Lets talk GEC!

I can get 85 excited.

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Old Engineer said:
I certainly agree with you on just about every point . My memory is not as good as it used to be but I will remember the Dealers ., who to me , are now Flipper Dealers to me and will not ever see any of my money . I have now UN-Subscribed from their E-Mails .

Harry
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A dealer sold a glitter gold barlow for $385 on eBay a couple days ago (and many more in the past and coming up). That is $320 more than the minimum price a dealer could sell the knife. Let's say if a dealer allotment was 20 each of the factory distributed glitter gold, rose gold, sawcut osage, and smooth autumn bone; and 40 of Charlie's sepia. That is 120 knives times $320 each; which is $38,400 on just this run of TC Barlows. That is more than my company will clear for 2020. If this is the road a dealer wants to go down - I'm not sure he needs customers any more outside eBay.
 
85EO pics are looking good, I know some will disagree but I like the look and never had an issue holding the knife, to me it’s like any other knife I use
 
I don't understand where all these people are coming from that will pay $400 for a GEC. I could understand it once in while for something really rare and out of production, but for entire recent runs?! That's a lot of people that think GEC's are $400 pocket knives. I'll probably never pay $400 for any knife and if I was I'd look into a full blown, handmade custom. I got a little carried away on a couple of Cargill Cripple Creeks, but there aren't going to be any more Cargill Cripple Creeks and even then it wasn't $400 worth of carried away. I just don't get it. Who knew there were that many rich people who collected GEC's? :confused:

Edit: Forgot the pic :oops:
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I feel that someone who pays nearly 500 bucks for a 63 dollar knife is someone who does so to SHOW OFF to others that they can. Buyers remorse isn't a blip on their radar. Some people just really enjoy the "I have one and YOU don't" club. To such people the knife in of itself isn't as important to them as being able to flaunt it. Like the guy that buys a Ford Raptor and never so much as drives it on a dirt road isn't buying it because of its enhanced off road capabilities, but just so everyone else SEES he has one. As long as idiots keep paying an 800% markup to be a part of that club flippers gonna keep flipping. I personally don't get worked up over it, I may never own a TC and I'm ok with that. I have faith in the porch and our friends here that if I honestly said I wanted a good user TC someone here would offer me one at a fair price eventually. To that end I say to hell with the flipppers and their exorbitant prices. To the honest dealers who do their best by their customers as they can,I wish to say thank you and may your business continue to grow and prosper.
 
knifeswapper said:
A dealer sold a glitter gold barlow for $385 on eBay a couple days ago (and many more in the past and coming up). That is $320 more than the minimum price a dealer could sell the knife. Let's say if a dealer allotment was 20 each of the factory distributed glitter gold, rose gold, sawcut osage, and smooth autumn bone; and 40 of Charlie's sepia. That is 120 knives times $320 each; which is $38,400 on just this run of TC Barlows. That is more than my company will clear for 2020. If this is the road a dealer wants to go down - I'm not sure he needs customers any more outside eBay.
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That just made me a little sick to my stomach. :(

I have a bunch of stuff in my cart right now. The moment you post the Case Amber Bone Copperhead in CV steel, I'll pull the trigger. With any luck the RNG gods will smile upon me and I can put that order in a little early with the Osage barlow, lol.

I've pretty much decided that if I can't get a GEC from CK, DLT, or the localish knife shop I can't mention, that Gary runs... I'm not going to get that GEC and I'm cool with that. :)
 
Misplaced Hillbilly said:
I feel that someone who pays nearly 500 bucks for a 63 dollar knife is someone who does so to SHOW OFF to others that they can. Buyers remorse isn't a blip on their radar. Some people just really enjoy the "I have one and YOU don't" club. To such people the knife in of itself isn't as important to them as being able to flaunt it. Like the guy that buys a Ford Raptor and never so much as drives it on a dirt road isn't buying it because of its enhanced off road capabilities, but just so everyone else SEES he has one. As long as idiots keep paying an 800% markup to be a part of that club flippers gonna keep flipping. I personally don't get worked up over it, I may never own a TC and I'm ok with that. I have faith in the porch and our friends here that if I honestly said I wanted a good user TC someone here would offer me one at a fair price eventually. To that end I say to hell with the flipppers and their exorbitant prices. To the honest dealers who do their best by their customers as they can,I wish to say thank you and may your business continue to grow and prosper.
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hmmm.gif I think you have a point. I hadn't really thought of it that way. If I told any of my friends, even the couple who know I collect knives, that I'd paid $400 for a pocket knife, especially a production one, they'd be like, "There's something wrong with you boy." :p

Back in the nineties I got into buying and selling very high end used stereo equipment. Rather than brag about it, I was too embarrassed to tell anybody how much money I was spending on that stuff. They would have been like, "There's something wrong with you boy." :D

Now that I'm thinking in these terms this situation with GEC reminds me of Harley Davidson in the nineties. I bought a new Harley in 1991. Put a few thousand miles on it and sold it for more than I paid for it in 1994. How many times do you make a profit on a vehicle you purchased new? I doubt I ever do it again. There was an 18 month waiting period and people were willing to pay stupid high prices to get a Harley. I sold the Harley, bought a new pick up and kept the BMW (Bike. BMW makes cars too. Who knew? )

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mbkr said:
I don't understand where all these people are coming from that will pay $400 for a GEC. I could understand it once in while for something really rare and out of production, but for entire recent runs?! That's a lot of people that think GEC's are $400 pocket knives. I'll probably never pay $400 for any knife and if I was I'd look into a full blown, handmade custom. I got a little carried away on a couple of Cargill Cripple Creeks, but there aren't going to be any more Cargill Cripple Creeks and even then it wasn't $400 worth of carried away. I just don't get it. Who knew there were that many rich people who collected GEC's? :confused:

Edit: Forgot the pic :oops:
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I suppose people could be spending stimulus checks if they don’t need them for something else.

I got the alerts today, but sat this round out as I was lucky enough to get a sepia TC at a normal price.
 
mbkr mbkr
You have a good point, while I was still a young'n in 91 (born in 79) I remember what it was like with Harley's then. My uncle traded in his AMF electraglide and bought an 89 heritage, after the buyback from AMF everyone was scrambling to get a "real" Harley. But eventually that fad passed and things went back to normal, eventually something else will be the next hot thing and we'll all look back and say "remember the TC boom?" Sometimes perception drives a market. I had a cousin who did a foriegn exchange schooling in Germany, then lived there a couple years. She said while here BMW cars are so called luxury imports in Germany their like a Buick,just another car. I tend to have the "it's just another knife" mindset most of the time. My Dad still rides the '89 Heritage btw, inherited it when unfortunately his brother passed in '90 due to complications of open heart surgery. People marvel at it its all original except for the pipes looks amazing due to always being garage kept at home. Then they see the miles and their eyes pop, not from low miles but from the high miles lol. Dad don't believe in trailering one,he goes to Sturgis he leaves Virginia and rides there:D:thumbsup:
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Here's some GEC knife content so maybe the mods don't get me for straying to far off the path;)
 
Misplaced Hillbilly said:
I feel that someone who pays nearly 500 bucks for a 63 dollar knife is someone who does so to SHOW OFF to others that they can. Buyers remorse isn't a blip on their radar. Some people just really enjoy the "I have one and YOU don't" club. To such people the knife in of itself isn't as important to them as being able to flaunt it. Like the guy that buys a Ford Raptor and never so much as drives it on a dirt road isn't buying it because of its enhanced off road capabilities, but just so everyone else SEES he has one. As long as idiots keep paying an 800% markup to be a part of that club flippers gonna keep flipping. I personally don't get worked up over it, I may never own a TC and I'm ok with that. I have faith in the porch and our friends here that if I honestly said I wanted a good user TC someone here would offer me one at a fair price eventually. To that end I say to hell with the flipppers and their exorbitant prices. To the honest dealers who do their best by their customers as they can,I wish to say thank you and may your business continue to grow and prosper.
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I've seen others respond that you should just get a custom knife for what you would pay on the secondary market for a GEC, but the problem there is that you'd have to wait years for that custom knife to be made by most of the best custom makers.

I'd rather enjoy the new patterns as they come out than wait years for one custom knife. When I see a GEC that I have to have, I will buy it on the secondary market if I cannot first get it from a dealer. However, since I've started my GEC collecting I am 0 for 7 in getting any recent popular releases from a dealer.

I don't think the flippers will go away until GEC meets the demand that is out there for their knives.
 
JTB_5 said:
74 - failed
47 - failed
1st barlow drop - failed
2nd barlow drop - ?
85 canvas - standby
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15 boys knife - reserved!

Whew. It took a minute, but I finally managed to get lucky. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that there is a strong temptation to go after barlows for trade fodder. People have a hard time letting go of older patterns like a 76 or a 55 without a high mark up or something that will garner it.
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This is me exactly including the 85 in canvas micarta.
 
Misplaced Hillbilly Misplaced Hillbilly Totally agree with you about the motivations behind paying out 5 or 6 fold for a 65 Dollar knife, it is crowing and vulgarian showing off, I can pay this price etc. I suspect, that very often these types are recent 'converts' to knife collecting or 'the game' as they see it, they will lose interest and move on, like vultures, to another prey object.

I don't think too many people here would dare admit they paid 500 for an ordinary production knife costing 65 just days before :D because the knife doesn't magically change due to an inflated price tag, it's still a carbon steel product knife. For the same money or a somewhat more, a Custom knife of true rarity can be commissioned. I just bought a Laguiole from a French artisan maker, made according to my requests with its own filework and chosen horn made and delivered in less than a month for much less than 500 of your money, but it is a truly unique and personal knife.

As for what Mike told us about a certain dealer who sells off his quota on e-Bay and could with such mark-up be raking in over 38 K I'm repelled by such greed and ignorance. It's no excuse saying this is what the market will take because it is guided by sinister greed and contempt for knives and ordinary collectors - such a dealer no longer has a personal connexion with customers but views them solely as a resource or prey. Furthermore, these constant inflations of price could even have a deleterious effect on GEC because as ordinary collectors can no longer obtain their knives, GEC itself is not receiving any of this inflated price tags for re-investment, demand gets more intense and the flippers' real hope is that GEC will go out of business thus making its products even 'rarer' and valuable :poop: Such is the essential parasitism of Flippers and the ignorance of dealers promoting such vileness.

What an ultra Flipper really fears is a sudden loss of interest , sudden whim that makes the product no longer irresistible to rational evaluation: do we really believe than in 10 years time these Barlows or GEC knives that are currently costing say 80 that are then sold days later for 450 will be worth say 3000 dollar (given serious inflation doesn't take off?)? Extremely unlikely, the Flipper knows this and works fast in this frenzy of the moment, those who buy into this and pay those absurd prices are beyond foolish&greedy, they are damaging the foundations of true appreciation of Traditional pocket knives. They look not at the knife, its aesthetics, abilities, limitations, history etc but at its price tag with great expectations for further casino style wins:poop: As Bernard Levine said, read the knife.
 
The 300+ prices these knives are selling for astound me, until I remember that this really isn’t a lot I money for some collectors.
I’m sure there are GEC collectors out there with disposable income and no time to deal with these elusive “drops”. If that were me I wouldn’t think twice about paying the exorbitant prices the flippers are selling them for. Those guys exist to fill a demand after all.
 
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