Getting impatient...

Jeremy Reynolds said:
In most cases, some of these dealers helped the maker become as in demand as he/she is. The dealer promoted the maker on the internet, in conversations, and at shows the maker couldn't make. Early in a maker's career, that dealer may have been the biggest chunk of their show sells, helping them pay the show expenses.
Click to expand...

...and my scenario doesn't make ANY account of this, which is entirely valid. This would be the maker and dealer working together still. Cool.

Nick, the guys clarified what I *assumed*. I've read threads in a couple of forums and 30% for someone like yourself just seemed like you pulled that number out of... ummmmmm, the ether. ;) But, if this is the case, it illustrates my position moreso. :) And your stand on simply selling to the walk-in public at a show, SHOWS that you are concerned for your clients--both collectors and dealers. We're cool.

Yes, good points Keith.

(And why is LES the only dealer mentioned in this thread? He is the only one who can't defend or clarify himself here. Unfair.)

Coop
 
Hi NIck,

Here is the other side of the coin, what do you think of this. I heard from a dealer that a sought after maker sold the dealer a knife (it was actually a delivery) at the Blade Show last year. About an hour or so later that same maker came to the dealer and asked to buy the knife back, as he did not have enough money to cover his expenses and needed to sell the knife at full price. In other words he needed the very profit the dealer was going to make...if he sold the knife.

The dealer was nice enough to do that, as the maker promised he would make a replacement as soon as he got home. Well the dealer lost out on the profit and the maker has never made the knife he promised.

The maker takes the profit away from the dealer and then does not live up to his word. What would you have to say to a maker like that Nick?

Wonder why it is we don't hear more stories from the other side of the coin?
 
WWG,

Re. "The maker takes the profit away from the dealer and then does not live up to his word. What would you have to say to a maker like that Nick? "

I'm not at all sure where you're going with this or how it advances the discussion. Assuming you've got your facts straight, why would Nick (or anyone else) endorse a maker (or dealer, or collector) not keeping his or her word? Was this meant to be a purely rhetorical question?

No doubt we have all experienced (or at least, as in your case, "heard of") a maker, dealer or collector being less than forthright. Thankfully, those situations describe the vast minority of transactions in the custom knife business. Just what this has to do with pre-selling (or any of the rich mosaic of issues canvassed in this thread) completely escapes me.

Roger
 
WWG, what you describe sounds like the maker has a lack of ethics, but then again, we don't know the whole story. What you have provided us with is a small snippet of one side of the story. Maybe this maker has purposely screwed the dealer, but maybe things have happened that have made it impossible for him to replace that knife. Life deals some people a lousy hand and maybe the maker is going through some bad times.

Whatever the case may be, it is not right for either side to take advantage of the other. It should be an arrangement that provides a win, win situation. The dealer should be able to get the knives at a price where he can sell them and make a profit. The maker should get enough money from the deal to make a reasonable profit as well. That way both parties are happy with the deal.
 
Hi Roger,

I only brought it up as Nick commented on how the profit from his business helps to pay his bills. This is of course a valid point. So I was wondering what he thought of a maker who would take the profit out of the dealers pocket. If a maker or dealer does depend on the sale of custom knives to pay the light bill. Than the profit made from these sales are equally important to both the maker and the dealer.

This does move the conversation forward, all the way back to the intial post. If dealers do not make a fair profit on the sale of their knives. They will not have the money to buy more knives in order to update their web sites.

Dealers provide more photo's of knives from different makers on the Internet than all the makers combined. For those of us who use the Internet for research. Lack of dealers and their web sites would slow the custom knife business, cost makers additional sales and limit the amount of knives that collectors can see without travelling to shows.

So I agree with you Roger, lets take this back to the original topic and discuss dealers who have updated their sites and what fantastic knives are now available.
 
WWG,

Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought your point was not that the maker "took the profit out of the dealer's pocket" (which may be a bit of a misdescription since the dealer clearly agreed to it) but that the maker then did not live up to his word in providing a replacement knife. Since there could hardly be much difference of opinion on the question of whether one should keep one's promises(again, assuming you have all the facts right), I could not figure out the purpose of asking the question.

It is clear that this thread has wandered far and wide from it's original path, but that's not a bad thing. The discussion has been lively, informative and for the most part, quite civil.

I note parenthetically that the related poll (when last I checked) showed a 40% disapproval of pre-selling to dealers. I don't know about everyone else, but I find this number surprisingly high. If it can be said that the BF community represents a microcosm of the custom knife community, then 40% disapproval of what is a very common practice is noteworthy indeed. I know, I know, a majority of 60% said the practice was "OK", but still...

For what it's worth, since I could not say that I uniformly disapprove of a maker pre-selling to a dealer, I voted "OK". I DO disapprove, however, of a maker pre-selling his entire table before the doors open, whether those sales be to dealers or collectors.


Roger
 
I didn't vote at all in the poll because I could not definitely state, yes I am in favour, or, no I am not in favour. I don't have anything against makers pre-selling knives to whomever they want, as long as they keep some knives for the opening of the show. I realize that even if this is done that those knives may be gone by the time the VIP guests are finished buying. That is just the way things go. All I want to see is makers having the best of intentions to have knives on their table when the doors officially open to the public.
 
I think this thread has been educational from the stand point that we as custom knife collectors and makers and dealers can have such strong opinions on either side of a debate while remaining civil throughout, which I applaud.
Both sides of this debate have outstanding arguments, IMO.
I know we're all on the same side here.
 
Roger,

I didn't vote because I am not allowed to (guess you have to be a gold member).

So much for the "microcosom" of the custom knife market.

How do you adjust for the "skewed" results the poll is receiving.
 
I have followed this thread and would like to express my humble opinion on the subject. I am a newer maker that is still paying my dues and am not guaranteed a sell out at every show I attend. For some one in my position there is a bit of irony in this whole discussion.

As a newer maker many dealers are reluctant to buy knives from you without handling the knives which they get a chance to do at the show. As a newer maker many collectors are also reluctant to purchase knives because they do not see your knives or your names listed at the dealers site to "verify the quality" or the in demand makers. This is not set in stone but is a genralization. So when attending the show when dealers express interst in my knives it is very hard for me not to work with them because of the shear amount of exposure I will get with my knives being posted on the dealers websites. It seems that most of the dealers I work with attend the shows and have tables at the shows. So in essence they are also supporting the show and my knives are still at the show for potential customers to handle.

I know in the past when I have gotten a knife or two posted one the dealers websites it has generated a multitude of orders for me with various collectors who call and say that they noticed my knife on a dealers webpage. This has lead to many loyal repeat customers for me. The advertisment that you get from the dealers "endorsing" your product is a great thing for a maker.

So I guess what I am getting to is that I do feel I owe a little something to the dealers and collectors who supported me when no one else would. Please don't think that I am try to imply that I don't care about anyone else in the knife community besides the people who have purchsed my knives as this isn't true. When a dealer or collector calls me before the show and asks me to send pics to them of the items I am bringing to the show, I don't feel that it is wrong of me to to pre-sell or reserve them the right to get first chance at an item they like. They have built a solid business working relationship with me and in the end if I want to continue to make knives I must treat it as a business and do what I feel is best for my business. If I had the luxury of being garunteed a sell out at everyshow that would offer me more options on how to handle the business end of the equation. As mentioned earlier, most of the time my knives are still at the show either being dispalyed at my table or for sale at teh dealers table.

With all of that said I consider the friends that I have made in the knife community invaluable. And just to set the record straight many of my great friends that enjoy spending time with at the shows have never purchased a knife from me.
 
First off, I want to say that I've had some really crappy things going on in my life as of late, so my string has been short. I apologize for being curt in my posts.

I was going to bow out of this thread, because of the above and I just don't want to step on any toes.

But, WWG has brought me back to it. So he is either Les Robertson, or someone close to Les?

The maker in question, is me. And as some of you stated, there are two sides to every story. I have nothing to hide and will gladly explain.

At the set-up stages of Blade last year, early Friday, Les approached me and said he wanted to buy a fozzilized ivory handled bowie I had. Even as a new maker, I had the knife underpriced. With a 10" blade and the ivory handle I only had $600 on it. I agreed to sell it to Les. He said his cut is 30%. He was going to go around the show and said I could leave the knife on my table (nice of him to do).

After really thinking about it, I realized I just could not afford the $200 loss on a $600 knife that had $200 worth of ivory on it. Even with all of the other knives I had taken sold, I had barely covered my costs to go to Atlanta and have a table. With this in mind, I went to Les's table and explained my situation to him and he kindly agreed to just cancel our agreement so I could sell the knife outright. There had been no money exchanged...we just agreed I would keep the knife.

He told me that he was still interested in working together, and that perhaps I could make some knives for him in the future. I said okay. There wasn't a commitment to "replacing" that knife.

Well, I have built a pretty good working relationship with Dan O'Malley at BladeGallery.com. I had previously signed an exclusive agreement with Dan, but it had ran out by the Blade show.

Dan and I had some miscommunication, but shortly after the Blade show I had a long conversation with Dan, and decided it was best for he and I to have the exclusive aggreement. I explained this to Les in an email not too long after the Blade show and that I had decided to resign the exclusive with BladeGallery, so as far as I understood... He and I were on the same page that things had changed, and I would not be sending him knives to sell. I have not heard from him since then, so there was no reason for me to think otherswise.

Now had none of that happened after the Blade show, and I simply did not follow through on a commitment then it would look pretty bad. But as I've said, there was more to it than that.




Also, I didn't say ANYTHING about screwing a dealer that helped you get your reputation built up. Dan O'Malley has indeed done that for me. He is the only dealer I have actually sold knives with. I have been approached by many, and most all seem to be good folks. Les was nice to me at Blade, we just ended up not working together, I have no ill will toward him, nor was I trying to screw him. As a side note, Dan is the only one that has approached me that did not get 30%. That's where I got the figure.

I owe the business of customers like Peter Gill to the online gallery of previous sold work that Daniel keeps for me. I try to keep him in my order book so that I can make knives and send them to him when they're available. I owe quite a lot to him and try to live up to it.

Now, I don't see how feeling that a dealer should do something you could not have done to earn their cut, is SCREWING them.

I mean, isn't the big reason for us makers to sell to dealers so that they can put our knives in front of people that we can't or won't...i.e. their web-sites, and shows they attend that we do not???

With that in mind, coming back again as to Jeremy's post, I don't see how a dealer saying they want your knife, and then leaving it with you to sell for them, and still getting their cut makes sense??? It's like a realtor saying they want to sell your house. Then you do all the work and sell it, yet you still pay them a cut. Why would that ever make sense?

Yes, as makers a dealer is an integral part of our business and we need to have a good relationship and take care of each other. But not take advantage of each other.

Well, I was hoping to be out of this thread, but I'm sure now I'm just getting into it :)

Nick
 
Thanks Nick. As usual, you are ready to stand tall and explain yourself. What a story..

I still pose a different side on the selling 'sold' knives at the table. I understand completely why you would want to get the work in a dealer's hands and ultimately on their website. Like Craig Camerer mentioned in his previous post, the exposure is invaluable to him, and you. There is more to it than the monetary sale of the knife itself. I WANT you and your dealers to continue to have product.

My postulation of leaving a knife on the table to sell, possibly for a dealer, is one defending those buyers who travel to, and bear the EXPENSE of going to a show direct. Your position has more self-interest in it—as it should. Nothing wrong with that! And this is a good reason that I am now seeing things just a bit differently. Again, for some, selling to a dealer is insurance. There isn't a guarantee of moving that knife.

And so there is merit to preselling and not preselling. You can't summarily say that either is the only way to go. Once again, this scenario needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I am enjoying this dialog because it has really made us think.

Coop
 
Nick,

I hope you don't think I was accusing you of screwing over anyone in this business. That definately is not the case.

My general comment was to people saying well established makers shouldn't sell to dealers, because they can make more money selling the knives themselves.

To me, that is screwing over the dealers who got you where you are. For you, it would be like Dan O'Malley wanting to place an order and you telling him you don't want to sell to dealers any longer because you can sell all the knives you make without discount.

To me, that is screwing over someone who helped you get where you are.

Again, I was not trying to accuse you of shady practices by any means, Nick. I was trying to make a general comment to the post.

JR
 
Thanks guys-

I appreciate your understanding.

I went back and read what I wrote before, and it confirms I shouldn't write when I have so much other stuff on my mind!

It's too easy to get wires crossed or to totally miss out on articulating what I'm actually thinking.

Also, I hope there certainly was no ill-tone to my story about what happened with Les and I last year. He has a great site, and I have only heard good things from guys he works with that I respect very much, like Terry Primos and Dan Farr. I just wanted to explain my side of it and not sneak away from it.

Thanks Guys!
Nick
 
Nick, having read many of your posts in the past it was easy to tell that you were not having the best of days. It happens to all of us.

The reasoning behind your statement about it not making any sense for a maker to sell knives to a dealer and then keep them on his table to sell for the dealer does make one think. Looking at it from the other side of the table, it is nice to have the knives remain on the makers table for me to have the opportunity to check out, but you are right, it does seem to present a bit of a one sided arrangement.
 
Hi Nick,

No, Im not Les. However, I have been buying knvies from him for over 7 years (started as a tactical folder junkie). So I call him every time Im thinking about a purchase.

A few years ago I decided to get into forged blades. In addition to the world class guys I asked about up and commers. Your name, along with Dan Farr and Terry Primos were given to me.

I ask a lot of detailed questions about makers. Les told me you had a lot of potenital and that I should buy your knives. I asked him if you think so highly of Nick why don't you have any of his knives. He relayed the story to me, and I have to say I am even more impressed now with you that you stood up and acknowleged this. As no names were mentioned you didn't have to do this.

He was not upset, he just chalked it up to inexperience. No matter who you are we all suffer from that once in a while.

I'll pass this along to Les, as highly as he spoke of you and your work I'm sure he would want to start doing business with you.

Oh BTW, a few other guys Les recommend to watch; Brett Gatlin, John White and Reggie Barker. Actually, Les told me about all three long before the Blade Show this year. I just didn't see much about these makers in the review of the show, other than the awards they won.
 
Hey I've got a little story right on that mini topic of leaving a knife intended for a dealer on the maker's table to be sold.

At Dan Farr's table this Blade, after I bought a knife from him, he told me to sign the check over to Les. He had promised Les a knife but wanted to meet the buyers of his knives personally. So they agreed to leave the knife on Dan's table for Dan to sell. So there can be a positive aspect to that practice. Of course, both dealer and maker in that instance agreed on something that both thought mutually beneficial. I can see when dealer leaving the knife for the maker to sell would be problematic also, as Nick and others have pointed out.

So many sides to a discussion...it's liable to make me turn wishy washy and flip flop like a politician.
 
While this thread has certainly been an entertaining read, the fact of the matter remains, the only one qualified to answer the question of whether pre-selling is acceptable is the maker. He is the one who has to make a living off from what he does, or at a minimum recoupe some of his expenses. Very few are in the position to be holding "showings" at a show. i.e., please reread Nick and Craig's posts.

I just enjoyed my 2nd Blade Show, and plan on returning every year. It cost me nearly a grand this year to attend. I was really in the market for a small bowie from my select list of makers. There were none to be had, either they didn't bring one or they were gone Thursday night (I was giving a maker a hand and got in pre-VIP). Did this ruin my trip? Was it not worth going because I couldn't have what I wanted? Give me a frickin' break. I had a great time regardless, bought some nice handle material, met some old friends as well as new and had the privilege of picking up a nice cord wrapped bowie from a young guy making his first show, I was his first sale. (Brandon Shirey - write it down, you'll be hearing more from him).

While I of course have my own opinions on whather or not I approve of pre-selling, I would like to share a story with you. Upon the doors opening Friday morning, one of the first people to visit the table I was at was a gentleman from England. Now this fellow had traveled far and selected the one maker who's knife he would shoot for first, and was rewarded with a fine bowie for his efforts. Now how do you think he (or the maker for that matter) would feel if there were either no knives on the table, or the ones that were there were spoken for? Something to think about.

I also can't see the point of contacting a maker to find out what he is bringing to the show and arranging a pick up. What if everybody followed this path? I can't personally think of a maker who wants to be troubled with a 100 e-mails prior to every show from people wanting his/her knives. :rolleyes:
 
blademan 13 said:
I also can't see the point of contacting a maker to find out what he is bringing to the show and arranging a pick up. What if everybody followed this path? I can't personally think of a maker who wants to be troubled with a 100 e-mails prior to every show from people wanting his/her knives. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

So you don't think these makers get trouble with e-mails daily from people wanting their knives? Get serious.

The point of contacting a maker pre-show is to 1.) find out if they are bringing anything you are looking for, and 2.) attempt to secure your purchase.

What happens if you fly in from across the globe, to get a specific design from 1 maker. The maker doesn't pre-sell anything. You are first to his table. The maker decided to try 3 new designs and doesn't have the one you want. None of the new ones appeal to you.

So, even if you are first to his table with money and every knife he brought is still for sale, you wasted your money and time because you didn't make sure the knife would even be there.

If everyone followed the path, we wouldn't have all this whining crying right now.

JR
 
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