Is Case being influenced by GEC?

As long as Case doesn't start taking after GEC's production numbers, I say let them be influenced. I haven't had the money to put a Case in my pocket again, but it's nice knowing that it's a pretty good chance that the pattern I want will actually be available, as well as affordable.
 
That is one thing I love about Case. I can always get what I want. There's only been one knife of theirs I wanted and couldn't get (orange g10 scout) and that was because I discovered it years too late.

I get sooooo frustrated discovering a knife that hasn't even hit the street yet only to find that all of them are spoken for.

I'd love to see the higher production numbers with GEC. And a more normal supply of a stock of knives.
 
traumkommode said:
.....I have yet to behold a Case knife that made me think "Wow, this looks/feels like a Great Eastern."
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Me neither. But some of the Schatt & Morgans and Canal Streets came pretty close. GEC just makes a solid-hefty knife. I have a S&M Big Moose that is every bit as good as any GEC I own.
 
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traumkommode said:
I would dare say, though, that a considerable portion of the population has at least heard of Case XX, or W.R. Case and Sons.
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Yes, if only because of the high percentage who have read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn at one time or another.
 
knarfeng said:
Yes, if only because of the high percentage who have read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn at one time or another.
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Very true. We are a small crowed here on the porch that supports the finer things in the knife life. But I've only ran into 1 or 2 people that had ever heard of GEC. On the other hand, most people know what a Case knife is because they've been around for 100+ years.
 
duderubble said:
That is one thing I love about Case. I can always get what I want. There's only been one knife of theirs I wanted and couldn't get (orange g10 scout) and that was because I discovered it years too late.
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Shoot me a PM. :thumbup:
 
supratentorial said:
... GEC is very popular on the forum and I'm a fan as well but not everything revolves around GEC.
...
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This was my immediate reaction when I read the original post in this thread. I thought to myself that I doubt that Case is influenced much by GEC, but GEC has an enormous influence on the perceptions of the many very enthusiastic GEC fans (fanatics? ;)) on The Porch.

(This seems not really on-topic for this thread, but I'll comment anyway.
StuntDouble said:
As long as Case doesn't start taking after GEC's production numbers, I say let them be influenced. I haven't had the money to put a Case in my pocket again, but it's nice knowing that it's a pretty good chance that the pattern I want will actually be available, as well as affordable.
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This is one huge reason that I've never purchased a GEC product. I've spent my entire life as a consumer trying to resist "impulse buying": doing research, reading reviews and consumer satisfaction reports, comparing prices, listing pros and cons, and finally making a purchase long after the "initial hype" for a product is over. But GEC's current "business model" seems built on impulse buying. That model seems to be working well for them, and they don't need my "slow-on-the-draw" purchases, nor do I need their product on those terms. Irreconcilable philosophical differences, I guess. :D)

- GT
 
jrawk said:
I think the proper way to phrase the original questions is: Is the Case product line being influenced by GEC consumer trends?

The answer to that, in my mind, is undoubtedly yes.
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traumkommode said:
Even if there is influence being passed from one company to another, it's not as if you can have a traditional pocket knife pattern that's that different, beyond the maker's detectable identity in the piece. Think about another industry - Rock 'n Roll - from the 80s. You can hear a sound show up in music by David Bowie, Phil Collins, King Crimson, Talking Heads, and many other bands, that wasn't there in the 70s. Any sub-culture has identifiers and an evolutionary trajectory that will at some point have a similar effect on all the members of that sub-culture, even if they don't interact directly.
I have yet to behold a Case knife that made me think "Wow, this looks/feels like a Great Eastern."
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There you go. That's a great analogy of what I meant by Case product line being influenced by GEC consumer trends. The Beer trap being the case study (no pun intended). GEC patrons also likely have SAK cadets/pioneers. The cap lifter being part of the attraction to them. Also the Trestle Pines Grand Portage (constructed by Queen) is an even smaller market than GEC but I bet you every Grand Portage owner has had at least one GEC and one Case and one SAK knife at some point. I am one of them. And that there is a consumer trend CASE likely picked up on and tested the water with a few handle cover options. Why they haven't yet started to produce barlows again is a bit of a counterpoint, however.
 
Case used to make a lot more patterns than they do now. Then they introduced their "Vault" program where they would do a rolling retirement of some of the less popular patterns for a few years at a time. The idea was to build up some scarcity demand and then have something "new" for people to look forward to when they pulled a pattern out of the vault, and put another one in.

Last year or so they quietly discontinued the Vault program and at the same time permanently retired some patterns, including the Elephant Toe, Eisenhower, and Copperhead, others. They have been introducing new patterns, usually as a result of Tony Bose designs, so maybe net-net it is the same. I don't know if their Barlow pattern was officially retired but they haven't made new ones in a while.

Ones I no longer see in production include the Humpback Stockman/Whittler, Pocket Hunter, the '27 Small Stockman/Small Pen, the '25 Small Coke Bottle, the Barlow, the others I mentioned above. Additions have been the Sway Back Jack/Gent, Back Pocket/Panama Trapper, Sowbelly Stockman, Tear Drop Jack, perhaps some others I have forgotten.

I would say that the partnership with Tony Bose has been probably the biggest influence on Case's choices of patterns, as well as their own sales numbers for patterns and handle materials that do well.
 
jc57 said:
Case used to make a lot more patterns than they do now. Then they introduced their "Vault" program where they would do a rolling retirement of some of the less popular patterns for a few years at a time. The idea was to build up some scarcity demand and then have something "new" for people to look forward to when they pulled a pattern out of the vault, and put another one in.

Last year or so they quietly discontinued the Vault program and at the same time permanently retired some patterns, including the Elephant Toe, Eisenhower, and Copperhead, others. They have been introducing new patterns, usually as a result of Tony Bose designs, so maybe net-net it is the same. I don't know if their Barlow pattern was officially retired but they haven't made new ones in a while.

Ones I no longer see in production include the Humpback Stockman/Whittler, Pocket Hunter, the '27 Small Stockman/Small Pen, the '25 Small Coke Bottle, the Barlow, the others I mentioned above. Additions have been the Sway Back Jack/Gent, Back Pocket/Panama Trapper, Sowbelly Stockman, Tear Drop Jack, perhaps some others I have forgotten.

I would say that the partnership with Tony Bose has been probably the biggest influence on Case's choices of patterns, as well as their own sales numbers for patterns and handle materials that do well.
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Does Case announce or otherwise document somewhere which patterns are put on the "permanently discontinued" or "retired" list? Just curious to know which ones.
 
jrawk said:
There you go. That's a great analogy of what I meant by Case product line being influenced by GEC consumer trends. The Beer trap being the case study (no pun intended). GEC patrons also likely have SAK cadets/pioneers. The cap lifter being part of the attraction to them. Also the Trestle Pines Grand Portage (constructed by Queen) is an even smaller market than GEC but I bet you every Grand Portage owner has had at least one GEC and one Case and one SAK knife at some point. I am one of them. And that there is a consumer trend CASE likely picked up on and tested the water with a few handle cover options. Why they haven't yet started to produce barlows again is a bit of a counterpoint, however.
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I think you're spot on with the SAK thought. I think that Case is very likely looking at what Victorinox and Rough Rider are doing and adjusting to compete against them. I don't believe that Case is looking at GEC and deciding that because GEC is able to sell 500 knives with a bottle opener that there is a market for Case to run off 10,000 knives. I don't know exactly how many mini-trappers with bottle opener Case is making, but when they make 3,000 of a knife they call it a limited edition and this knife doesn't qualify for that designation so I have to believe it's many thousands of knives.

This is why I don't think that GEC is influencing regular Case runs. GEC simply doesn't make enough knives to be able to identify any market trends. In order for a GEC run to be successful they need two or three hundred customers to be interested in it, maybe less because many GEC customers are willing to buy multiples of each run. In order for a Case run to be successful they need tens of thousands of customers to be interested in it. I don't see how it would be possible to accurately predict that level of support by looking at what GEC is doing. I doubt that there are tens of thousands of people that have any GEC knife at all, and definitely don't think that there are tens of thousands of people that have any single pattern that GEC has produced. I'd bet that the number of people that are interested in the current run of GEC caplifters is under 1,500. And by interested I don't mean that they'll try to buy one, I mean that they might try to buy one if it was half the price. It would be foolish for Case to look at a run that is garnering interest from under 1,500 people and deduce from that that there's a market for 10,000 similar knives from a different manufacturer.
 
This thread contains one of the best discussions being posted here in a long time!
Thanks for posing the question, btmccutcheon!!

brownshoe said:
You got that right :).

Tony Bose says all current traditional knives are not really new, just copies or riffs on past masters.
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Brilliant really!! In my limited dabbling in knife design, I have discovered this also. Where a lot of knife designs fall down, is in a mix-and-match approach that produces neither fish nor fowl!

supratentorial said:
It's interesting that this subject has come up several times but GEC has directly copied Case/Tony Bose without permission (even using Tony's name before removing it at his request) but that didn't get much of any discussion on the forum.
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I believe it was the dealer who used Tony's name, NOT GEC!!
Small but important point!!
 
If you look, Bradford and Titusville are about an hour and a half apart, two hours tops if you take Google Maps second suggested route.

I wonder if Case ever asked Bill if he wanted to come work for them.
 
I'll bet the Case run with caplifters is due to the incredible popularity of craft beers that are not twist tops and less with the GEC offering. That's the only way to decide there is enough demand to justify a full production run. At a recent knife show, more makers than ever were selling caplifters on the side...$150+ for a damascus ones. In addition, the GEC knife could be thought of as a riff off Case who has been paring different secondary blades with a large one for a while.
 
scrteened porch said:
I don't remember Case from Huck or Tom. I remember Barlow. I'll have to search the e-books.
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapt 37 36
Then he says:

"It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work. If we was prisoners it would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no hurry; and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the way it ought to be done. But we can't fool along; we got to rush; we ain't got no time to spare. If we was to put in another night this way we'd have to knock off for a week to let our hands get well—couldn't touch a case-knife with them sooner."
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jrawk said:
I think the proper way to phrase the original questions is: Is the Case product line being influenced by GEC consumer trends?

The answer to that, in my mind, is undoubtedly yes.
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Cory Hess said:
This is why I don't think that GEC is influencing regular Case runs. GEC simply doesn't make enough knives to be able to identify any market trends. In order for a GEC run to be successful they need two or three hundred customers to be interested in it, maybe less because many GEC customers are willing to buy multiples of each run. In order for a Case run to be successful they need tens of thousands of customers to be interested in it. I don't see how it would be possible to accurately predict that level of support by looking at what GEC is doing. I doubt that there are tens of thousands of people that have any GEC knife at all, and definitely don't think that there are tens of thousands of people that have any single pattern that GEC has produced. I'd bet that the number of people that are interested in the current run of GEC caplifters is under 1,500. And by interested I don't mean that they'll try to buy one, I mean that they might try to buy one if it was half the price. It would be foolish for Case to look at a run that is garnering interest from under 1,500 people and deduce from that that there's a market for 10,000 similar knives from a different manufacturer.
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perhaps, but I still think you're looking at it the wrong way. Forget about the entity that is GEC and instead think of the people who buy GECs, us. I am willing to presume WE are influencing case's production decisions simply because we are a swath of people shelling out lots of money for new knifes on a relatively steady basis and admittedly overhyping the snot out of them. It just so happens the knives are GEC. So why wouldn't Case want to latch onto a growing trend in the underground collector market? It makes no sense to ignore it. Another example is Blackberry cell phones. Blackberry was the leader in smart phones when touch screens were first being developed in 2006 by Apple and HTC. Blackberry intentionally decided to continue producing phones with only physical button keyboards until 2010. They ignored the trend and have just about failed as a smart phone platform because of that decision. Not saying Case is going to fold because they won't produce barlows, but ignoring blooming market trends is bad business.
 
I think that "we" are not as large of a "swath" as it may seem. Of the millions of Case customers, all over the world, the BFC traditional sub-forum is a very small portion and for a very large company such as Case, "we" are a very small target market. GEC is a small company and thus better suited to cater to a smaller "swath" such as ourselves. To a fish, the world is only as big as the pond in which it swims.
 
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