CPK: Carothers Performance Knives Purchasing Ethos, Methods & Protocols:

I am not affiliated with Carothers Performance Knives but by popular demand I took it upon myself to compose this thread to present a compilation of how-to procedures and information when it comes to purchasing Carothers Performance Knives. I am merely a long time dweller on here and as a customer / buyer of various CPK patterns for almost the last 2 years, I have gained some experiences which may be beneficial to pass along to the newer comers. I hope that Nathan permits this thread to remain and to feel free to correct, add and alter as he sees fit and as his business / sales & marketing methods / policies change and progress over time:

Where to buy:

1- Here on the Blade Forums: Nathan makes an announcement about an upcoming sale on the first page of this thread which is titled "THE NEXT SALE":

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/the-next-sale.1405869/

CPK offers sales only on pre announced Fridays. Nathan usually composes a sales thread on the morning of that Friday's sale (his time in the Eastern Time Zone of the U.S) which will allow ample time for the participants and those who chase his knives to read about details such as technical, stats, pricing and payment information in addition to the number of units available for sale on that Friday. That sales thread will be locked until 3:00 PM Eastern U.S. Time when Nathan unlocks the sales thread and the knives will be sold in the order of: "First Come, First Served". Please note that CPK knives sell extremely fast and the successful claimants normally warp up the top winning spots in less than 10-15 seconds. The following link is a more recent sample at the time of composing this thread:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads...reat-optimized-cpm-4v-light-choppers.1524896/

At times, Nathan also decides to offer his pre announced Fridays sales in the fixed blade section of the Knife Makers Forum (you must pay close attention to The Next Sale thread to find out as to exactly where he decides to hold his upcoming sales) here:

https://www.bladeforums.com/forums/for-sale-fixed-blades.754/

and this link below is a sample of such a sale held on that side of the forums:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/10-small-3v-edc-knives-micarta-g10.1506575/

In addition to buying directly from CPK here on the Blade Forums, Nathan's knives also show up albeit rarely on the Wanted to Buy / Sell / Trade thread here on the CPK's own subform:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/the-cpk-buy-sell-and-trade-thread-open-to-everybody.1454027/

Or some private owners may decide to list their CPKs either on the individual fixed blades for sale:

https://www.bladeforums.com/forums/for-sale-fixed-blades-individual.891/

Or alternatively in the custom fixed blades, because Nathan's CPK patterns are at the very considered as semi-custom knives:

https://www.bladeforums.com/forums/for-sale-custom-knives-individual.748/

2- Yearly Blade Shows in Atlanta, GA: The CPK team usually announced their attendance at the annual Blade Show a couple of months before the scheduled show both here on their subform and also here on their official and open access Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/CarothersKnives/

They usually announce the number of knives and the array of patterns which they will be presenting for sale at Blade. Again, because of the limited quantities and the very high demand, Nathan and Jo sell out their entire table quite fast.

3- Fort Henry Knives which is currently the only dealer that receives knives from CPK also receives some knives although very infrequently from Nathan. You may wish to look up Fort Henry and then subscribe to their email notification service. You can find Nathan Carothers Knives categorized under their semi-custom knives categories.

How to buy:

As stated somewhere above, the CPK's preferred selling system is predicated on FCFS. The sales are exhilaratingly fast and they work up your heart rates

Once the sales thread unlocks you must enter your claim* and then hit enter, hoping that you will fall within the winners hierarchy depending on the number of offered units.

*some people enter jargon such as "ABC", some enter something like, "I'll take one". All forms of entries which suit this loosely family oriented subform is currently accepted by the CPK bosses. Winners who just enter nonsense to secure a place or those who just enter the tersest of sentences usually go back and edit their winning posts to bear the information pertaining to the knife or knives which they want. Editing of such posts is also accepted. Unless specifically stated otherwise by Nathan, there is no limit you can claim within reason while supplies last (meaning more than one unit but no one has been greedy so far to claim 3 units on any given sale unless it's a preorder sale* - so please be respectful to others if you are one of the lucky winners). This means that unless he states limit of one per person, you are allowed to claim multiple units, if you wish to have two to use or give one away as a gift to your mother-in-law!

*Preorders: from time to time depending on the perceived popularity of a certain pattern, Nathan may very reluctantly decide to offer a preorder list for those who are not keyboard ninjas or those with slower Internet connections or those who are just too tied up to attend a Friday's sale, sharp at 3:00 PM Eastern! Again depending on the demand, Nathan may decide to run such a preorder for the entire weekend but again this is FCFS (first come, first served) which means that if you are at the very bottom of the preorder list, you may get your order fulfilled several months after the first winner on that preorder thread has already received and is using his preordered knife(ves). Full payment for preorders will be required a few days or so after the preorder list closes and you will have to pay Jo when she invoices you for your knife or knives so please be prompt and diligent with responding to Mrs. Jo Carothers. Below is an example of the most recent preorder list:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/closed-edc2-pre-order.1517569/

Proxy buyers: if you can not attend a certain sale but have enough track record here on the subforum, another forum member may volunteer to proxy bid for you on a said Friday's sale. Some folks also just bid to test their speed skills and then if in the winners' circle may decide to relinquish their spot to another forumite or just relinquish altogether to the next person down the list. All of these practices are currently tolerated and are acceptable but a proxy bid can NOT be for more than one unit per post. Also once the proxy bidder assigns his claim to someone else, the onus is on that lucky person to be willing and able to commit to his/her purchasing obligations. Needless to say that those who establish forum and community capital on the CPK subforum will find it easier to network with a proxy buyer before hand and in advance.

As far as I know, Nathan and Jo accept the following forms of payment: PayPal, Cash, Cashiers Check, Money Order and Check. Jo arranges the shipment and fulfills shipping and she ships both to the U.S. and also International destinations. The current domestic shipping charge is a flat $10 surcharge and the Intl. shipping surcharges are actual shipping fees depending on your destination. International buyers are liable to know their own import and excise laws / rules plus paying for any and all import taxes.

Don't let the looong essay type of post which I have presented here discourage you if you are a newbie potential / prospective buyer. It is a lot of fun to hang around on this subform as it is populated with great community members and IMHO very well worth the effort. Good luck

 

^ Nathan if you see fit to use some of that information to custom make your own "How to" thread to sticky, please do so and then either one of us can shut this one down.

 

Glad I didn't scare you off, so far anyway

 

^ very true to you both. I'm on it

 

Thank you @xxwarderxx & @PharetH. Addendum and corrections made

 

Thank you Adam.

@JustinFournier used to be the original official / unofficial AKA the OG around here but he ...

OK, see explanation right below:

 

You’re too late Bob. We have already made a bunch of corrections but thank you for waking up for this overview

 

I was actually going to mention that too but I think that what I wrote in the OP is too long as it is and if Nathan wishes to just summarize the most important elements of buying directly from CPK itself, a lot of that other stuff and links with regards to buying from third parties is just redundant and ought to be self evident unless someone is a complete NOOB to the knife world and someone who just may have happened to hear about Carothers Performance Knives through some grapevine. The most important and crucial point to stress would be to pin one's eyes and ears to the first post in the NEXT SALE thread! But yes, thank you for also mentioning his one-off announced fun-Friday sale or his totally evil move of none announced Easter egg type of sale

Thank you Tony and yes you are correct. Again for the sake of brevity (LOL!) I tried to not expand too much into the intricacies of proxying so to not make things even more confusing for a total newbie. I think for those who tend to hang around this joint, to pick up on the rules and the ways is actually not that difficult of a feat.