How has the custom knife world changed recently?

A. G. Russell said:
If you will provide me with the numbers for E-Bay, how many after-market handmade knives sold and what prices they sold for I will tell you what we did in that period. I need a little more than your opinion. As I said I have been dominating the after-market in handmade knives since 1968 and that is well known to most of the old timers. Do I still? I do not think so, there are now many players, both with catalogs, like North West Knives, and many many web sites. I know that the web sites sell many many more new knives from makers than we do. I doubt though that they outsell us in the after-market. A. G.
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AG, maybe I am reading you wrong. But what you alluded to above is that you feel you are STILL a contender with eBay for aftermarket knives in terms of volume sold--or profit derived. This is a BIG statement. Your past dominance is beyond dispute. I'm talking (and so is this thread) current figures.

eBay closes on 250 used true customs every week. Where are you cataloging all of yours? Cuttingedge.com? Private sales? This just seems extreme to challenge the ebay monolith with nothing seemingly equal.

I enjoy you and your catalog of new knives every issue, don't get me wrong. And I really miss the old print venue. It came to me instead of me looking for it. You knew that.

Thanks,

Coop
 
SharpByCoop said:
AG, maybe I am reading you wrong.
eBay closes on 250 used true customs every week. Where are you cataloging all of yours? Cuttingedge.com? Private sales? This just seems extreme to challenge the ebay monolith with nothing seemingly equal.Coop
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I know that our volume is down quite a bit from when we did 5,000 books each month with 500-1,000 in each book.

I have no idea what ebay does, obviously I do not know how to find handmade knives on e-bay. Can anyone tell me how to find those knives? When I search for handmade or custom knives all I find is an endless series of crap.

SharpByCoop said:
I enjoy you and your catalog of new knives every issue, don't get me wrong. And I really miss the old print venue. It came to me instead of me looking for it. You knew that.
Thanks,

Coop
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If you used to get the cutting edge and are not getting the new one, you need to email kimm@agrussell.com and remind her.
A. G.

Thanks,

Coop[/QUOTE]
 
A. G. Russell said:
I have no idea what ebay does, obviously I do not know how to find handmade knives on e-bay. Can anyone tell me how to find those knives? When I search for handmade or custom knives all I find is an endless series of crap.
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He he he! That's an understatement! Keywords are no longer worth anything. For me, I now find the *better* search is by category: Collectibles:Knives, Swords & Blades:Fixed Blade Knives:Modern (1970 - Now):Custom Manufactured You will only get 10-20crapola items for each potential handmade knife. You learn to scroll VERY quickly....
If you used to get the cutting edge and are not getting the new one, you need to email kimm@agrussell.com and remind her.
A. G.
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This is great news. I WILL! :)

Thanks,

Coop

(Mr. Rims posted my category find at the same time! :))
 
A. G. Russell said:
Well we mail several million A. G. Russell Knives Catalogs, over a million Russells for Men catalogs, 20-30,000 Knife Collectors Club brochures every three weeks and about 5,000 Cutting Edge Catalogs every 2nd or 3rd month.
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I'm sorry, but I don't understand. My point was about the 2nd hand market, so the Russell for Men and A. G. Russell Knives catalogs don't apply. The other 2 seem confidential when compared to your web site, no? They certainly don't cover those 940,000 names in your db (I know I'm not getting the Cutting Edge catalogue).

If you will provide me with the numbers for E-Bay, how many after-market handmade knives sold and what prices they sold for I will tell you what we did in that period. I need a little more than your opinion.
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A. G., I would assume that you follow those numbers. Anyway, for the sake of the argument, here are a few custom knives that sold recently:
- Loveless-$5,156-Feb-23
- S. R. JOHNSON-$1,775-Feb-25
- JOHN COOPER-$1,550-Mar-03
- Al Mar Shiva proto-$1,425-Feb-23
- Scagel fixed blade-$1,500-Feb-25
- Joe Kious subhilt-$1,200-Mar-06
- 1987 Jimmy Lile button lock-$1,075-Mar-06
- McBurnette folder-$1,026-Mar-03

Among other knives that didn't sell were a Dietmar Kressler tortoise shell integral, an H.H. Franck folder, another Loveless, a Ron Lake folder, a Virgil England, a Jerry Fisk, a Velarde Subhilt Integral, a D. E. Henry bowie, a Rob Hudson pair, a D'Holder bowie, a Harvey Draper bowie, a Joe Olson folder, a W. W. Cronk integral, a Steve Schwarzer damascus + ivory skinner, an Ed Fowler pronghorn, a Harvey Dean damascus + icory hunter, one 1979 and one 1998 Jimmy Lile button lock, Francesco Pachi damascus + stag hunter, etc, etc.

Those are only the customs over $1,000, with auction end date since Feb-20. I can search beyond that, but you get the idea. There are other cheaper customs and a large number of production - including old Marbles, etc.

Those are people who chose eBay rather than a purveyor to list their knife.
 
A.G. I thought you got out of custom knives a few years ago and quit doing The Cutting Edge. Are you back?

I will agree that Ebay is huge but the after market with custom knife dealers is very strong also. I'm in constant contact with 5 or 6 dealers and they are doing well, some are down a little bit and others are up. I will say this, there are more dealers now than ever before, too many but the world of custom knives is growing big time and the internet is changing how we do business and share info. It's all good :thumbup:

This and the other threads have been very informative, good reading.
 
As someone with multiple expensive interests and a middle-class income I routinely have to sell one to get one.
I usually

1) Offer to friends first at a great price
2) List on forums for a great price
or
3) Go to Ebay

I pass right over purveyors. I have had some good good experiences back in the day with AG, Nordic and KnifeArt consigning some interesting and high end knives but in reality Ebay is quicker and painless but sometimes unpredictable in regards to netted strike price.

With Ebay it is usually sold in one week or less and many bidders use paypal.

There are a lot of optimistic folks on ebay with optimistic prices, but the medium works real well for this hobbyist.
 
I have to agree w/ Mr. Toes. I do like the level playing field auctions create, for buyers and sellars.

What I've noticed, (retail companies) there's an increased volume of "custom" factory knives. William Henry is a prime example. How they sell production knives for those prices, it's always surprising to me?

The infatuation with making Scagel copies has dwindled, in appeal, giving way to more evolving designs. Always hot designs are a focus of the magazines.

"Knives ...2005, 2006" a good advertising medium to showcase pictures of maker's work.

Cutting competitions, and whatever appeal that brings to the custom knife market and knives made.
David
 
AG- It's great to see you posting here! All those years of wisdom from such a friendly man is very much welcomed here! :D

I have to admit, I thought it was a rare occasion to find anything of worth on ebay as per high end knives. I've seen some, such as a Hudson hunter set, and a bowie one time... But I had no idea there's so many high end knives being offered there.

Coop, just curious, but where did you get the figure of 250 closing per week? Not questioning the number, just wondering how you found it. :)

I think there are MANY great posts in this thread and I have enjoyed it very much, THANKS GUYS! :thumbup: :D
 
on Ebay, in addition to their categories,

under the collectibe:knives heading try custom searches for

"damascus"
"bowie"
"custom"



Then search by PRICE

That will bring the best knives to the top, usually
 
Just checked "Damascus" in the collectibles section of EBay.

The first page has 50 listings. Forty Seven of these listings belong to:

xotique-antiques

Bad news guys, looks like the purveyors have gotten to the mid-market as well.

Those are excellent search words.

There was a really nice Jerry Fisk for $5,500 (buy it now).
 
SharpByCoop said:
eBay closes on 250 used true customs every week. Where are you cataloging all of yours? Cuttingedge.com? Private sales? This just seems extreme to challenge the ebay monolith with nothing seemingly equal.

Thanks,

Coop
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The best year we ever had we sold something over 10,000 knives. We so not sell so many now. No longer a staff of 2-3 people..Me and a little part time help. go to http://cuttingedge.com and look in. We run a dutch auction, the price goes down each month if not sold. A. G.
 
A. G., we're talking custom only here - not just knives.

If you will provide me with the numbers for E-Bay, how many after-market handmade knives sold and what prices they sold for I will tell you what we did in that period.
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So, what did you sell in terms of customs over $1,000 between Feb-20 and yesterday?
 
Joss said:
A. G., we're talking custom only here - not just knives.


So, what did you sell in terms of customs over $1,000 between Feb-20 and yesterday?
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A lot fewer than ebay seems to have.

There is no question that the net has changed things. If I were just starting out I would not do much with paper until I had built a large data base on the web.


A. G..
 
im a new buyer of a custom knife and i have used ebay for other needs but with a knife at the prices they are and with all the rip offs and different styles out there id never use ebay. ill go with a name i trust and i expect to pay more( that is questionable)when i buy but years of experance is worth somthing and trust is worth more.
if i were selling then the above statements are even truer.
mr russell u have earned trust and that is worth considerable.
as far as how many u sell or not thats none of my business. my .02 for what it is worth.
i will be doing business with u in a short period mr russell.
david
 
Newshooter,

Welcome on board. The custom knife is a fascinating world.

You'll soon realize that custom knives are not a commodity and that as a buyer you have little choice but to buy it from whoever sells it. Of course, you always have a choice not to buy at all, but the idea of buying it here rather than there is just unrealistic.

FWIW, I've bought $5,000 to $10,000 worth of knives on eBay plus $11,500 worth of coins plus maybe $1,000 worth of books in the 12 months (:eek: :eek: :eek: scarry to actually go through this exercise...) I sold maybe $10,000 worth of various stuff in the same time. I never had a single problem - no un-shipped items, no misrepresentation, no nothing. Of course, you have to be careful and do your homework. Like all tools, eBay requires that one do their homework. However, if you simply refuse to use eBay you're going to miss most of the opportunities.

This being said, your strategy is probably a good idea for a beginner. Dealing directly with makers is even more fun.
 
re: "William Henry is a prime example. How they sell production knives for those prices, it's always surprising to me?"

That topic has been discussed in many threads, with the point always being made that those knives though made in batches and made by "more than one single person", are outstanding quality knives, and the buyers (actual buyers) tend to very much like them and find the quality to value ratio to be high.

They aren't one-off customs, but like Darrel Ralph's great knives, the value and quality are very high, and also simliarly, both are inovative in design, unique, both have repeat customers rather than buyers dumping after an initial purchase. Darrel Ralph is a terrific guy with stellar customer service, I've read nothing but the same re: Matt Connable, owner of William Henry. (We live in the same small town actually and our sons play together in pre-school).

Getting back on-topic, I think it TAKES that kind of dedication and service to make it and stay viable in today's marketplace. Word gets out quickly today if the quality or service isn't there. And as always, the reputation created can help or hurt you, in William Henry's case it helps them, they've earned a good reputation (though not for one-off customs).

Frank H.
 
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