London gun dealers

jdm61

jdm61

itinerant metal pounder
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I was not the victim of a scam, but i just wanted to post hthis and see what my felow knife guys thought. I was in London in September and went by a couple of the big time London gun makers. They had knives for sale. They were stamped with the name of the gunmaker, but were clearly made by Boker or one of the other big European cultlery companies. The ones at the Asprey gun room were Bokers for sure because the manager was a knife guy and he told me that he had unsuccesfully been lobbying the bosses to get some customs in there. They apparently didn't feel that they should pay any more than whatever a Boker costs wholesale for knife to go along with their $100,000 plus shotguns. That would be ok except for this. A regular factory stainless fixed blade at both Apsrey and Purdey sold for around........wait for it.......here it comes.........$400 at the cheaper of the two, Asprey. A factory Boker danascus hunter with a fancy handle went for around $1000!!!!!!!! All because they had the Asprey or Purdey name on them and were being sold in Mayfair. I was appalled!!!!!!I know this is not something of earth shattering imporance, but it just struck me as wrong. Any comments?
 
If you can afford a 100,000.00 plus shotgun whats an extra 1k to have a knife branded by the same company.
 
Welcome to London! A cup of coffee is also pretty steep... :-) The Böker Damascus bladed fixed knives sell here retail for several hundred Euros depending on the model. They do use good quality Damascus for those knives...
 
Kevin Wilkins said:
Welcome to London! A cup of coffee is also pretty steep... :-) The Böker Damascus bladed fixed knives sell here retail for several hundred Euros depending on the model. They do use good quality Damascus for those knives...
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You don't want to know how much Purdey wanted for a pair of thermal socks.....lol. I know Boker is a good knife. My issue was that they were selling it for 3 times the going rate. As for the $100,000 guns, they are arguably worth it because of the expertise and LABOR that goes into making them. They are unique examples of the gunmaker's art. $4000 chunks of walnut and 50 hours of work just to regulate the barrels adds some cost to those mothers:eek: But the fact that the manager at Asprey thought it was a scam kinda got my attention.
 
Yeah,

being rich in Europe is getting more and more expensive.:) (probably explains the Beckhams moving to the USA)

Purdeys used to only cost 40-50k dollars back in the 1970s. :rolleyes:

Designer labelling is a rip-off, I agree.

Anything with Aspreys on it will cost far more than it is actually worth. The same applies to Barbour - nice jackets, but do not even ask how much for a hat !!!
 
jdm61,
This might sound crazy to you but, you will probably find his customers would feel insulted if it was priced like a regular boker.
 
jdm61 said:
A regular factory stainless fixed blade at both Apsrey and Purdey sold for around........wait for it.......here it comes.........$400 at the cheaper of the two, Asprey. A factory Boker danascus hunter with a fancy handle went for around $1000!!!!!!!! All because they had the Asprey or Purdey name on them and were being sold in Mayfair. I was appalled!!!!!!I know this is not something of earth shattering imporance, but it just struck me as wrong. Any comments?
Click to expand...

This is called "added value". In reality this is plain BS :mad: (excuse my language) and I don't believe it will apply to any knife aficionado. However, for the people who obviously don't know jack about knives, but hey, they own lots of money they will buy it! What happens is these people think that a knife sold by either Purdey or, Asprey or, Holland & Holland (if they sell knives under this notion) is equal in quality and workmanship to the guns made by these factories, therefore this justifies their price tag. It's that simple;).
 
Micky said:
jdm61,
This might sound crazy to you but, you will probably find his customers would feel insulted if it was priced like a regular boker.
Click to expand...

This statement is in line with my previous post and I will agree with it:thumbup:.
 
If I were advising Purdy, I'd tell them to have Dietmar Kressler or SR Johnson make a limited edition knife just for Purdy, then let the customer order the knife engraved to match the gun they order... they could easily sell the knives for $10,000 each and make a nice 5 Grand per unit.
 
Kevin, you got that right about a cuppa over there. I was in London from Xmas to New Years, if I recall right, I think I paid about $10 USD for a "Budvar," which is a Czech-brewed licensed Budweiser. A 330ml bottle too, none of that "pint" business.

From that point, we stuck to drinking in pubs, where a pint was about $4.50 USD, or same as i can get em here.

Everything in London is priced about double it is here. Starbucks quad-shot skinny mocha was I think $9? Bottle of Jo Malone cologne for my wife? Double what I can score it for in Neiman Marcus. A Rolex? A new Sub would have set me back about nine grand, versus $4500 here. Bacon, sausage and eggs cost me $15 at the airport, but thank God the airport bar was serving pints, cost me as much as my wife's coffee.

Lesson? Drink a lot of beer and figure everything else is like making minimum wage.

I did wonder exactly how they managed to take ANYTHING for sale there outside the beer or pies and just adjust the price denominator from dollars to pounds, but after a couple days and roughly 397 pints, I stopped wondering about it.

London's a good time.
 
Hey Parker, Rolex just went up another 20% this year so now it's $5400.00 here in the US and 10,800.00 in London.
 
Yeah I know, but if you know someone in the business, you may be able to score one new for $4500 ;)

And the only reason I had a Budvar was as follows - my wife had eaten her fill of pies and ale. Bottom line, she was not going into any damned pub period. The Chinese place we finally found for dinner, which was by the way amazing, did not have Fullers on tap. In fact, I think the only thing on tap was water.

Resultingly, I had a $10 bottle of Bud for dinner. I had another after that. Like Auto-Ugug says, you gotta make it thru somehow. And I did - after dinner we went to another pub and had yet a few more pints. London's a great town.
 
Used to visit Holland & Holland when they were on Rodeo Drive, it was closed in early 2000 and now the only store is in NY. They have used a few custom knifemakers over the years, including Pierre Reverdy and Peter & Sons. Of course the knives were made by them with the H & H name.
Now, to my knowledge, its Loyd McConnell, Jr of Odessa, Texas. He also makes the H & H Royal Folder, complete with engraving by Scott Pilkington. The NY store had it retailing for $1800, and they were telling me that some bought them to be used as an everyday knife.
For me, I think their double rifles are worth it, sans engraving, of course. Their prices are proportionate to a 30 day safari in Africa... One of my close friends is having a 600 Nitro Express double being built. Its taken close to 3 yrs and far more than $100,000. Hes getting it for the exclusivity in this case, think there has been less than 30 built. Too expensive for me, one round costs close to $50! Ill stick to my .375 H & H, its enough gun for me at the moment.
 
TALON158 said:
Used to visit Holland & Holland when they were on Rodeo Drive, it was closed in early 2000 and now the only store is in NY. They have used a few custom knifemakers over the years, including Pierre Reverdy and Peter & Sons. Of course the knives were made by them with the H & H name.
Now, to my knowledge, its Loyd McConnell, Jr of Odessa, Texas. He also makes the H & H Royal Folder, complete with engraving by Scott Pilkington. The NY store had it retailing for $1800, and they were telling me that some bought them to be used as an everyday knife.
For me, I think their double rifles are worth it, sans engraving, of course. Their prices are proportionate to a 30 day safari in Africa... One of my close friends is having a 600 Nitro Express double being built. Its taken close to 3 yrs and far more than $100,000. Hes getting it for the exclusivity in this case, think there has been less than 30 built. Too expensive for me, one round costs close to $50! Ill stick to my .375 H & H, its enough gun for me at the moment.
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For the double rifle, try as much as $250,000:D It is interesting that H & H sold customs. Jerry Fisk told me a story about sending a couple of his knives to H & H a while back. Not only did they not decide to enter into any type of agreement, but according to Mr. Fisk, they didn't send the knives back. A number of serious gun buyers who go to the Safari Club show in Reno, just pop next door to the ABS Expo and buy there. Mark Sentz told me that he sells most of the folders that he brings to the show to guys coming over from SFI. What the guy at Asprey told me was that the owners sold the Bokers because they wanted to maintain the ridiculous margins on the accesories. As has been stated, most guys who may know a lot about $100,000 shotguns (or are relyig on the long established reputation of the gunmaker) don't know squat about custom knives and trust that they are getting what passes for good value in Mayfair when they plunk down their $500-1000 at Purdey.
 
Parker said:
Yeah I know, but if you know someone in the business, you may be able to score one new for $4500 ;)

And the only reason I had a Budvar was as follows - my wife had eaten her fill of pies and ale. Bottom line, she was not going into any damned pub period. The Chinese place we finally found for dinner, which was by the way amazing, did not have Fullers on tap. In fact, I think the only thing on tap was water.

Resultingly, I had a $10 bottle of Bud for dinner. I had another after that. Like Auto-Ugug says, you gotta make it thru somehow. And I did - after dinner we went to another pub and had yet a few more pints. London's a great town.
Click to expand...
London is a FABULOUS town. I just double the price for everythng in my mind and do the old dollar for ound direct conversion. That said, i was still able to get some FABULOUS meals for th real world price of around $30-40 at two of the French restaurants in Sheperd's Market. Oddly enough, I actually paid LESS for a couple of Turnbull and Asser shirts in London in '05 than I just paid for them at their New York store. In NY, the off-the-rack shirts were only about 20% less than the bespoke stuff.
 
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