In the end it is the market that determines what a production knife is worth. I would bet that most Sebenzas are sold at or near full price, and CRK is always backlogged to some extent so that would tell me that the market as a whole has determined the worth of a Sebenza to be somewhere above a $300 asking price. And this has been true for years so I guess Sebenzas must be worth what many hundreds of customers are paying! And don't tell me that they are all victims of the "hype"; if people drop $300 on a knife primarily due to the hype than they are not very intelligent, or have more money than sense, or just maybe there is something to the hype afterall.
And too many of you use the term "custom" as any product that is made by a knifemaker that will make a knife to order. Just because you buy a Tom Mayo knife does not make it a custom, unless it was spec'd by the initial purchase before it was made. When you purchase a Tom Mayo from Knifeart, or from Tom's website of inventory knives does that make them cutoms? Let's see, I can order a Sebbie with limited choices of blade material, grind, polish, and decoration. But no one calls a Sebbie a custom. Why is that?
So are we really comparing a Sebbie to "handmade" knives which are not necessarily customs? Sebbie blades are hand ground, polished, and handfitted. But then again they are not handmade. Why is that?
I think the point I am trying to make is that I perceive that Sebenzas fill a needed niche in the marketplace. They are unquestionably a high quality, precision instrument made by a small production house with the highest standards of craftsmanship and customer service. They are priced at the high end of production knives, but then people continue to demand the product year after year and pay the prices, so the evidence is that they are not overpriced. My main point, though, is that they do this at production volumes that far exceed the handmade knifemakers, day in and day out, and so enable a much larger audience to experience a supremely high quality knife at a fair price. The small knifemakers mentioned in previous posts may indeed make knives to even higher standards of "feel", customization, and value, and more power to those of you who are astute enough to find these makers and buy their products! But don't take away from what Chris Reeve has achieved on a production basis, and opened so many of our eyes to what real quality and ultimate value are all about!
And too many of you use the term "custom" as any product that is made by a knifemaker that will make a knife to order. Just because you buy a Tom Mayo knife does not make it a custom, unless it was spec'd by the initial purchase before it was made. When you purchase a Tom Mayo from Knifeart, or from Tom's website of inventory knives does that make them cutoms? Let's see, I can order a Sebbie with limited choices of blade material, grind, polish, and decoration. But no one calls a Sebbie a custom. Why is that?
So are we really comparing a Sebbie to "handmade" knives which are not necessarily customs? Sebbie blades are hand ground, polished, and handfitted. But then again they are not handmade. Why is that?
I think the point I am trying to make is that I perceive that Sebenzas fill a needed niche in the marketplace. They are unquestionably a high quality, precision instrument made by a small production house with the highest standards of craftsmanship and customer service. They are priced at the high end of production knives, but then people continue to demand the product year after year and pay the prices, so the evidence is that they are not overpriced. My main point, though, is that they do this at production volumes that far exceed the handmade knifemakers, day in and day out, and so enable a much larger audience to experience a supremely high quality knife at a fair price. The small knifemakers mentioned in previous posts may indeed make knives to even higher standards of "feel", customization, and value, and more power to those of you who are astute enough to find these makers and buy their products! But don't take away from what Chris Reeve has achieved on a production basis, and opened so many of our eyes to what real quality and ultimate value are all about!