Have knife sales dropped here?

JTknives said:
It would be better if these knives where just given away as gifts and never had a price value attached.
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AVigil said:
So a hobbyist should spend money on all the materials, heat treat, belts, sand paper, hardware and time only to give it away for FREE so they do not hurt the sales of others who sell for much more?
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I don't think JT was suggesting that folks should actually do this. I think he wrote that just to emphasize the point he was making about how everyone's actions can effect market value (and perhaps encourage some makers to charge more).
JTknives said:
I really respect the absolute control of the market in the diamond industry.
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I find this comment interesting. I don't want this to turn into a political discussion, but it is interesting how governmental control and regulations telling one what they can and can't do are OK when it comes to protecting this entirely made-up thing called "the economy" but NOT ok when it comes to protecting real things like health, the environment, welfare of the general population, etc. (RANT OVER).
 
I must be missing something, I do not see any really high quality , unique knives selling cheaply from the maker. Maybe the secondary market on an auction site. I doubt If have ever sold or given a knife to anyone who even knows of this sites existence. A good handmade knifes price is based on quality, design and who made it, (and if they want to buy some more makin stuff !). Not on the quantity of kitchen and "bushcraft" knives for sale. If I had the patience or if photobucket still worked, I would post a pic so you could tell me what I should sell or give away. James
 
What I was saying is if a new maker/hobbyist makes a $200 knife thy should sell it for $200 not $50 which was the cost of materials thy used. What I was saying about giving it away is now the value of that blade is protected and so is you future pricing. I have given lots of knives away over the years. Usually in the $250-$300 price range. It has lead to usually more sales from them or their friends. But buy giving them away for free I have protected the value of that knife and future blades. If I attach a $50 price tag to it then now it’s looked at as a $50 knife. There is a very real mental process that associates price with quality. I have heard many stories where guys at knife shows can’t sell a few cheep blades and so thy mark them up and thy sell.

I guess in a nut shell I’m trying to say that it’s a market like any other thing so price control is the game. And if you make good quality blades then price them as such and be proud of your work. If you end up with a small pile of blades that have not sold then gift them. The name of the game is exposure, get your blades out there. But don’t hurt your self in the process with pricing. Selling one for a fair price and using that to cover 2-4 more knives that you can give away is better then selling each knife for $50.
 
I get JT's point.
Giving knives away sends them to friends and family, typically. Selling knives publicly online to strangers for $50 impacts market perceptions. Market perception is a broader "thing" than the actual supply impact of a hobbyist giving away a handful of blades. A hobbyist can't flood any market with actual product. If they made that many, they'd be in business and then the situation would be null.

While the Count's message raised my hackles a bit, I think he's right. I think people who do in fact own firearms are spending their discretionary dollars based on stoked fears, and I think a large proportion of custom knife customers are firearm owners (vs. genpop). Again, perceptions in the market. Perhaps I should be consigning with the gun shops down the street - but one of them also owns a knife making company, and I suspect aren't interested in the competition in their cases. The other thinks my stuff is probably priced out of his customers' interest range.
 
JamesBro said:
I must be missing something, I do not see any really high quality , unique knives selling cheaply from the maker. Maybe the secondary market on an auction site. I doubt If have ever sold or given a knife to anyone who even knows of this sites existence. A good handmade knifes price is based on quality, design and who made it, (and if they want to buy some more makin stuff !). Not on the quantity of kitchen and "bushcraft" knives for sale. If I had the patience or if photobucket still worked, I would post a pic so you could tell me what I should sell or give away. James
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The post started with the observed phenomena that he was seeing knives sell for under the value & while it's anecdotal evidence, i know a plethora of people that don't get the true value of their work out of it. It's an unfortunate reality, but the market is QUITE inflated, and i think what JT has stated in here about people getting something good cheap can really influence future buying patterns. I'm seeing a lot of really good conversation here, as i'm starting to think about making my transition to selling.

I make a decent blade, i use good steels, i send out for professional HT, and i prefer premium finishes. I've only made a handful of blades, and non of them were up to the quality i'd like to see leave the shop for money, but i'm narrowing that gap each time i complete something. Each knife when you're struggling through the process alone (youtube and the forum have been a tremendous aid, do not get me wrong), teaches you to hyper focus on the mistakes, and how to correct them. Those things coupled with the effect that i have tons of friends and family that want knives made, but i'm only able to produce a knife every month or two, leads me to really ponder what my work is worth, and if i should scrap some of the processes that make my knives quality to me, but the end user doesn't like paying the premium for. Satin finishes is what comes to mind here, SO MANY PEOPLE find it attractive, but have no idea how much work it takes. I'm dog shit off the grinder, and getting everything trued up without destroying lines is difficult - i have tricks and tips i'm trying to implement, but everything has a learning curve. Then you see people who don't ever attempt this technique, as it's not cost beneficial, and another lump sum that do something "half-assed". Lots of stuff to think and talk about, but I've enjoyed reading this tread and figuring out how people perceive the knife market.
 
DustinY said:
The post started with the observed phenomena that he was seeing knives sell for under the value & while it's anecdotal evidence, i know a plethora of people that don't get the true value of their work out of it. ...
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That is the definition of a free marketplace. How else are new makers to get their product out there, so they can develop a following and
gradually raise their prices. As I stated above, To me the problem has to do with exposure:

1) Photo hosting on this site is a true mess, and that is a fundamental requirement if these forums are to continue as a discussion site and especially so if we want to sell better knives. I found out this week that the current system is so messed up that I could not even link a photo which I had uploaded to another thread. How are you supposed to get people to part with a bunch of $C notes, if we cant even show them what we are selling? We have to use a third party photo hosting service which screws up the experience by loading in additional add content, formatting issues, cookies and probably viruses. while most everyone has enhanced the experience this site had gotten progressively harder to use over the last 20 years. It has been especially telling since the demise of Photobucket, where many members lost entire photo libraries and this site lost most images from every thread.

2) We have way too many sub-forums and our culture (not a knock on the moderators) is an exercise in feudal tyranny. Try to show some other maker's work on another's sub-forum and the response can be hostile. "Take that to the appropriate forum" is a common refrain. How else is anyone going to learn about competing ideas and products in the marketplace. And what do we gain by limiting our sub-forums to a bunch of repetitive fanboys. Frankly, most of our sub-forums can only be described as dull and near dead. We are discouraging interesting and lively exchanges, so we have many forums that are lucky to see a single post during any given week.

n2s
 
not2sharp said:
That is the definition of a free marketplace. How else are new makers to get their product out there, so they can develop a following and
gradually raise their prices. As I stated above, To me the problem has to do with exposure:

1) Photo hosting on this site is a true mess, and that is a fundamental requirement if these forums are to continue as a discussion site and [...]

2) We have way too many sub-forums and our culture (not a knock on the moderators) is an exercise in feudal tyranny. Try to show some other maker's work on another's sub-forum and the response can be hostile. "Take that to the appropriate forum" is a common
[...]
n2s
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I think what's changed about photo hosting here isn't here. It's that IG and Facebook have taken off as platforms for this stuff, and the third party image repos collapsed. The competition is hosted by huge companies with massive investments in cloud storage hosting. This is an independent site that doesn't get knife-picture-hosting for free along with the other stuff. I'm curious what it would cost to move to an unlimited storage platform with easy-upload features on the user interface. That would have to trickle down to advertising and memberships fees. People would whine, stomp their feet, and leave (maybe not enough to matter?). I simply say this to make the point that "but IG is so easy" is an idea backed by millions of dollars in infrastructure, support, and software engineering behind the scenes that we don't see as users.

Indeed, I've avoided buying into my own sub-forum because of the fractured nature of the communities. I already need to maintain my own website (stability, longevity, organization, archive) and IG accounts. I got my start here and really like posting here and getting feedback, but everything's spreading out.

-E
 
I’m not sure how photo hosting on the internet actually works, but I’m a member of several free forums where all you have to do post a picture is to hit the attach button, go to you’re photo roll on your device, select the picture you want, and click ok. Boom! it posts your picture. I do have to admit, this site makes it extremely difficult to post pictures.
 
So where are these $100-200 custom knives being sold for $50?

I have been involved in the custom knife hobby for 42 years, and I have never seen a gamut of $100-200 knives being sold for $50.

Usually I see a just the opposite, a new maker trying to sell a $50 knife they made for more then it is worth.

This is my position, I do not tell people how much to sell their craft for. I do not pay for their material, I do not pay for their time, I do not pay for their shop.

So therefore I do not tell them how much they should give away for free or how much to charge.

Hobbyist are being used as a scapegoat, they are not the problem at all in the custom knife world.

The problem is there are a lot of awesome knifemakers out there charging a fair price and they are competing against each other and those who are not getting the sales want to blame hobbyist.

BTW if anyone knows were I can find fine custom knives made by hobbyist for $50-100 that compare to those selling for much more by awesome knifemakers, please spill the beans so we can buy them.

Blaming hobbyist is a non sequitur
 
I’m just a collector and am always on the lookout, just like other collectors. Go to the Custom Fixed Blades and Custom Folders sales section of the Knifemaker’s market and slowly scroll through, looking at the people posting the sale threads, and do this for a few pages so you get a good sample over some months.

What you’ll see is a pattern of the same 5-7 maker’s names, over and over again, posting the same style knives. It’s very redundant.

Go to the Custom and Handmade discussion forum and there’s makers who participate in discussion that don’t list knives on BF, or take orders. They’re selling somewhere though and I always wondered how some collectors get the knives that they do.

I kept being told to join Instagram, by big collectors and even some makers. So after a few years, I decided to sign up for IG and in this past year, I’ve got knives and got to custom order some that I would have never dreamed I could have obtained. It was almost too easy in some cases. The platform is just stupid simple and easy.

I will say however that the “Individual” sales area sees a shit ton of traffic. Hell, I post a knife and it seems within 8-10 hours and it’s been bumped to page 2 already and any knife even close to a good price is most always snatched right up.

I think this is a distinction that needs to be pointed out. Without the diverse range of makers posting sales on BF, that section has tanked. As was already mentioned, with how simple and broad reaching Facebook and IG are, it almost doesn’t even make sense to spend time creating a sale thread here though.
 
As a newer maker here, I’ve been hesitant to jump into the conversation, but here’s my take:

Perceived value is not determined by a post on a forum, or the opinion of one person. Value is determined by the market. Someone selling a $50 hobbyist knife is not competing directly with a Steingass, Apelt, or Doyle high end custom. They’re competing with other $50 hobbyist knives. If they raise prices and start to compete in a different tier of work, people will either pay for it, or the market will correct and buyers will dry up.

It’s an interesting conversation to be had, but the current phenomena being discussed is rooted in capitalism, and anyone arguing for tighter control over pricing is headed down a slippery slope contrary to what makes a free market so great (holy run-on sentence Batman).

Additionally, and this is more a personal point, but it’s tough to price your own knife when you’re starting out. I’ve sold a few blades here, and both times I’ve received private messages that I underpriced them. Not in a negative, “you’re ruining the industry” type way, more complimentary, so I took no offense. But it’s tough to gauge when you’re not allowed to solicit pricing or sales data from threads here, so you have to let the buyer be your guide.

Last point and then I’ll land this plane :D. I think we’re conflating hobbyist knife makers with a currently tough economic situation. Discretionary spending is going to be down, and luxury goods are likely not top of mind (for many). It’s a tough time to be a small business, and the pains being felt in the knife making community are a result of things far more complex than new knife makers trying to sell their wares.
 
Maybe I missed it somewhere in this thread (if it was said), was the other reason you don’t see more high- end collectibles being sold here is because those makers have a pretty serious backlog, some up to 2 years or more.

I also don’t “get” the issue with images, I’m a pic-tard with phones and computers, yet have never had a problem with the process here.

If I want to sell more knives for more $$, I try to up my game to compete with the popular makers. If my knife will only fetch $150, that’s on me.
 
As someone who is new i can say that most people are going to sell some stuff for $50. That roughly the cost to build a simple knife. I don't know if it helps or not but I try to tell my friends that I am just charging them cost of material. I find it helpful to show them that it is not free for me to make a knife. If they want more I eventually start charging them more while reminding them that they are basically paying material cost and i am adding in some overhead and that my labor is still free and its still somewhat of a gift. Real sales have got to be more than $50. There is somewhat a perception that the price affects quality and a price to low will not make people value your work.
 
Storm W said:
As someone who is new i can say that most people are going to sell some stuff for $50. That roughly the cost to build a simple knife. I don't know if it helps or not but I try to tell my friends that I am just charging them cost of material. I find it helpful to show them that it is not free for me to make a knife. If they want more I eventually start charging them more while reminding them that they are basically paying material cost and i am adding in some overhead and that my labor is still free and its still somewhat of a gift. Real sales have got to be more than $50. There is somewhat a perception that the price affects quality and a price to low will not make people value your work.
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see that I can understand. You making it clear that your just covering your material costs. One good thing with hobby guys is thy are generally exposing people to the custom knife world that before did not know it was a thing. This is because their customers are there friends, families and other in their towns. This is why I was saying I think it’s important for these new people just getting into buying custom knifes know that custom knives are not cheep. People generally hold onto that lowest price point for awhile. And it’s hard to shake these from them even if thy hobby knife is long gone. But in their mind that blade will have shed all its flaws and only remain as this amazing blade that cost them X. You see it all the time at least I do when talking to people about knives. Thy say “man I wish I had that knife that my grandpa had. It would stay sharp forever and he could skin an elephant and still shave the fuzz off a peach. Thy just don’t make steel like thy use to”. I hear this all the time but it’s true, time is the best Remedy for flaws.
 
AVigil said:
The problem is there are a lot of awesome knifemakers out there charging a fair price and they are competing against each other and those who are not getting the sales want to blame hobbyist.
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Blaming hobbyist is a non sequitur
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Agreed 101% Adam!

Until the moment you (not you Adam! :D) understand that you are not losing sales to $50 knife sellers, and not being able to sell is caused by your own inability to market your knives you will be stuck in cognitive dissonance limbo.

Learn to sell, learn to market. You can see what successful sellers do, but you can't see what they know, be sure they know more than you regarding selling and marketing.

Ah, and it takes time, active learning just shortens the wait.

Pablo
 
I don't think it's the $50 knives that are the problem. Its the $100-$200 knives that are the problem. These knives are usually really nice. People are trying to make a knife the is a better deal than the same price as a production knife. Even using a inexpensive steel like AEB-L they should out perform most production knives. But when those knives have a $50-$80 piece of koa for a handle the knives start to sell for cost or below. Thats tough since it should be a bread and butter price category and it is a market that has the most people in it and should normally have Micarta handles and belt finished blades out of steels like 15n20 or AEB-L. This isn't market forces that are dictating the price since there is a large group of people who are selling below their true cost. This is the reason in large economies some things have subsidies or tariffs for some products to protect the trades from market forces that that are beyond their control. We don't have that in the knife making world but maybe there is something we can do as a community. Although talking about price is not encouraged on BF maybe there could be some sort of private msg that some more advanced makers could guide newer makers on pricing. Maybe as a feature on the sales thread there could be a accessment of value on all knives if the maker is willing. I think some newer makers can even feel like its in bad taste to charge to much and lower the price because they don't have the confidence. A way to be guided on price i think is actually wanted if there is a good way to do it.
 
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