Quick google
"If you say that someone is laughing all the way to the bank, you mean that they are making a lot of money very easily." I'd say the collector frenzy observed in this thread, makes it very easy to sell GEC knives, thus they do not have to advertise, send out salesmen to make calls, develop new technology, etc. Happy to educate you
on what the phrase means. It's a pretty common phrase in parts of the US where I used to live and is not derogatory, but actually is often used as praise tinged with envy.
What GEC is not is being "unlike other traditional knife manufacturers". In many ways, the short runs with a business designed to use collector greed and frenzy to sell knives is absolutely like one past master marketer and knife maker...James Parker. GEC have updated the Parker business practices to utilize the internet and "social media" where he used shows and knife clubs. Just like Parker GEC takes standard patterns and existing tooling (how many versions of the #25 exist?), have a variety of covers, neat packaging, maybe a different blade (e.g. think Beer Scout) and the collector frenzy is off and running. Parker had stories behind the knives to make them special, and so does GEC, e.g., Navy knife. Bruce Voyles in Knife and Knife World magazines and Bernard Levine in this forum and magazines have written a few articles on this type of marketing...more education for ya
I much prefer the Case Bose efforts in this particular area of "traditional" knives. Unlike GEC, they use premium materials, updated mechanics (e.g. pivot bushing, milled liners, etc.) so their product is a "modern traditional." Plus they make enough knives so a regular Joe can buy one...but then Case's product is more expensive.