Question for the Usual Suspects

edmoses

Usual Suspect
Joined
Apr 28, 2000
Messages
1,095
On this forums we have a maintained list of the Custom Emersons that are known to be in circulation (thank you Sniper308
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On the Various Microtech forums they have such a list with "suggested" after market values based on what people pay / advetised prices.

Do you think that we should extend the known customs list to include pricing information?

Regards,

Ed

PS before anybody else says it - I know that Rhinos are priceless.
 
There may be some folks willing to divulge what they paid for Emersons but I suspect that most will not. As far as advertised prices go we all know that most sellers are not listing a price and instead are relying on the knive's rare status to determine the final price through informal bidding. So the prices, when advertised, are most often NOT what the knife sells for but rather a jumping off point for for a mad dash to the finish.

Even Rhino's have their price.

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Usual Suspect http://www.freeyellow.com/members8/arkhamdrifter/index.html

[This message has been edited by arkhamdrifter (edited 08-14-2000).]
 
I pretty much agree with Ark on the pricing issue, and it appears that the customs are steadily climbing upward.

What I was wondering is should we have a thread which shows a photo of all the various customs so that newbys are able to take a look and see what a particular knife looks like when we mention it by its number or name. Not everyone has a catalogue to refer to, and it could be helpful to be able to click on a knife to see the particular model.

If this interests others we could have a nice photo base for people to refer to. I'm challenged by the difficulty to post photos but I feel that someone might volunteer to post them if us suspects would e-mail the necessary individual photos to them.

Your thoughts?
 
Sniper308,


I like and agree that a so-called catalog or index wouold be nice as reference too.
I would be willing to. I do not have the capability yet to digitize my photos.

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"WHEN YOU UNDERSTAND THE ROOTS OF COMBAT, YOU REALIZE THERE IS NO STYLE"

"This is the law:
There is no possible victory in defense, The Sword is more important than the shield, And skill is more important than either, The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental."
 
Starting a photo reference thread seems like a great idea. Do we just want to include customs or all Emerson Models?

I will start the thread with photos of my 6s.

John - can you help here, you are my digital photo!!

Regards,

Ed
 
Regarding the "priceless" comment on Rhinos - Of the five known to exist, I believe I know one that is to be had by any who wish to pay a modest $5,000 for it. Any takers?
 
Sniper308

I still like the idea of complementing the list you started. Make a list of what is out there in the hands of the fine folks on the Emerson Forum and have a link built in to show what they actually look like.

Many people are shy about even telling folks what they own, never mind what they paid for their customs.

Over on Knifeforums.com we started a Gallery of Microtech knives. I was lucky enough to be appointed as one of the Moderators and found that folks were sending me pictures and asking that they be posted anonymously, which I am ever so happy to do. Visitors can actually see rare knives instead of just reading a brief description on a long list of knives.

If you would like, I would volunteer to assist you in making a "Known Custom/Gallery list". I have a few ideas and will email you.

John
 
I do not like the idea of posting prices. I continually have to explain to gunsellers who refer me to pricing guides for thier wares, "the price is determined at the time of sale by mutual agreement of the seller and buyer". I think that a catalog of various models would be a good idea, not everyone has or has seen an Emerson custom Catalog.
 
Budrichard,

Your right, market pricing on Specwar Emerson riases so fast I can't even keep up. A pricing guide would be out of date before it really got started.

I'm working something up for a "Custom Count/Picture Guide/Glossory" as we speak. It'll be a group project.

Here are scans of the Emerson Custom Catalog circa '94:

CQC5 CQC6 CQC7
CQC8 CQC9
Viper1 Viper2
Viper3 Viper4 Viper5
CF1 Vindicator CF3 Trident CF5 Mirage
CF6 Phaser CF7 Trivector CF8 BodyGuard
CF9 Tactical Persian CF10 The Rouge Warrior CF11 Double Edged Dagger

John
 
Gents,

I have started a thread called Emerson Photo Reference. Can you all start putting your custom photos or references in there so we can create the definite guide.

On reflection I think that this is the way to go, rather than the pricing list - the prices on Emersons seem to be going up so quick I could not afford the insurance if I knew their true market value (I guess I would also think twice about carrying them or maybe not).

Regards,

Ed
 
As one of the more veteran buyer/sellers of Emersons than some of my compatriot Suspects, I am surprised at the reluctance to post prices paid. Only through such disclosure can the prices be kept to the levels you'd like to see (at least when buying). Tamishigiri was the first to point this out, but his entreaty fell on deaf ears.

We ARE the market! The price paid for an Emerson is not some arbitrary value assigned by a faceless mechanism; it is simply whatever the populace of this forum dictates it to be.

Several knives came up for sale earlier this year, and they were priced outside of the range we "assigned" for those pieces. They didn't sell, either. I've several times seen Emersons at shows (NYC custom in particular) sitting untouched on dealers tables because their pricing is unrelated to the numbers we bandy about here, and the rest of the crowd doesn't care. When Joel recently asked about Viper 4 pricing, he knew that he'd be a fool to pay more than what we collectively thought it was worth. I think he should have made the answers public, mine included (for the record, I figured around $1,200 - but that's just my threshold), as well as the price he did pay. To keep the overanxious from making a mistake...

We're the market - because there ain't too many people buying them outside of us. Sniper's yeoman work of listing the known pieces was a great start, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for it. After all, no one is telling you that there are only 2 ES1-Ms in civvie hands anymore, or that your Vindicator is too common to merit the price you want. Why hestitate to publish the prices too? The only person it harms is the guy who's trying to screw you, either coming or going. Just my opinion anyway. Oh, and the last CQC6 I sold (this past Spring) was to a fellow forumite and he got the FOL discount at under $1000.
 
When I saw the Viper 4 on the dealer's house (after I paid for the Brend Halo2) he didn't had a price yet on the knife and I did not offer any money on the knife before knowing its value.
A lot of people really helped and I decided to get it at a price that made my dealer happy and me happier!
I think that the best way to go is to somebody set up a webspace so we can link to that site and bookmarked instead of posting it here. That way the links to the images will never be broken...

Let me know if there's anything you guys need from me!

Regards,

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Joel Pirela
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www.pirelabladedesign.com
 
Some day Tamishigiri and I can figure out how to do photos, and help with this reference library. The price issue is a funny thing. I could sell many of my blades in Japan for a huge profit, because that market will take it right now. On the other hand, morally I would probably only sell them to other forumites, especially those who have been kind to me in the past. I think we have hashed some of this before with what I call the profiteers in the mix. With Ernie retiring (best for everybody), the new question remains, what do we do? I have a couple of things on order still, but after that it is all about US being fair to each other. I think that trades will end up being the only way to go, because the cash and carry market is so weird right now. It is hard to ask a fellow suspect for $2000 for a custom that I have a hard cash offer on from Japan. It would be no problem to ask for a half moon CQC 6 in trade for a Specwar CQC 5, (hypothetical only-that was not an offer) from a fellow suspect. We then both keep our investment, and we are both still happy, and we keep them "in the family". Just my opinion.

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He who advances is sure of heaven-He who retreats of eternal damnation.
 
Hey guys,

I kind of let the cat out of the bag a few post up. Sniper308 and myself are going to be opening a new thread in the next couple of days under the combined name "Emerson Gallery".

It's going to be a combined "What customs are out there" and a permanent Gallery of links to photos of the actual knives we're talking about. I also want to incorporate a Glossary to help educate the public at large of the terms we toss around daily, but confuse ordinary folks (Halfmoon, EKI, Specwar, zero ground, ect). I want to also add in links to the pages of old Emerson Custom catalogs.

It's definitely going to be a group effort. Sniper308 will be in charge of updating the numbers and I'm going to tackle the pictures. But here's the group part . . . we want everyone to become a part of the project. It's cool to look at the list Sniper308 made and know that you are the owner of the unique knife reflected in the list, but now you'll be able to actually share a picture. Anonymously if you so desire.

I'm going to ask that people send the photos to my email address. I'll clean them up as needed with Photoshop and add a photo credit to it if the submitor will allow. The pictures will be placed in one database to keep from getting dead links in a few weeks.

I would ask that the pictures submitted be of single knives per category, unless it serves a specific purpose (like showing the size difference between an E1S-M and a Commander for instance).

It'll be the one stop reference that we all want, just organized.

As to posting the pricing . . . I'm still a tad leery of that. However, while we'll ask that no pictures get added to the string helter skelter, you can add in prices or comments as you like.

Any ideas or comments before we get it started?

Thanks

John
 
Originally posted by jbravo:
Regarding the "priceless" comment on Rhinos - Of the five known to exist, I believe I know one that is to be had by any who wish to pay a modest $5,000 for it. Any takers?

Can you E-mail me who has it please.
 
John,
I'll send all the pictures that I have & you can edit or post whichever ones you can clean up or see fit. Great idea.
 
I would have no problem with posting prices actually paid by Forum members and making sure their was a caveat saying that these are not suggested prices, I suspect that their are people out there that have the money and the will to pay just about anything to obtain a custom Emerson since it tis the "thing" now. The relative affluence we are enjoying and the percieved scarcity of items like wine, cigars etc, has driven the market out of the range of most sensable collectors. I am living off of the wines I collected in the 70's becuase the French and German wines are untouchable now. Enough of this drivel! I almost wish I had never recieved my CQC-6!
 
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