes you just have to be willing to bite the bullet or pull up stakes and move on. Exclusives and sprints aren't the only game in town...and if you are not willing to pay inflated prices, (I'm not, personally), then don't feed the greed.
 
Even "normal" knives like the malibu, shaman, list goes on.

I'm a hoarder so I really have to draw a line for myself so I dont overspend (one reason I dont have a sebenza). I think good quality cheap items are good for the market, it's a wake up call for industry stalwarts to change and compete; which ultimately benefits consumers.

That shaman sprint run killed it for me; too stressful, too many stress pimples, too many scalpers.
 
When it comes to sprints, I subscribed to RamZar to stay in the loop and when I see something I want, I just email a local salesman and he creates a pre-order for me. After that I just wait. Nothing to do, nothing to stress about.
Exclusives are different in this way, and if I miss out, that is fine. I have plenty of good stuff already.
 
I only get interested in sprints and exclusives when they truly offer something special. I am not going to buy it simply because it is a sprint or exclusive or because it uses a particular steel unless I have a specific reason to want that knife in the steel. I would mention the Smooth Smock as an example of a knife offering something special as smooth handles for CF or G10 is exceptionally rare with Spyderco and I personally do not like the texture of their normal G10 and CF.
 
I'm new to enthusiast knives so forgive the ignorance, are these exclusives just color/material variations on production knives or actually limited run models?
 
They might have some models that are run in limited batches and not part of regular production but more often it is material and color variants of production models.
 
Not at all, there’s always fun going on the hunt for what you missed out on. Sometimes it takes several months to find one at a reasonable price, but they do come up. By then, you may be over it and not care if you get it. If that’s the case, it only proves how caught up we get in the exclusives that we know are going to be sold out in a heartbeat and cringe when the low life scalpers put them up for sale.
Ideally, the secondary market buyer should dictate the price by refusing to pay stupidly high prices, then the scalpers don’t have a choice other than drop prices. But we all know that won’t happen.
 
Off topic posts related to confusion about "flippers" moved from thread for the sake of clarity. Thread title edited.
 
As long as there are buyers on the forum that buy knives with inflated prices, it will become even more prevalent. Some even buy knives without any photos posted in a thread, from sellers with no feedback, and very few posts. As long as there's a market for them, we'll see even more of this.
 
I too, have this frustration sometimes. And I do think that sometimes the manufacturer is to blame. I thought this recently with a special limited model by spyderco. I think it was called the bombshell or something. Spyderco straight up said they aritificially limited the run and would destroy the design documents afterwards. That's just salt in the wounds man. I mean, it's one thing if you can't meet with an inflated demand or choose not to expand your production capacity for what might be a temporary hype. But doing it on purpose, at the expense of your regular, loyal customers? That's ugly.
 
BITEME said:
are the flippers going to ruin things for Spyderco, Benchmade, Kershaw ?
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Have you thought about how guys like you who collect and hoard knives ruin it for the rest of us? I won't buy collectibles because guys like you drive my cost up. Every coin has 2 sides.
 
Mossyhorn said:
As long as there are buyers on the forum that buy knives with inflated prices, it will become even more prevalent. Some even buy knives without any photos posted in a thread, from sellers with no feedback, and very few posts. As long as there's a market for them, we'll see even more of this.
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Yep , let the fan boys, get scalped while chasing the dragons tail on newest and latest fade, I don’t mind being dated in my profile of steel
I collect vintage gerber 440c ,cruwear, D2 trapper style, some spyderco work knives, no flip flop knives
 
It hasn't ruined my fun in the hobby, but those particular knives are no longer fun for me. When a $200 knife becomes a $400 knife just because of scarcity, I begin to think of the opportunity cost of owning that knife vs. other knives that I want more that are actually worth the higher price.

However I don't think it's the resellers' fault, but those willing to pay inflated prices. I'm no flipper, but I have no problem with someone selling something for a profit if people are paying more for it than it is worth to them. That being said, scooping up knives with the sole purpose of flipping them is a D move and a disservice to the hobby IMO. It could be solved, however, if the companies releasing these knives would simply commit to doing future runs of sold out knives to supply the demand. Anyhow, it's a game I've lost interest in playing.
 
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Honestly, the flippers have kind of turned me off GEC knives lately. I used to follow the brand and get excited about new releases, and now its really hard to summon up excitement when I know they will be sold out everywhere 5 minutes after release and yet turn up in the marketplace at double the price.
 
This is the only reason I never got into GEC. The secondary market on them is insane. It's also why I don't attention to high-end production and custom "hype knives" because I know I'll never get one unless I write a bot to snag one from a drop or pay crazy secondary prices on them. For the time being I'm perfectly happy with my normal production knives.
 
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