Fillicietti, what happened?

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GREENJACKET

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Fillicietti, what happened to him. Great work but dropped off the planet?

Can anyone put some light on it? The good ,bad or ugly. Just want to know as I loved his work.
 
Danbo would know better than I, but I thought I saw a Fillicetti / Someone Australian Bowie a short time ago for sale.
 
Danbo said:
Made great stuff, then decided to rip people off and disappear. ??? :thumbdn:
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I think Danbo has nailed the Filicietti saga rather neatly.
My personal take is that the intense sun in the outback also fried his brain. Too bad, a real waste, IMHO. :thumbdn:
 
I don't know about him ripping people off, but I do know that he started to disappear for longer and longer periods a few years ago. I had a knife on order with him. At first he would get back to my emails in a day or two. Then it started to take a week or two. Then a month, then three. At that point I decided it would be best to cancel my order. Might have been lucky for me that events turned out the way they did.

I have heard that he is still around, but is making custom rifle stocks, not knives.
 
I'll say this one time, save your self a big head ache forget him. make believe he is dead. He called me to sell me a knife that, he said was allready made. I paid for the knife. Money is gone , no knife and that was almost two years ago. I can tell you there are a lot more than me. And he is making a few knives . LB
 
lb14306 said:
I'll say this one time, save your self a big head ache forget him. make believe he is dead. He called me to sell me a knife that, he said was allready made. I paid for the knife. Money is gone , no knife and that was almost two years ago. I can tell you there are a lot more than me. And he is making a few knives . LB
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Well then, I guess I was lucky. It really is awful what happened to you, LB.
 
lb14306 said:
I'll say this one time, save your self a big head ache forget him. make believe he is dead. He called me to sell me a knife that, he said was allready made. I paid for the knife. Money is gone , no knife and that was almost two years ago. I can tell you there are a lot more than me. And he is making a few knives . LB
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Well, there's the dime drop, thanks for the info. I'd asked earlier on another thread if anyone actually lost money or if he'd gone off with any deposits, didn't get replies on that earlier thread, thanks for your feedback here.

Hard to believe isn't it, when a maker works hard to become successful and "known", then screwing it up once the momentum and "buying audience" is there. He worked a long time for less money in those "build up" years, then screwed it up. Amazing. Great craftsman though...

Frank H.

PS Leatherbird, re: the recent sale you mentioned, that was a Filicietti forged blade / Timbs finished knife, "a lot of knife" that seems sold now, $500... http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=356765
 
I think I picked up one of the very last blades that he ever delivered to a customer. Last I heard he was making custom gun stocks or some such, but not making knives at all. I know he had some health issues which led to his falling way behind on orders, from which I gather he never really recovered and eventually moved on to something else. I'm not making excuses for the guy - heck, I had all but given up on seeing my knife at all. It's just too bad all 'round. I feel sorry for anyone left hanging with funds sent and no knife. It's also a shame that a maker of his talent should conduct himself in such a fashion as to badly tarnish his reputation. And it is really too bad that we won't be seeing too many Filicietti bowies going forward, 'cause I gotta tell you, they really are something.

Roger
 
The timings seem to tie up with my experience though I never put an order in.

The blade world is a small world and hot to bust someone if they are not fully honest. No sitting on the fence around here! It is always a shame when someone gets it wrong. I only hope there is a genuine reason for Fallicietti's fall. It would be nice if this thread could get the whole picture and then we would be better informed - good bad or the ugly. My thoughts are that the blade community is fairly forgiving if they know the facts; sure prisoners are not taken lightly, but when well informed there is charity and time to sort it out.

I don't work for the UN so I'm not looking for peace. I'm just annoyed that I don't know and can't have one of his knives.
 
Here's another detailed story of Fillietti. A good friend of mine had one of his bowies, and sent it back for some kind of refinishing work or maybe engraving(not sure). We're talking about a big, ivory handled bowie(fairly big bucks). That was 3 years or more ago, and my friend hasn't heard a word from him since. I was in the process of working out an order with Fillicietti myself. He took 3 months to answer my email. In his most recent(and last) email to me, he apologized for taking so long getting back to me, and asked me if I was still interested in the bowie(said that he had to make 3 knives for a magazine article and could have my bowie to me in 3 weeks). My response to him was that, yes, I was still interested, but would like to know how much this bowie was going to cost me. Somewhere in my reponse, I made reference to my friend(the one who sent the ivory bowie back), and that's the last time I ever heard from Fillicietti. Oh, by the way, that was 3 years or so ago. Save your time, money and do not waste anything on him. :thumbdn:
 
It is amazing how many people just don't get it. Check out the Good, Bad and Ugly section. Do a search and type in the following:

Newt Livesay
Jack Crain
Steve Corkum
Steve Fillicetti

And Im sure a few others I have missed.

These individuals are responsible for taking Tens of Thousands of dollars from collectors and never making the knife.

Yet there are still those who somehow think they will defy the odds and get their knife. Amazing.

WWG
 
Just for the heck of it I searched the GB&U forum for Steve Fillicietti, Steve Filicietti and Steve Fillicetti and got no hits.
 
What I don't understand is how knifemakers seem to be ripping people off, left and right, using the mail as a means no less, and not a single one has ever gone to jail or had anything other than a few posts about his reputation put here? That doesn't seem to make sense to me. :confused:
 
Chiro75 said:
What I don't understand is how knifemakers seem to be ripping people off, left and right, using the mail as a means no less, and not a single one has ever gone to jail or had anything other than a few posts about his reputation put here? That doesn't seem to make sense to me. :confused:
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Chiro, You make it sound like there are alot of makers ripping people off :(
There have only be a very few. They just get talked about more than the good ones, which is a good thing, people need to know.

Don Hanson
 
Don, have a look at the GBU forum. Seems like there is a new "I got ripped off by so-and-so" story every week just about. Big name guys, too. Yes, relatively speaking the majority of knifemakers seem to fill orders, but I can think of half a dozen people off the top of my head who've ripped off lots of people, not just one or two incidents here or there, and nothing ever seems to come of it. If I gave money to someone for something that was never delivered I wouldn't be happy with just a bad posting here, personally.
 
Hi Chiro,

I have to agree with Don. The number of makers who rip people off is very few compared to the totality of the market.

However, as you point out several people talk about how they get ripped off by the same few makers. Makes you wonder why people continue to buy knives from that maker????

WWG
 
Quite of few of the folks that haver been ripped off have contacted the USPS fraud division. Some have contacted police in the offending knifemakers' jurisdiction. Others have filed claims in small claims court in the knifemakers' jurisdiction.

I think the reason that more people don't take legal action against the makers is that it can be a very long and drawn out process, and they just don't think it is worth it.
 
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