Frustrations, and Fruition!

blade_420

blade_420

Joined
Jan 15, 2001
Messages
2,353
Sometimes it's frustrating...

You bid on ebay on an auction that either get's pulled, or goes for way more than you want to pay.

You spend WEEKS scouring for balisongs...ANY balisongs...

And then you find someone who doesn't quite know what he has.

You quickly finish the deal, and send off the check.

And you wait.

And you email the guy wondering if he got the check yet, and he emails back,"not yet..."

And you wonder if the seller re-considdered the deal and sends your check back...

And you wait... And you check the mailbox every day at lunch, but it doesn't come.

And then a week passes.:rolleyes:

And then you email the guy back and he says he mailed it out on Wednesday!!!

And then Saturday, you have to work, and only get a little pink slip of paper that says that you need to sign for an insured package... on Tuesday.

And you wait.

And then you plan your whole day on being in line at 8:30am on Tuesday.

And then there isn't a big line!!!

And then you come marching out of the post office with a big smile and a inconspicous package.

And then you open it...
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154CM steel, and if I am not mistaken, near perfect elephant ivory, unless they ever made a "plastic resin" insert. There is only one corner where I can almost make out some "grain".


I am known as a bargian hunter, and have found some good deals, and I have paid lots of good money on some balis that others decided they didn't want.
I don't want to tell you exactly what I paid, for fear that some of you would quit your day jobs and hunt me down, but I'll say that I paid $350.00 for my PC custom beadblast, and this was less than that. If I bought a Tachyon, I'd have to shell out more $$...
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looks like a very nice piece indeed. :)

too bad you have to wait so much, though. but then again, i think that's a part of the whole excitement and thrill about getting a new knife.

congrats.
 
Great find Blade_420. This is the stuff that we dream about, eh?
 
Originally posted by blade_420
154CM steel, and if I am not mistaken, near perfect elephant ivory, unless they ever made a "plastic resin" insert. There is only one corner where I can almost make out some "grain".
Click to expand...
Very nice.

Can't tell for sure, but real ivory wouldn't develope that coloration so uniformly across the handle. If it feels like resin, it could be ivory micarta, a real popular choice for BM Customs. Let's hope it is ivory; makes for a much better deal.

Still searching for that elusive Custom 3 incher....:(
 
Aggravation is what I've got. Maybe Frustrations too, but no Fruition. I hunt all the typical sites for Balis, bid on the ones I like, but for some reason they keep going for way more than they're worth. Other than bladeauction.net, I've never seen a BM/PC custom for sale and yet I continue to hunt.

What makes it worse is, while I stuggle in vain to even locate a Custom, or even a decent bali, I have Blade420 and Tony waving them in my face just to spite me. Heck, sometimes when I find a nice production BM, I have to compete with Blade420 in a bidwar. As soon as I see he's bid on something, I stay away because I know I'm going to lose.

SO tell me gentlemen, "Where do you get all those wonderful toys?"
 
Balilover, the answer is persistence. I don't know how Blade_420 gets away with his prices, or how Dudley keeps getting all those Customs, me I just call around to the various purveyors and hope they get something in. Another secret is reputation. If you have one as a bali buyer, and gots the bucks to spend, they sometimes come to you. BTW, apologies if our Bali waving makes your searching that much harder. Good news, I'll be slowing down now, since the wife has put a cap on my contributions allowed into the "Kid's College Fund (tm)".

Hope that helps.
 
Yeah, between this one and the MER re-handle, I think I'm almost done for a while.
But timing is half the equation. If it's for sale, it's hard not to jump on it. I guess I'll always be keeping my eyes open..:eek:

With Ivory micarta, can't you see a cloth like patern? Even with "linen micarta" you should be able to see some grain, but these only have a couple slight grain marks on the side of one handle, I've looked CLOSE. I've seen "buffalo horn" inserts that look as uniform as the "plastic resin" used in the Chinese sidewinder.
I lookes at the posts of Dawkinds Scimitar, that he recently dug up, and it looks identical to that.

I suppose I could always pop out the inserts, and see how they break to determine if it's ivory...
And also de-latch it, and re-grind the blade, and run it over with the truck...:eek: Naw, I'll just leave it and admire it from afar... :cool:

Thanks for all the envious glares!!!:D
 
Your eye lids are getting heavy--sleep,sleep, a deep sleep--and then you send it to RARanney in order to share the wealth and relieve your guilt about having so many balisongs.:D
Very nice blade_420. There is of course paper Micarta, in which case there would be no pattern. For your sake I hope it's ivory; either way, a definite keeper.
 
I may have received the wrong info somewhere down the line, but I once read that if you are in doubt of your handle material, you should heat a safety pin/paper clip/small piece of wire/etc., with a flame and touch to an "inconspicuous" part of the material. If it melts a hole, it is fake. If it doesn't, it is real ivory.

Sorry if I am a fountain of misinformation. Just trying to help.
 
Originally posted by fossilhunter
I may have received the wrong info somewhere down the line, but I once read that if you are in doubt of your handle material, you should heat a safety pin/paper clip/small piece of wire/etc., with a flame and touch to an "inconspicuous" part of the material. If it melts a hole, it is fake. If it doesn't, it is real ivory.

Sorry if I am a fountain of misinformation. Just trying to help.
Click to expand...
no, that makes sense to me... it would melt through plastic and such, but not wood or bone... but it can leave a nasty mark, though... so i wouldn't use that method too much, i think. at least not if i wasn't sure if it would leave any mark or not. unless you can make it almost invisible or something...
 
Thanks for sharing the picture! That's a beauty!!!


"Hunters seek what they [WANT].., Seekers hunt what they [NEED]"
 
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