I have noticed over the past 4-6 months the rapid increase of new makers. It seems like every time I browse through the for sale area I see a new maker. I have also been seeing a couple of new makers a week appear on instagram. Is there a limit to how many new makers this industry can support until it starts to go down hill?
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Is the knife making industry driving itself into the ground?
- Thread starter Kody23
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Depends on what you mean by going down hill?...If there are too many makers, sales will fall off, once sales fall off makers don't have the $$ to continue and close up shop or make some kind of change to survive.
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What's wrong with folks wanting to toss their hat in the ring? Competition ALWAYS makes good for the customer. When you have so many people trying to get into the game, it makes it more likely that you'll receive a quality product. Those who make poor or subpar products won't be around long.
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I absolutely second that.
The Logical One
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Just like in anything else, there will be a lot of people jumping in, but few can hang on. I can think of a few custom knife makers who make decent products but they lack the "magic". Just making a good product won't cut it anymore, and as somebody said competition is always good and the main beneficiaries end up being the consumers.
Thats also a very good point. It's definitely better to have to many knife makers than no knife makers at all.
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Yes,
There are new makers every day. As has been noted, this will benefit you, the consumer. Most will only be around for awhile. Knifemaking has always been a very labor intensive, hard dirty job. Most will only be hobbyists, but a few will emerge with an excellent product as full time makers.
There are new makers every day. As has been noted, this will benefit you, the consumer. Most will only be around for awhile. Knifemaking has always been a very labor intensive, hard dirty job. Most will only be hobbyists, but a few will emerge with an excellent product as full time makers.
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I will say this. I know probably, I'd say ten or fifteen, guys personally who are HUGE knife guys. They do research online, they know who they like, they read a lot of the things we read. However, they aren't members of this, or any knife forum, and aren't interested in it. To make my point, there are a lot of people in this country who are big knife fans who buy all sorts of things that people here might not, so I personally think there's room. You talk about the "magic". One of my buds showed me a recent purchase. He picked up a sheathe knife at a gunshow here for like $40. It's a fixed blade, decent leather sheath, D2 steel (in fact that's all it has stamped on it, D2) and he's let me see it. Nice walnut handle scales, full tang, just a nice little knife. It was made by the guy with the table, someone I didn't recognize (don't even remember the name), guy who was making knives in his garage. I think it's a blade kit that the guy then outfitted a nice handle to, pit a decent grind on, and made a sheathe for. Either way, it's nice. I offered to throw him $45 for it, and he said "Eh, I'm not in the selling mode right now". Hey, no worries I understand. My longwinded point is this: there are buyers out there for almost every knife. If a guy gets into the game, refines his craft, and puts out a decent product, then people will buy it. Not every maker can be (or should be) a Randall, or a Loveless, or whoever. Sometimes it's just a guy who buys knife blanks, shines 'em up, makes a decent knife out of them and sells them to happy customers. I would posit the argument that a lot of people out there aren't looking for "magic". They're looking for "Hey, that looks sweet, fits well in my hand! I'll take it!" And what's more? There are far more people like that, than there are discerning, critical-eyed knife buyers like us here on BF.
Full disclosure, my bud who bought this knife and really likes it? Guy's got two or three Randalls, so it's not like he doesn't know what a quality knife is!
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Do you have a fork handy? Jam it in your eye. That's about what reading an FFK thread will feel like. :thumbup:
I'm sure alot of these people were always around. But with the advent of websites that allow them to show off their works to a much bigger market, people notice more. Besides, many of these companies are very small volume and I have been noticing many part time makers to boot. I doubt they'll make any real damage to the industry should they fail or succeed. They just don't have the capacity to compete with big boy production company.
With the demand for the more will known makers making owning the products near-impossible unless you want to pay the secondary price, its making me look more at the small time gigs instead because I don't have the patience to wait 6 years or the desire to pay a 200% markup on knives.
With the demand for the more will known makers making owning the products near-impossible unless you want to pay the secondary price, its making me look more at the small time gigs instead because I don't have the patience to wait 6 years or the desire to pay a 200% markup on knives.
Why would too many makers make the industry go downhill? Maybe you can give us an example of where that has happened. Certainly not in the car industry, for example.
Similar question as my previous post. Why is would there only be "too many makers" or "no makers." I'm no economist, but that doesn't seem to happen in any industry.
I don't know if you remember but I was just thinking today about this old thread where you had this argument with a guy who just couldn't believe the value of things is determined by what people will pay for them. Seriously. You are no economist because for some crazy reason you believe market value is determined by what people pay.
I just watched a video on it. It doesn't really peak my interest. lol