Online purchase vs In person purchase

If ordering online, simply put a note in the comment field to check for whatever your concern may be. Friday we had a fellow ask us to check the center and grinds on a folder with a talon blade. Center was excellent, but perfect talon grinds are few a far between. We emailed him that we did not have anything in stock in that pattern that would pass muster. If you want a perfect knife, most online dealers would rather check it for you before shipping rather than have a unhappy customer.
That being said, most of the mid line companies (AlMar, BM, Spyderco, et.al.) do an excellent job in their QC, so 'most' have good fit and finish for the money.
md
 
For me, the only real option is online. There are few pawn shops or gun stores within a reasonable distance from me that have quality knives at what would be even close to a fair price. The only downsides to online ordering are the wait and not being able to examine items before purchasing. I have had no negative experiences with any of my many online orders, but i do not believe that i am as particular as other buyers. The best recomendation i can make is to maintain a relationship with an online dealer who understands your needs and is willing to accomodate you.
 
Except for two knife shops near me, and a few flea market dealers that can order high end stuff from Blue Ridge, my main option is online. I prefer to buy from collectors and makers on here, but eBay and online knife shops are options. The one knife shop near me, I haven't even been there. The other one, while they have great customer service, knowledgeable staff, and a great store, their prices are astronomical, way over MSRP. One of the flea market dealers got thrown out, and is hard to get in contact with, the other one I go to only has junk and some good stuff that I've seen before (he moves a lot of the junk, but I've seen some really good knives sitting there for a long time!). He can order out of the book, but he can't order balisongs, autos or Benchmade, and his prices are a lot higher than online (I realize that he can't match online prices). I had a ton of knives that I had bought over the last two years, most of those have gone on the chopping block, what I have left will probably go into a tackle or tool box, and rot in there. Since I have switched to only allotting myself 50 bucks a month, my choices are more thought out. I might have a lot of stuff on my want list, but I don't need to buy it all at once.

My vote would have to be for buying on here, eBay and online knife shops. What I wanna know is, why am I hesitant buying from some online dealers, when I think nothing of bidding on something right away on eBay?
 
Hmmmm....
Thought long and hard on this one, and have to wonder how any shop, online or retail could keep a perfect score with *all* sorts of folks buying.
Given the first post in this thread, where the knives didn't seem to be sharp...were they 'customs' or 'manufactured' knives? As many folks that have posted knives for sale, boasting 'never sharpened'...how might they react, getting a new knife that a dealer 'touched up'?
If a knife manufacturer routinely sends out less-than-sharp knives, I would think that the most expedient thing for us as a community could do would be to complain to the *manufacturer*! Some poor fella, trying to meet internet pricing competition could be buried trying to sell routinely dull knives trying to make a buck and keep folks happy. Everyone seems to have different flavors of what they regard as 'sharp', and if one is in the hobby of knives, I would think that they themselves should know how to get as sharp as they would like.
Of course, if a knife is a 'custom', one would think that the maker, having each and every knife in his hands before sale would optimize the presentation of his product. However, in these days of manufacturing, the first owner of a knife might be the first one to really every look at or handle a knife.
Routine problems on any level of a manufactured knife, I think, should be thrown back at the folks making it, not the guy giving 'knife outlet' pricing trying to serve this niche market. How else will they know that the consumer won't put up with it?
The guy I buy from routinely checks any knives for whether the product is functional before sending out, but if someone might be 'picky' about 'perfect', he suggests someone forward their complaint to the manufacturer. Recently, in the Spydie forum, someone noted that their new 'Manix' had chipped out the edge upon using it, and it did look roughly used. During that thread, Sal from Spyderco said to send it to them for the R&D folks to look at, not to take it back to the dealer. Ultimately, I got the impression that the fella knew that the *manufacturer* cared about how he felt about his knife.
The present state of 'knife dealers' is like a lot of businesses in our present day life that are priced down by folks wanting 'the best deal', but want the kind of services provided by a Rolls Royce dealer. It might be natural for us to want the 'greatest bang for the buck', but some consideration for what the people who provide services go through to get them that, might be in order, or otherwise, this search for 'price and convenience' might find us all eventually buying ALL of our products, online, from China.
Just a few of my thoughts on this....
...but I'll shutup now... ;)
Regards,
DeadFish
 
Jeff Clark said:
I do not even consider the factory edge when I purchase a knife. They are never sharp enough and I do not trust the integrity/strength of an edge unless I know exactly how it has been created.
Click to expand...

I'm with Mr. Clark on this one.

Obviously I don't know how dull the knives in question were when they arrived. But it seems that if the only problem was that the knives were not as sharp as you would have liked, it's a bit extreme to conclude that they are therefore "crap".
 
Well, guess what happened today....we had a Spyderco returned because it was "too sharp". :eek: No kidding. Let Sal worry on that one a while. :(
md
 
Michael Dye said:
Well, guess what happened today....we had a Spyderco returned because it was "too sharp". :eek: No kidding. Let Sal worry on that one a while. :(
md
Click to expand...

Somehow I don't think Sal will lose too much sleep over that complaint. He knows that for that 1 complaint there are 1000's of us who are still looking for that one knife that we would call "too sharp"

David
 
online ordering is more convenient for those of us outside the US who are plagued by high canadian prices :)
its also usually cheaper to order online, since many online ordering houses dont have an overhead and can therefore undercut stores by a good margin.

but yeah, not being able to inspect them first is not good. personally i wouldnt really care about them not arriving sharp - its nothing i cant resharpen anyway, on a lansky it takes a few minutes. but other small defects do irk me.
for example: i ordered a large M-21 earlier and the top false edge looks like it was ground wrong. im pretty sure they mill these knives, and it looks like the cutter moved too fast and it left almost a file-like finely serrated surface there. it doesnt look bad(actually looks kindof neat), but it doesnt match the other side of the blade (which is perfectly smooth), and so it bothers me. if i would have been in the store i would have noticed it right away, and just grabbed the next one from the shelf which im sure would have been fine. since i ordered online, and paid about $15 shipping from the US, returning it for replacement is rediculous (plus its a very small thing, even if it were free i probably wouldnt go through the hassle of returning it). but on a store shelf, id just pick up/ask for the next box.

but even if i lived in the states, i am not sure if the risk of these small defects would be enough to turn me off of the $10-15 savings you generally get from ordering online. and if the defect is actuallly a bad one, you can always complain and ship it back.

the only case where i regretted ordering something online was with the CRKT Ryan Plan B. wtf - i had no idea this thing was so SMALL. the grip ends in the centre of my palm. bah. i gave it to the g/f though, who is 5', and it fits her hand perfectly - she absolutely loves the thing. i lied and said i ordered it just for her, hehe. so if you guys are looking for an affordable fixed blade for kids/girls/small women, this is it :)

cheers,
-gabriel
 
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