Custom Knifemaker Lee Williams' Anti-"Flipper" (Immediate Reseller) Stance

I could see how the maker would find it distasteful for a flipper to flip the knife right in front of him. And I could see how knife collectors would abhor flippers who prevent them from obtaining knives at prices that would otherwise be much lower. However, if there was no prior agreement that the buyer would not resell the knife, I say no harm, no foul.

The value of any item is exactly the amount that a willing buyer agrees to pay for said item. When a piece of property (knife, car, bottle of bourbon, painting, gun, etc.) is immediately flipped on the secondary market, that is de facto proof that the maker sold the item at a price below its market value.

If makers do not want to see flippers reselling their product, they must price their products at market value, which can sometimes be difficult to do. The surefire way is to only sell product via auction.
 
vanadium said:
Some dealers actually sell knives at the maker's table price, and are buying the knives at below table price because they have a relationship with the maker. Some makers find this worthwhile because the dealer handles customs duties, chargebacks, returns, fraud and all the other garbage no one likes. That's a mutually beneficial system, which is sometimes easy to distinguish from the flippers — but you can always ask the maker if you're not sure.
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I don't really see that that's different, though. Same mechanism - dealer has an opportunity to buy knives below market cost and then sells them at a markup. That's... how retail works. Only difference is that because the dealer was able to acquire below table price, the markup still lets them sell for a profit at less than market price, which they are willing to do in order to move product faster.
 
madcap_magician said:
I still don't really understand this. At one end most people feel (as do I) that turning around at a lottery table and scalping the knife you just won at a huge markup to a guy right in front of the maker and lottery table is pretty scummy.

But on the other end, all of the arguments for why it's scummy apply equally to any act of selling at a markup, which is what dealers do and how the economy functions. I mean, literally. Arizona Custom Knives, Steel Addiction, BladeArt, and all of the custom knife dealers literally go to shows and buy knives to immediately resell.

I think the best way for a maker to avoid this situation is to do a combination of auctions and lotteries. The auctions will set market prices. The lotteries are an opportunity to get your knives into the hands of dedicated collectors. But if is important for you to sell some knives below market rate without having them scalped, you serialize your knives, only take lottery entries with real names, and ban anyone whose purchased knives show up for resale from participating in future lotteries.
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It's really quite different. Dealers support this hobby, they have to. They take risks by having stock at all times. Their prices are much more tightly controlled by various factors than surge demand for a single piece because of that risk and because they need repeat customers, have to maintain a working relationship with makers and have a lot of long established competition for the dollars. Dealers are long term investors in the knife game and a healthy market is best for them and most act accordingly.

Flippers are dilettantes. Their risk is minimal as they don't maintain stock, but they have an outsized effect of the state of the secondary market. They are picking situations where competition is very minimal and they don't look for repeat customers, so there are no controls on their greed. That's not at all similar to any other segment of the knife market and it leads to unsustainable inflation that can absolutely come back and really hurt makers when the bubble pops on their knives.
 
I feel it’s just a rotten thing to do (flip). Especially in this situation with a custom maker and his work.

Death to all flippers.
 
I bought a pen knife at an estate sale for a dollar and sold it for $20. The guy who bought it from me will try to sell it for more. So am I a flipper, a hustler, or an investor? I've sold several discontinued production knives at a handsome profit when I found out how much they were worth. I didn't buy them just to resell them, but I did take advantage of the opportunity. My question is, where is the point that this business becomes tasteless behavior? Conducting the resale in front of the original seller is obviously gauche. Doubling your money a year later seems like a good investment.
 
While I am sure he wishes all buyers love the knife and keep it forever, I am sure he doesn't expect it. The problem I see lies in simple rudeness. Instead of thanking him and expressing admiration for his work and the great deal you got, you flip it for a profit right in his face-the one not even looking at the knife. The maker could have sold the knife himself at the inflated price, but chose to offer it up at a deal to his followers. This gesture was returned by greed. Seems to not be uncommon at the shows, but very poor behavior IMO.
 
As long as you have people that belong to the “more dollars than sense club” you’ll never get rid of “flippers”.

Meaning as long as people are willing to pay over retail for an item, somebody will sell it to him over retail. You can never get rid of human greed.

The only thing we can do as a community is shun not only the seller but the buyer as well. If you know how someone acquired a knife and see it for sale again (no matter what the price) don’t buy from them.

The only other way to permanently get rid of “flippers” is for the maker to “out price” the “flipper”. Unfortunately that will also out price a lot of us in the market as well.

Flipping will never go away because human greed will never go away, coupled with the fact that somebody else always has more disposable income to spend on knives. Like the old saying, there is always someone bigger and badder than you.

Unfortunately I don’t ever see this changing.
 
I'm not saying any of us have to like flippers, but the economic reality is that anytime a maker sells an item at a price point below its market value, it creates a situation where reselling at a profit is strongly incentivized. I cannot begrudge any market participant acting in their own rational self-interest, as long as each party to the transaction is a willing participant.
 
Regardless of the morality involved, I will just say that I find the practices described distasteful. I heartily applaud this maker for taking a public stand, and if people who choose to act in this distasteful manner continue to do so, then others will continue to judge them for it.
 
I could care less if you stash your custom blade in a safe, sell it off, or hammer it into a board.... It's none of my business.
Nor is it anyone's business what I do with mine.
Once I buy it, it's mine. Period.
 
Jesus, he never even picked it up and sold it right in front of the guy, FFS.
I know it all happened pretty quickly, but in hindsight he should have rescinded the lottery winners win.
He effectively never even took possession of the product.
What an unreal amount of arrogance and total lack of consideration.
Not to mention the other guy, hovering and making an offer right there, too.
Flipper should be outed and never allowed through the doors of a knife show again.
At least I hope other knife makers get word of who he is and give him an immediate upcharge whenever he tries to purchase one of their knives.
 
Bad Ninja said:
I could care less if you stash your custom blade in a safe, sell it off, or hammer it into a board.... It's none of my business.
Nor is it anyone's business what I do with mine.
Once I buy it, it's mine. Period.
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That is certainly the case under the law currently but it doesn't have to be. Other makers of high-end goods (like cars for example) sometimes restrict the sale of their goods in the aftermarket.

Nor is it widely agreed that this is the case morally, as you can see.
 
If people would stop paying the exorbitant prices, there wouldn’t be nearly as many flippers. They do it to make as much profit as possible, with little to no legwork. If we could take that away from them their strategy would fall flat. Easier said than done of course, but that’s always been my stance.

It is good to see that a maker is taking up arms against the rampant flipping for the sake of his customers. It’s a sign that they see what’s going on after the knife leaves their hands, and that they actually care.
 
The only real solution is for to Lee to fill the demand for his knives so that there is no flipper's profit.
Otherwise they will always be there to scavenge product for resale only, not caring if it's a turd or a gold ring, just so they can make a fast profit.

Being so flagrant about their actions and doing it in front of him only shows they have no concience, and no respect for his wishes to distribute
his art and craft equally to all who love it, without respect to how deep their pockets are.
 
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