Custom prices?

M

moohbear

Joined
Aug 1, 2007
Messages
7
I've been looking at various websites selling custom knives. Although a lot of those knives sell for more than a grand, there's also quite a lot of items going for less than $500. That got me thinking about the value of a custom knife. I really have no idea of the materials bill for it, but I guess it can't be that much. However, a man has to live from his craft and $500, minus the materials bill and the reseller's commision, that doesn't leave much for the maker. Seems to me that one can hardly make a living with that kind of price. One would need to make and sell at least 60-70 knives a year to make it marginally worthwhile.
Anyway, my question is: how long does it take to make a custom knife? Or, how much a knifemaker is really making out of a sold piece (factoring the time needed to craft it)?
 
Your in Toronto eh

So if you want the answer from a few makers around here. Show up to Tuesday night Coffee breaks at George's shop. 905 670 0200

take care

aj
 
just depends on the knife and the 'smith.

some 'smiths only do knives part time, or as a hobby.
 
I've got to agree that SOME makers overcharge by a lot. If you're looking for a value, take a look at RJ Martin, Allen Elishewitz, and Mike Obehauf. You can't go wrong......
I'd love to start a thread about overcharging knifemakers, but that would start a monstrous flame war.
 
Darrel Ralph is charging $46,000 for a fancy short sword that took him 8 months to build. I think that's reasonable! IMO, Darrel Ralph also does great worth with fair prices. As does Rick Hinderer, and many others.
SO.... let's do the reverse math. SO....If DDR makes 12 knives a month, he should be charging about $500 per knife.
 
I recently acquired a Custom for $325. Less than some of my factory folders. With this knife I have sole-authorship. Crawford Knives.
Lycosa
 
I bought several customs. Found some to be awful and had functional issues needing repair. I eventually stopped and just go after good production knives. I bought a great looking alrge folder for big bucks, waited long time. Finally it came. I flicked it a few times and it broke. More time repaired and guy said no more flicking it and reinforced it so I could get away with it a little anyway and I sold it. Then I got a crawford custom and it is great still have it. The customs are good for appreciation in value, sometimes which also applies to some production knives. I do believe in Randalls and not sure if they are true custom knives or not but they are awfu good and hold value quite well.
It is hard for anyone on the commercial side of knives to make a decent buck on or with production knives so bear that in mind when reading posts.
 
there's a thread somewhere of a maker kicking out a nice looking knife in an hour. You can catch posts now and then of some of the guys working on a couple dozen a day, going through the steps in batches. It depends on the equipment and the embellishment, plus other points of contention.

But high prices really don't have anything to do with the nuts and bolts of the process. The expensive stuff is sold on name. Famous artists in other mediums don't do cost based pricing, art knives are the same.
 
Walking Man said:
...Darrel Ralph is charging $46,000 for a fancy short sword that took him 8 months to build. I think that's reasonable!...
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Reasonable? ;)

I have handled that sword many times. I have yet to see a photograph - even one of Coop's - that did justice to it.

IMHO, it is underpriced.
 
My question wasn't really about under/over-pricing of custom knives, but more about the "wage" one would get from a given knife. Let's take an example: somebody making a frame lock folder similar to a sebenza and putting a $500 tag on it. How much time is needed to craft it? That would give me an idea of the value of the craft, something comparable to other professions.
 
Take Rick Hinderer for instance. He makes EVERYTHING on his knives; I mean he makes the all the hardware etc. You are paying for their time and efforts, and skill. I have many custom knives, and they are worth every penny and then some.
 
if the thing is handmade (ie no CNC/etc) i dont see how ya could make too many a month, i dont think any of the smiths are getting rich on selling knives alone, the big $$ comes when say BM or spyderco produce one of your knives/ya design for them.

or, like ernie emerson ya open your own production company.

some good smiths at reasonable prices include pat crawford, darrell ralph (my mini maxx exhibits as good a F&F as anything i have ever seen), ernest emerson (if ya buy from him not the secondary market then the prices double or even triple), bud nealy (the very best concealment fixed blades and sheaths around imho), bob terzuola, allen elishiwitz.
 
moohbear said:
My question wasn't really about under/over-pricing of custom knives, but more about the "wage" one would get from a given knife. Let's take an example: somebody making a frame lock folder similar to a sebenza and putting a $500 tag on it. How much time is needed to craft it? That would give me an idea of the value of the craft, something comparable to other professions.
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Even that depends on many variables. A maker who does a lot of CNC work and outsources a lot of the cutting of his parts could probably put it together about as long as it would take me to put together a basic kit knife (I've never done before, I think I could get it done in one day). What tools does the maker have, how experienced is he? What steel is he using? etc. etc. Does he already have patterns ready to go.
 
I'd say a knife like the Sebenza (the standard one) has about $10 in parts or materials cost and the rest of its cost is labor and overhead. I would also say that a knifemaker would have to clear about $100/hourto make any kind of a decent living. The length of time to make a folder depends on the skill of the maker and what type of knife is being made. If that $500 custom takes more than a couple hours to make, that knifemaker may have trouble paying his/her bills.
 
I think a lot knifemakers go by the hour at first. They decide what they want to make in an hour, say $20 and then sell the knife for however long it took them to build. Once they get well known they can raise the price per hour that they charge. I just do it as a hobby so I can't say exactly what it would take to make a living at this, but I have noticed a lot of fulltime workers say that they work 7 days a week and bust their asses trying to keep up so I would think that they must be turning out a number somewhere in the hundreds of knives per year. Best thing would be to ask some well known fulltime makers. The ones that make it all right must have a set plan they decide on otherwise they would go out of business!
 
Scott Dog said:
I'd say a knife like the Sebenza (the standard one) has about $10 in parts or materials cost
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Hahhhaaahhhaaa... I bet Chris Reeve will get a kick out of your GUESS-timate! I sure wish I could get costs down anywhere NEAR that number... :eek:

Let's see. materials costs in a new car... maybe $250 tops? :D
 
i make my knives out of cultivator discs (1075 steel) and they are already hardened to 56rc. i work the steel as it is. there is no way to saw the steel so i have my friend cut me strips which i then use for making my knives. i then have to use a right angle grinder to profile out the blank by grinding a groove where i want to remove the scrap by breaking off what i dont want.

the discs are 3/16" thick and in order to break off what i dont want, i have to grind away over an 1/8" or it wont break. then i have to finish grinding out the profile. the last knife i made took me about 1 1/2 to fully profile before grinding the bevel which if i remember right took me close to the same ammount of time, maybe more. then i have to smooth out my grind lines which can take quite some time too. on my last knife i didnt want pins showing in the handle so i came up with a new way to fasten them. that took about 2 more hours of total work including setting up the drill press i used for slotting the handles.

fastening the handles didnt take long but shaping and polishing them did. i done a lot of hand sanding and rubbing with 0000 steel wool. i sit upstairs and watch tv so i dont keep track of my time well doing this but i know i have spent hours. i have friends who have seen me make a knife from start to finish tell me that i sell my knives too cheap, sometimes maybe i do.
 
I could be wrong, but something tells me moohbear wants to read dollars & cents. What the materials run & then what's charged for the finished product & then you know what the person's getting for his labor. That's my guess.

Either way, I'm sure by the hour, a knife maker is not making much money, unless they're a "name" maker &/or are semi-producing them.
 
It depends on the knife. Some knives that are $500.00 have lots of profit in them. Others have very little. If you see a four inch hunter made from 1095 with wood handles and basic leather sheath and it is selling for $500.00, the maker is paying him/herself a very good wage. Change that to S-30V, stag and an inlayed sheath and that maker is getting paid way less. If the maker is highly automated (CNC), or has some of the major work on his knives outsourced, that maker can and should charge less for a knife than one that does everything by hand without anything being outsourced.

Last year I paid $1200.00 for a bowie with a pattern welded blade, ancient walrus ivory handle and pattern welded guard and buttcap. The piece of ivory cost the maker $300.00. The problem for the maker was that it was the third piece of ivory that he had used. The first one had major interior faults that only showed up when being shaped. The second one cracked. When all was said and done, I'm positive the maker lost money on that knife.
 
Scott Dog said:
I'd say a knife like the Sebenza (the standard one) has about $10 in parts or materials cost and the rest of its cost is labor and overhead. I would also say that a knifemaker would have to clear about $100/hourto make any kind of a decent living. The length of time to make a folder depends on the skill of the maker and what type of knife is being made. If that $500 custom takes more than a couple hours to make, that knifemaker may have trouble paying his/her bills.
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ya do know ti is really high now due to the war in iraq, i saw a post by sal glesser (spyderco) he said that they sold the scrap left over from making handles on some knife for more than the whole slab of ti cost a few months back.

FWIW i just dont see how a smith could make very many folders a month, all the F&F involved/etc, i would think 2 or 3 a week would not be far off.
 
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