Lets talk GEC!

or, put what you're offering/looking for in your signature line.
 
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556hunter said:
You know, I think GEC is kinda headed down the same road as case a little. They are making themselves into a special order only knife company. They have so many wonderful patterns already on the books and you can't get a single damn one of them. I guess I don't understand why a company would choose to not keep certain popular patterns in stock all the time like stockmans, Jack knives, sodbusters, and other popular historical working knife patterns.

See, we want others to appreciate slipjoint knives and we want to send our kids down the "old timey/traditional path", but you can't buy a dad gum top quality American made pocket knife (GEC), because they're always outa stock; because the friggin company is catering to the speciality and collectors market.....some of us aren't collectors, we couldn't care less about collecting but we DO want a fine working knife. Or we want to get our kids, friends, or family members GEC knives and were left scrambling to try and buy one from a dealer (never happens cause they're all spoken for in early reserve) or scramble for one on the EE or flea bay; which is an act in futility at best. They're either way over priced it they're snapped up in a matter of minutes.

I apologize about the rant but I'm fed up with NEVER being able to find simple patterns, that I feel should be in stock all the time as they're base line product. GEC started out making pocket knives with a FF/quality not seen here in uncountable decades and now they cater to the special order/ collector above the average workin guy....
Click to expand...

I had these numbers and thought they were interesting. You might find them interesting, too.

- In 2015 Great Eastern Cutlery made 19596 knives
- In the Tidioute, Northfield, Great Eastern Cutlery, and Farm & Field (Non-Special Factory Order profiles) they made 10160 knives
- In Special Factory Order materials (some in profiles only available to certain dealers / individuals, others in profiles that each dealer received but some dealers received a special handle material which they specially ordered) they made 5983 knives
- In Special Factory Order knives that were not part of the Great Eastern Cutlery Brand (Hess / Northwoods) they made 3453 knives

Breakdown of SFO

Code: 
Dealer	       Quantity	Percetage of Production
SFO - AAPK	53	0.27
SFO - Barry	292	1.49
SFO - Bob	51	0.26
SFO - Charlie	1837	9.37
SFO - Chris	25	0.13
SFO - Derrick	591	3.02
[B]SFO - Hess[/B]	[B]841	4.29[/B]
SFO - Drake	100	0.51
SFO - Innov.	53	0.27
SFO - Rouch	209	1.07
SFO - Lyle	185	0.94
SFO - Mike	1967	10.04
SFO - Percey	186	0.95
SFO - Roy	27	0.14
SFO - Smith	357	1.82
SFO - Trevor	50	0.26
[B]SFO - Northw[/B][B]	2612	13.33[/B]

Bold - Non-GEC Brand SFO
 
somber said:
I had these numbers and thought they were interesting. You might find them interesting, too.

- In 2015 Great Eastern Cutlery made 19596 knives
- In the Tidioute, Northfield, Great Eastern Cutlery, and Farm & Field (Non-Special Factory Order profiles) they made 10160 knives
- In Special Factory Order materials (some in profiles only available to certain dealers / individuals, others in profiles that each dealer received but some dealers received a special handle material which they specially ordered) they made 5983 knives
- In Special Factory Order knives that were not part of the Great Eastern Cutlery Brand (Hess / Northwoods) they made 3453 knives

Breakdown of SFO

Code: 
Dealer	       Quantity	Percetage of Production
SFO - AAPK	53	0.27
SFO - Barry	292	1.49
SFO - Bob	51	0.26
SFO - Charlie	1837	9.37
SFO - Chris	25	0.13
SFO - Derrick	591	3.02
[B]SFO - Hess[/B]	[B]841	4.29[/B]
SFO - Drake	100	0.51
SFO - Innov.	53	0.27
SFO - Rouch	209	1.07
SFO - Lyle	185	0.94
SFO - Mike	1967	10.04
SFO - Percey	186	0.95
SFO - Roy	27	0.14
SFO - Smith	357	1.82
SFO - Trevor	50	0.26
[B]SFO - Northw[/B][B]	2612	13.33[/B]

Bold - Non-GEC Brand SFO
Click to expand...

Sorry but your list is incomplete. You are missing at least one SFO run by a Distributor.
My bad, the run I'm referring to was 2016.
 
somber said:
I had these numbers and thought they were interesting. You might find them interesting, too.

- In 2015 Great Eastern Cutlery made 19596 knives
- In the Tidioute, Northfield, Great Eastern Cutlery, and Farm & Field (Non-Special Factory Order profiles) they made 10160 knives
- In Special Factory Order materials (some in profiles only available to certain dealers / individuals, others in profiles that each dealer received but some dealers received a special handle material which they specially ordered) they made 5983 knives
- In Special Factory Order knives that were not part of the Great Eastern Cutlery Brand (Hess / Northwoods) they made 3453 knives

Breakdown of SFO

Code: 
Dealer	       Quantity	Percetage of Production
SFO - AAPK	53	0.27
SFO - Barry	292	1.49
SFO - Bob	51	0.26
SFO - Charlie	1837	9.37
SFO - Chris	25	0.13
SFO - Derrick	591	3.02
[B]SFO - Hess[/B]	[B]841	4.29[/B]
SFO - Drake	100	0.51
SFO - Innov.	53	0.27
SFO - Rouch	209	1.07
SFO - Lyle	185	0.94
SFO - Mike	1967	10.04
SFO - Percey	186	0.95
SFO - Roy	27	0.14
SFO - Smith	357	1.82
SFO - Trevor	50	0.26
[B]SFO - Northw[/B][B]	2612	13.33[/B]

Bold - Non-GEC Brand SFO
Click to expand...

That's interesting, thank you for your post.

If I calculated this correctly, the regular run of GEC knives is 51% of their production and KSF is 16.3% of total production.

I wish they would post the freaking #15 covers! - I'm more interested in that right now...
 
somber said:
I'm confident that my list is accurate per the numbers released by Great Eastern Cutlery for the 2015 Production Totals: http://greateasterncutlery.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2015-PRODUCTION-5-9.pdf

The only knives excluded from these totals were the 2015 club knives which accounted for 90 knives, of which were made for AMKCA (381315), OKCA (381315), and Western Reserve (092214).
Click to expand...

Thanks for making that post. It's cool to see the statistics laid out like that. I'm wondering, why did you choose to include the AAPK club knife in your numbers but not the other club knives you mentioned?
 
somber said:
I'm confident that my list is accurate per the numbers released by Great Eastern Cutlery for the 2015 Production Totals: http://greateasterncutlery.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2015-PRODUCTION-5-9.pdf

The only knives excluded from these totals were the 2015 club knives which accounted for 90 knives, of which were made for AMKCA (381315), OKCA (381315), and Western Reserve (092214).
Click to expand...

The numbers might be off a little - it appears that anything handled in 'elephant ivory' was omitted from the list. I know there were at least a few - I have one of the Northwoods Broadway knives in Elephant that was part of the run.
 
Thanks for the # crunch. Very interesting. Yes the posted #s are not 100% correct (IE Ivory handles) In the past years #s there are omissions in the fixed blades also. And some Typos.





somber said:
I had these numbers and thought they were interesting. You might find them interesting, too.

- In 2015 Great Eastern Cutlery made 19596 knives
- In the Tidioute, Northfield, Great Eastern Cutlery, and Farm & Field (Non-Special Factory Order profiles) they made 10160 knives
- In Special Factory Order materials (some in profiles only available to certain dealers / individuals, others in profiles that each dealer received but some dealers received a special handle material which they specially ordered) they made 5983 knives
- In Special Factory Order knives that were not part of the Great Eastern Cutlery Brand (Hess / Northwoods) they made 3453 knives

Breakdown of SFO

Code: 
Dealer	       Quantity	Percetage of Production
SFO - AAPK	53	0.27
SFO - Barry	292	1.49
SFO - Bob	51	0.26
SFO - Charlie	1837	9.37
SFO - Chris	25	0.13
SFO - Derrick	591	3.02
[B]SFO - Hess[/B]	[B]841	4.29[/B]
SFO - Drake	100	0.51
SFO - Innov.	53	0.27
SFO - Rouch	209	1.07
SFO - Lyle	185	0.94
SFO - Mike	1967	10.04
SFO - Percey	186	0.95
SFO - Roy	27	0.14
SFO - Smith	357	1.82
SFO - Trevor	50	0.26
[B]SFO - Northw[/B][B]	2612	13.33[/B]

Bold - Non-GEC Brand SFO
Click to expand...
 
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Not everyone can visit the GEC factory, but if you can you should, and if you have, you understand why their knives are run in smaller batches. It's a small factory! They literally have one person to run each little station. Take the tour and you can appreciate how daunting it could be to face down having to work on the amount of those knives each day that they do.

You can not even compare them to Case. Yes Case produces the same knife over and over again so that there is literally thousands up thousands available for purchase. Their "limited edition" knives run in batches of 3000 compared to GEC's 30-40.

I live close to both factories. You could fit 5-6 of GEC's factories inside of Case without a problem. GEC doesn't produce more knives in per pattern because for them to create the volume of Case, they'd have to make one pattern for 6 months straight. Then move to the next and so on. We'd see one or two patterns a year. You may not see that next run of 15's for 9 years if that's how it was.
 
You make a fair point (though us collectors like the current production schedule), but, I can go to several dealers stores at this moment in time and find some of GEC best selling classic knives for around $80 including 2014 & 2015 #15s and #77s ad #47s along with a slew of current production knives.


556hunter said:
You know, I think GEC is kinda headed down the same road as case a little. They are making themselves into a special order only knife company. They have so many wonderful patterns already on the books and you can't get a single damn one of them. I guess I don't understand why a company would choose to not keep certain popular patterns in stock all the time like stockmans, Jack knives, sodbusters, and other popular historical working knife patterns.

See, we want others to appreciate slipjoint knives and we want to send our kids down the "old timey/traditional path", but you can't buy a dad gum top quality American made pocket knife (GEC), because they're always outa stock; because the friggin company is catering to the speciality and collectors market.....some of us aren't collectors, we couldn't care less about collecting but we DO want a fine working knife. Or we want to get our kids, friends, or family members GEC knives and were left scrambling to try and buy one from a dealer (never happens cause they're all spoken for in early reserve) or scramble for one on the EE or flea bay; which is an act in futility at best. They're either way over priced it they're snapped up in a matter of minutes.

I apologize about the rant but I'm fed up with NEVER being able to find simple patterns, that I feel should be in stock all the time as they're base line product. GEC started out making pocket knives with a FF/quality not seen here in uncountable decades and now they cater to the special order/ collector above the average workin guy....
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Somber good to know! Just curious, what is the difference between Club Knives and SFO knives? I thought all of theses were SFOs. Lloyd
 
Any word on what other handle material they might run? or will the maroon micarta be the only one? I'm guessing this will be a single blade spear version? Any more info would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Rick
 
StubbyThumbnail said:
Any word on what other handle material they might run? or will the maroon micarta be the only one? I'm guessing this will be a single blade spear version? Any more info would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Rick
Click to expand...
I have no idea.... Just saw the picture in their what's happening section. They can be pretty tight lipped about the surprise short runs.
 
Luger1952 said:
Thanks Somber good to know! Just curious, what is the difference between Club Knives and SFO knives? I thought all of theses were SFOs. Lloyd
Click to expand...
Club Knives are also Special Factory Orders, they're just for a collector's club.
 
On the 2015 Production Totals Great Eastern Cutlery lists them differently than the SFOs for dealers.

I know the OKCA Club knife is made specifically for the show held in April. The AMKCA and Western Reserve Clubs both hold shows, as well.

I felt their club knives were different than the regular SFOs since they're not dealers. That is why I did not include it in the regular numbers.
 
draggat said:
It's official, GEC is making a Tidioute short run of the 92's.

Click to expand...

Don't get too excited... that quantity is only for 24 knives.

Hope that's not the micarta they plan to use on the Beer Scouts

Where did you find the picture?
 
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