Just need to vent a little :grumpy:

Why not just do a second release later if demand requires? Voila, first batch proves the case, second release fits the demand.
 
When I pre-order I consider it a lottery entry. If I get one, great. If not, I can consider getting one at inflated prices or wait until the furor dies down, or maybe do without it.
 
catamount123 said:
The idea that I have to get this now, or I will never have another chance, drives the speculative market. If people know they may have another opportunity to get the sprint, even if it's a year out, that would put a big damper on the speculation. Simply reserving the right to do another run, if warranted by demand, would make speculating riskier, and less attractive.
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I pretty much agree with this assessment. That said, I'm certain a lot of people would love having another crack at a 200-300 (or more) run of a very popular sprint 1-3 years after it was first released. The best part is you only need to do it if there's an obvious demand for it. This all really hinges on if it's feasible/sensible to do such a small run though, I guess.

All in all though, I'd just like to say how great it is to see Mr. Glesser always engaging the consumers as to how things can possibly be improved. It really gives me a lot of confidence in the brand as a whole to see someone so involved with the people that buy their product.
 
yablanowitz said:
The problem as I see it:

If you say it will be a 600 piece run, speculators will buy up as many as they can to resell at a profit based on that low number, and you have unfilled pre-orders. If you produce another 600 pieces to fill the unmet pre-orders, it is no longer a 600 piece run, which means you have a lot of angry customers because you lied about the numbers and diluted the value of everyone's knife, collectors and speculators alike.

If you say it will be a 1200 piece run, the speculators figure it will be too common to bother investing in since they won't be able to make a huge profit on each piece, and you end up stuck with excess inventory. The customers are happy because they get to buy them cheap when you clear them out at a loss to get rid of them, until you go bankrupt. Then they're unhappy because you won't be making any more knives.

Speculators are a fact of life. Is it fair that some people have more money available for knife purchases than others? Maybe not, but I find the current system preferable to the alternatives, and I've got shallow pockets. How can you solve the problem? You can't. Even if Sprint Runs were sold exclusively through the SFO and limited to one per customer, people will find a way to buy extras. I've seen it happen with a couple of the Mules.
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+1
Well said. You cannot make everybody happy. I do not have a problem with current system. I am into Spydercos a little over five years and never I missed sprint, which I wanted to buy, always bought from the same dealer, well known dealer with many customers. The trick is: place pre-order in time. I was a little late with gray para: place pre-order in November, got mine few day ago.
Nobody can predict exact number of knives, which will be sold within couple month. Also some knives are hot, some very hot and some not hot at all. I saw few times when dealers were selling sprint a year or more after it was released. Sometimes even 700 is too many.
But I have one suggestion to reduce complains: do not sell sprint in batches, sell all of them at once.
 
Sal,
Would you consider creating a Steelhead Club? Or is that just out of the question.
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Rev, that's pretty much what the Mule team program was/is intended to be. As it is it's already a drain as they have virtually no profit margin on these and they sure could schedule the production time for something with a higher return. Their profit margin is already lower than a bunch of companies but the mule team is run virtually at no profit, which if you take into consideration the lost production time it means a negative bottom line.

Of course I'm not Spyderco's accountant and I'm guessing but I do know they aren't really marking up the mules much at all.

Joe
 
Human nature being what it is, no matter what system one comes up with for equitable distribution, the greedy will find a way to "game" it. That said, I think that if Spyderco "reserved the right to produce one or more subsequent runs identical to the first" just that possibility would lessen, if not eliminate, speculator interest without reducing the interest of users and legitimate collectors.
 
The Deacon said:
Human nature being what it is, no matter what system one comes up with for equitable distribution, the greedy will find a way to "game" it. That said, I think that if Spyderco "reserved the right to produce one or more subsequent runs identical to the first" just that possibility would lessen, if not eliminate, speculator interest without reducing the interest of users and legitimate collectors.
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Oh I agree and sincerely hope that Spyderco will find a way for equitable distribution.
 
I hope this comes across as just a different data point rather than trying to create a dispute. :) I had been worried about the gray G10 but so far it has been surprisingly dirt-resistant. The worst culprit for me in that regard has been, to my surprise, the blue G10 on the Manix2 and the (slightly different) blue G10 on the Sage3. YMMV, I guess. :)

Sal Glesser said:
Hi Spydusse,

I guess I'm the culprit that chose to use gray G-10. Sorry if it's not working out for you, my bad. We don't offer scales. I guess you don't like the "used hard" look? There are limited numbers in colors for G-10 and we wanted to use a different color for differentiation. Didn't occur to me that it would get really dirty. Please let us know if you find something that cleans it well.

Hi Singularity, I don't know that we lost money on the orange Military, but there was inventory for longer than we like for a sprint. We yielded to the requests for more and it turned out to be a headache. I'm glad that those that wanted one, got one, but we don't like making changes like that. We try to be consistent in our production.

sal
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The Mastiff said:
Rev, that's pretty much what the Mule team program was/is intended to be. As it is it's already a drain as they have virtually no profit margin on these and they sure could schedule the production time for something with a higher return. Their profit margin is already lower than a bunch of companies but the mule team is run virtually at no profit, which if you take into consideration the lost production time it means a negative bottom line.

Of course I'm not Spyderco's accountant and I'm guessing but I do know they aren't really marking up the mules much at all.

Joe
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I do agree with you, however the mule team project does not necessarily take into account the lack of available sprint run Para2, Manix2, Military, etc being released. The suggestion I threw on the table (even though 99% chance it will not happen at all) would be a way to put a sprint in the hand of those folks that really want one for use or a collection piece rather than release (like a variation on the existing CC). I would be willing to commit financially to purchase said sprints for the collectors club price if that would provide me with a knife at the time of release, and I am sure many others would too.
I totally missed out on the S90V Military and Manix2 because I was not quick enough on the mouse. When those knvies were released many knife stores were unwilling or unable to even consider a preorder. Now it has become an "official" listing on most sites. More than likely thanks to the mad dash to grab at least 1 knife with a super steel. At any rate, it was just a thought out loud. :)

spydusse said:
I was thinking about the rit dye . The only thing that's keeping me from doing that is the worry of messing up the friction fit of the laynard hole. I'm guessing the dirty look annoying me will fade over time . Similar to that first good scratch you put on a new blade....devastation, annoying stairs in different lighting and finally acceptance.
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Not sure what you are referring to but, the lanyard hole would not necessarily be affected. People have dyed their knives without disassembly (no need to take it apart), and they came out fine. I doubt that water even boiled would be enough to modify the heat treat of the steel.
 
The laynard part I was refering to comes from forumites that broke down there manixs said it was a bitch to get back together. The laynard on the para looks to be the same .As for dying intact,I don't know if I want to mess around with my white whale like that. I'm slowly starting to get over the filthy look and I don't want to mess with the orginality of the knife either. Thanks for your suggestion though. I. Only get one day off a week anyway so iif I want to show it off around town ill toothbrush it the night before
 
You can dye the knife whole. It isn't going to dye the metal so that isn't a worry. It might not dye under the scale real well but you can't see that. Anything that can be seen should dye well as long as it is cleaned and degreased well. If you are interested in doing it read up on it because others have dyed the knife whole and wrote about it in the forums.

Edit: I see rev already mentioned this
 
Thanks, everyone, for the replies! Esp. thanks to Sal! It's really nice to see that you're really involved with the forums and your loyal customers! And actually paying attention to even my little rant/vent... really shows how much you are about those tho use your products. My hat's off to you (as always).

And thanks for chiming in, everyone... reading all your responses is nice to get some perspective on the whole thing. At no point was I ever blaming Spyderco for "not having enough" sprint run knives... I know why they are limited, and I understand what holding onto excessive inventory is like... it's no fun. However, I do think that increasing the number of sprint runs for (already) highly popular knives is a good idea... but I don't know if that is a risk Sal or Spyderco would like to take (of it's a reasonable option).
 
The sprint run situation wouldn't bother me at all if these knives weren't being flipped for profit and kept as safe queens. If people were actually using these knives as opposed to sending them out brand new, within days of release to the exchange at a huge markup, there wouldn't be an issue in my eyes.

Kind of like having a Porsche and bragging about it constantly, but not taking it out of the garage. SO WHAT?
 
Handwrecker said:
The sprint run situation wouldn't bother me at all if these knives weren't being flipped for profit and kept as safe queens. If people were actually using these knives as opposed to sending them out brand new, within days of release to the exchange at a huge markup, there wouldn't be an issue in my eyes.

Kind of like having a Porsche and bragging about it constantly, but not taking it out of the garage. SO WHAT?
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I agree wholeheartedly. If I decide to sell a knife, it is generally because I won't use it (something about it doesn't "click" for me). I don't see the point in having S90V Steel, or CTS-20C if you are not going to use it. If you want one to look at, why spend the money on one with great steel that looks the same as one that is selling for much more? Steels like that are meant to be used! Then again, I will typically only buy a sprint if it has a different steel just for that reason. I don't see a point in having another of the same blade with a different handle color (exactly why I got rid of my moonglow manix). I literally had it for about 8 hours and it was gone. It was very cool, but just didn't do it for me and I traded it for the value that I purchased it for (not inflated). I think the deal was the moonglow manix + a Gayle Bradley for an NIB Para 2 S90V. I thought it was a fair deal and it was to another Sypdie nut.

I am not condemning people who do this, but I will not own a safe queen. If I won't use it, away it goes. The only other reason I would keep it is if I want to mod it in some way to make me want to use it. Most of my "keepers" have been modded in one way or another.
 
Oh I use mine. Day 1
20110514_182905_607.jpg
day 3
20110516_094735_288.jpg
 
Complicated problem. I notice the last two Mule Team knives are still available at spyderco.com.

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind a S90V Military with G10 handles. ;)
 
catamount123 said:
The idea that I have to get this now, or I will never have another chance, drives the speculative market. If people know they may have another opportunity to get the sprint, even if it's a year out, that would put a big damper on the speculation. Simply reserving the right to do another run, if warranted by demand, would make speculating riskier, and less attractive.
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J_Curd said:
Why not just do a second release later if demand requires? Voila, first batch proves the case, second release fits the demand.
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This :thumbup:

It really upset me that I didn't get the S90V Para2, and probably won't get the CTS20CP one either, despite being out fairly early. I just don't see myself paying $3-400 from some flipper on ebay :(
 
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