Emerson CQC6

D

DrRMJ

Joined
May 7, 1999
Messages
209
A friend of mine visiting from the Philipines left the US a few days ago, again, empty handed. About 6 years ago, when we were in grad school, he ordered a CQC6 from Emerson. Last week, he called up Ernie to find out about the status of his knife and was told he would have to wait another 2 and a half years. Oh well.............I have two questions. 1. Why does Emerson sell custom knives at shows that he could be delivering to customers that have already paid and have waited well beyond his waiting period? 2. Why doesn't he come out with a production CQC6? I think it would be a great piece for Emerson, especially if it was bolstered. What do you think?
 
ok, here we go! And they said it was getting boring around here. This should be good.
Nakano, warm the butter, I'll make the popcorn.

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Dave (Phil.4:13)
I Can Do All Things Through Him Who Strengthens Me
 
Mr Emerson is only treating your friend the way your friend asked Mr Emerson to treat him.If your friend ordered a knife he had to wait that long for, AND, paid in advance the SUCKER stamp on his head will be there for life. As for Emerson customs, I've never owned one. I have held one,and I think (IMO)anyone who pays over $200.00 for any model deserves all the misery they go through waiting on them.I personally don't feel there all that well made.As for all the stories about special operators carrying them BULL****. I live by littlecreek amphib base (seal tm 2)so I know some of these men. 99.99% of them wouldn't pay the price of an emerson,75% claim they wouldn't carry one anyway. Of these percentages I know approx 10 of these guys personally.
 
WOW! Six years huh?.....maybe i could learn and made one myself by then....hummmmm? six years.........
 
I do not think the knife really exists anyway. Even if it does only magazine writers own them. Buy a Sebenza from C. Reeve.

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RayField Clement Jr.
rayfclement@yahoo.com
 
First, I think that this should have been posted on the Ernie Emerson forum. Perhaps a moderator could move it there.

Second, I believe that Mr. Emerson only charges a $25 deposit, and does not require full payment in advance. Perhaps you are confusing Mr. Emerson with a certain ex Mad Dog dealer from FL.

Third, I believe you are correct in your facts about the long wait. There was a thread here about a year ago, inquiring if anyone had gotten an Emerson custom by paying the deposit and waiting. No one responded positively.

Fourth, it is customary and usual practice in the knife industry for knifemakers to take knives to knife shows to sell, despite having many knives on back order. This is because even the most successful knifesmith needs to advertise. Whether or not you agree with this practice, it IS the norm.

Fifth, if you believe the knife to have value, and the waiting period was explained to you before you placed your order, then you lack anything, IMHO of which you may complain. Certainly it is well known that any customer who obtains an Emerson custom at retail price can immediately sell it at about twice retail. That is a pretty good investment on $25. It is true, however, that knifesmiths address the long waiting period in different manners. A T Barr, being two years behind, stopped taking orders until he was able to catch up.

Sixth, I believe that Emerson has addressed the long wait recently, and decreased the maximum wait to four years.

I would like to add that I have no association whatsoever with Emerson knives, with the sole exception of having bought a CQC6 and CQC7 about two years ago from AZCK. I paid $800 each for them. I carry the CQC6 every day, and have found it to be a strong, dependable knife. FWIW, I think that it has its' faults; a poor blade to handle ratio, a chisel grind, which makes accurate cutting impossible (but the knife was not designed for accurate cutting), and a somewhat less than optimal steel, ATS-34.

I invite comments, questions or criticisms.
Walt
 
If ever there was a knife that was over hyped. Emerson's knives have to be it. I haven't handled a custom of his so I can't comment on their fit and finish. I sure as hell wouldn't wait 6+ years for a knife. I wonder if your buddy could get a refund if he asked for it?

I have played with a commander. If you carry a large folder for self-defense (I don't), the commander is the way to go. The wave feature works! Man, can you bring that knife into action quick! Fit and finish was just average.

Now the CQ-6, that's just popular because of all the magazine articles and Marchinko's books not because a bunch of recon-seal-ninja's use them. Function wise, a chisel ground tanto is worthless. IMO of coarse
smile.gif
 
Thanks for all the insight people. I received a reply from Derek Russell from Emerson Knives and he is looking into the order.

My own experience with Emerson, the company, has been very good. I had an early Commander that had some lock-up problems. I sent it back to Emerson for repairs and he sent me back a brand new knife about 2 weeks later. I think that's pretty good customer service.

Actually, I wanted to know what other member's opinions on a production CQC6 would be.

Thanks,

DrRMJ
 
Perusing the Emerson Knives forum, I was surprised to find that a CQC6, slightly custom made; it has finger grooves on top and bottom,is being advertised by Triple Aught for $1,295! A discussion of how much a standard CQC-6 is worth reveals that one recently went for over $1,000 at an auction!

I think that this puts the wait in a slightly different perspective. Applying the 'rule of 72's', if I remember it correctly, if you invest $400, and it doubles in 6 years, your effective interest rate is 12%.

Walt
 
Let me attempt to lucidly clarify.
Emerson Customs are and have been used by a number of men in SpecWarFare (operators)
I know this for a unrefuted fact. I too know several at Little Creek, Damn Neck, Coronado etc. It is also true that there are less Customs making their way to the EAST Coast vs. WEST.

SpecWar members are only around 2,000 or so.
We are talking about a very small amount of men anyway. With men in and out of rotation
for varying reasons.
It is true that the average inlisted man could not afford a Custom Emerson. Many bought/buy Benchmade 970's.

It is also true that they use any number of different makers Custom/production knives as well. Including, Spyderco, Benchmade, Al Mar,
MT, Brend, Hammond, MD, etc. et al.

Some of Ernie's knives were designed for mission specific applications. Some were based around the "CFC" COI and Emerson's personal relationship w/ people directly and indirectly involved w/ that cirriculum.

What evolved, what a certain mystique around his knives and for sure some have embellished it. I do not deny this as do people really in the know do either.
The current COI has changed lately and continues to evolve somewhat. SCARS is no more and has'nt for some time. "Dieters CQD" is currently the doctrine and he obviously has his own ideas and talents. Deservedly so.

It is true that past relationships helped forge that mystique or genre if you will.
Rather or not they are current is irrelevant. It did exist and was true. Granted, very small numbers indeed.
Hope that clarifies the issue.
IMHO

My purpose is not to oppose anyone's opinion, just shed truth as
 
Just to drag this to the top, I looked into the Dr's friends knife. His invoice is #928 and was ordered 8/9/96. A long time for sure but not quite 6 years. I was relieved to find this was the case. The wait is plenty long enough without adding 3-4 years to it
smile.gif
.

Take care,
Derek

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Emersonknives.com

The #1 Hard Use Knives In The World
 
For those that have never owned an Emerson custom, please do not comment on how they are made or the value until you do own one. I recently received my CQC-6 after putting a $50 deposit down 5 years ago. I am used to waiting in the custom knife field and have been collecting for 30 years so I don't question the practise. I do not buy on the open market at inflated prices because I beleive this is like taking food out of the custom makers mouth. To order a knife with the only thought of selling for a profit is not my way of doing things. If people would submit thier orders and wait, then we wouldn't have these frustrations on both the makers and users part.
My evaluation of the Emerson CQC-6 is that it is one of the finest folders produced today with all the designs elements coming together. I immediately ordered another custom! I have seen two other makers acheive this type of noteriety, Bob Loveless and Moran.
 
budrichard:
What is it about this knife that makes it worth that kind of money? Not doubting you,
just curious is all.
What could make this knife so fantastic that it could be worth 3 times as much as an Elishewitz, Carson, Ralph, or Crawford?
Is the quality or materials that much better.
BTW, I consider my Elishewitz and Crawford to be near as near to perfect as I could expect for a custom knife.
 
Greg,

Are Ernie Emerson's knives any better made then an Elishewitz, Crawford, Ralph, John W. Smith or any of the other great makers out there? No, not really. We Emerson collectors like to think so.

Ernie makes an awesome knife. Classic.

The fact that everyone is copying his designs should point to the fact he's doing something right.

It should be pointed out that Ernie doesn't charge three times what these other makers do for their work. His prices are right on par with them. My last Custom cost me $550.

The prices your seeing are on the secondary market. I've seen knives selling in the $1000 to $1500 range.

The way I see it, there are two main things that effect the secondary market for Emerson (aka Specwar) customs.

* Supply and Demand There's a huge demand for Ernie's custom work. The supply is just not there to fill that demand.
* Production Knives Ernie's production knives have taken off, to say the least. They've been a hit in the moderate to high end production knife market. The people buying these production knives naturally gravitate towards the custom line. (See "Supply and Demand" above)

There are other lesser factors like mystique, classic designs, ect. You get the idea.

Is a Ferrarri better the a Viper. Is a Heckler & Kock better then a Colt. Is a Hoover better then a Red Devil?

For that matter, is a Loveless, Moran, Fogg, Hartsfeild, ect worth thousands of dollars more then a lesser know, equal in quality maker? It is to the people that collect them.

Recently a collection of about 250 Loveless knives sold for well over a million (maybe as high as a million and a half) dollars. A set of twenty Loveless' at the Blade Show were available to the buyer laying down around $100,000. Was it worth it? To the right buyer it was.

There are many great knife makers out there. I'm on a personal quest to get knives by them all (aren't we all
smile.gif
).

John Hollister
 
Well it looks like I'm a little late. Just my two cents here about the mention of chisel grind tantos being worthless with regard to "function".

To this I reply, what's the intended function? To be blunt, if the intended function is cutting flesh then the tanto/chisel combo performs the function exceedingly well. According to Ernie that was the intended function of the combo. It was also mentioned in his past catalogs that the CQC-6 with the worthless Chisel/tanto combination would penentrate any soft body armor. While there are certainly other blade profile/edge combinations that perform these functions successfully the tanto/chisel grind is still right up there in performance.
After all the Japanese were lopping away for years with the chisel grind and also penetrating armor with the armor piercing point geometry we now refer to as the tanto point. Centuries of real world field testing has gotta' be worth something!

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Usual Suspect
http://www.freeyellow.com/members8/arkhamdrifter/index.html
 
DrRMJ: I think that your friend is a lot happier now. Since you first posted, there have been a number of people to get knives from Ernie Emerson. Further, the company is advising people of how long their wait is in rough terms.

The extremely good news for your friend is that Emerson recently stopped production of custom knives. This means that your friends' knife is presently worth about three times what he will pay for it!!

Walt
 
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