Rats command primo prices on ebay

haroldscrew said:
I just picked up a brand new bandicoot on ebay for $50 buy it now. Lucky me huh.
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CongRATs Harold!! That was an amazing snag! :eek:

And welcome to the Rats corner of BladeForums. :D
 
I hereby nominate haroldscrew to the top of the list in the sneaky Rat Bastid hall of fame! that is incredible:eek:

Way to go, man!

I will give you $60 for it:p ;)

Oh, and I forgot to extend the warm hand of welcome- good choice of forum for your first post- stick around!
 
thank you all. I actually just learned about swamp rat knives a few months ago. I have been looking for a good knife for all purpose use and stumbled across swamp rat in my quest. I was hooked. I bought a howling rat on Feb 7th and am still waiting. I couldn' belive it when I found this deal. I bought it with 6 days and 23 hours left. Outstanding. Thank you again for all of the input.
 
I will give you shipping and $10 on top of what you gave for it. You can keep the sheath. :D
 
Alright guys. Time to admit defeat. ;)

Let Harold enjoy his well earned victory. :D
 
360joules said:
From the tidbits of info that Eric has given out, particularly in reference to the Company Store offerings, people really aren't loading up on these blades. He has stated in the past that almost all orders are for one blade with some orders for two. Very few above that. I don't think that anybody is abusing any purchase opportunities with the intent of resale.

However, as has been said, right now it is a sellers market. A lot of people who have never considered selling their blades are looking at the market and making tough decisions. I mean, I can tell you that I would never sell a particular blade, but when faced with an unbelievable price I may change my mind. ;)

At any rate, I hope that the new line is released soon. This is a sellers market, and I aim to buy. :cool:
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the stuff from the company store doesn't go up for sale all that often, and when it does i can see justification for a higher price due to it's rarity. but when regular CT's and RW's are selling for 2x, that's brutal!!!

yeah of course it's a free country, capitalism, blah blah blah. i still feel bad for the people who are being "ripped off". even if they chose to do so. that's the arbitrary price the so called "market" demands.

perfect example is the extravaganza safari skinners. they went up for sale with a premium price right after they were shipped out. people intended to buy these up to resell for a profit. yeah it's a free country, but that doesn't make it "right"...:foot:

the bible says charging interest is a sin. this can't be too far off...:foot: :foot:

PS: $50 for a coot is the best deal i've seen yet!
 
Beside the economics of supply/demand curves, there is also the performance/price curve on which the Rats give very good account of themselves.

Below is pasted the reply I made to folks on the Rat forum who thought "someone" ;) was crazy for bidding over $200 on a D2 Bog Dog that cost well under $100 new from the Swamp. BTW, I didn't win that Dog.... someone wanted it even worse than I did.
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posted January 13, 2006 11:59 PM
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Well lads, here's my take on it. I am currently the high bidder on the Bog Dog over $200 on ePay, so I'm the crazy maniac that y'all are referring to.

I know and remember what the BD cost new. But that's not the standard I'm measuring it by. More on that below.

At the time that Bog Dogs were easily ordered from the Swamp, I got lazy, figuring "I can always get one or more later." Then they disappeared from the website while I wasn't paying attention. After that the torture pics of the Skinner were posted (extreme hammering with minimal damage). In a rather stark, graphic way the light went on in my head about how well SRKW had optimized their D2 blades for toughness. And I had missed the window on them.

So I start kicking myself daily for not ordering a dozen D2 BD when they were easily found. But regret is a waste of emotional energy. Better to set a course of action, make *SOME* kind of decision, and act on it. Better that than sitting on my hands weeping over spilled milk (lost opportunity). So I set about trying to locate a D2 Bog Dog.

I finally tracked down a D2 BD on the secondary market. For that I owe a debt of thanks to a fellow Rat. And yes, I paid a fair amount more for it than SRKW was selling them for originally. After it arrived, I liked everything about it -- blade size/shape, cutting performance on very light cutting tests (purely slicing), and especially the fit of the Mudder handle to my smallish hands. That motivates me to get another one. Hence the ostensibly outrageous bid for the D2 BD on ePay.

You may well ask, "Why would I do that when I have one already???"

Because I am not measuring the "value" of a BD based on what it once cost. After all, I don't refrain from buying bread because I can remember when it was four loaves for a buck. The market, especially for nutritionally optimized breads, is different from then. The market for a Rat D2 knife as capable as the BD has likewise changed.

I try to recognize the changes and adapt to them. To get BD performance today, I have to pay more that I could have then. It's the cost of tuition I'm paying to learn the lesson (again) to capitalize on opportunities when they appear. "He who hesitates, pays more later."

I am measuring the BD's value against what I perceive as comparably performing knives in the rest of the market, not its prior price. To my thinking its performance (as illustrated by the hammering testing) is on par with or above custom forged blades, which would cost in the $300-$500 range. Even if I restrict the comparison to custom stock-removal blades, the cost will start about where the BD is now on eBay and go up from there quickly. So paying $200+ is cheap in my estimation for its level of performance.

This brings up a question I heard years ago: "Would diamonds be worth so much if they looked like raisins?" In the BD case, it DOES look a lot like a raisin. And IMHO it is indeed "worth so much" because it is one of the best knives on the market I've seen to this point.

FWIW, the knife in my collection I most consider its competition is my Okuden Sharp Thing II knife (A2 blade that has seen radical thinning of its edge to give it very high cutting ability). Its price was considerable cash too. High quality costs. Unless you hit the availability window with the Swamp.

My bottom line on the D2 Bog Dog: It's a knife with EXCELLENT blade geometry and ergo fit that just sings in my hand. That kind of experience is worth paying for. The BD is IMHO an amazing knife and well worth what I've bid on the eBay to get one.

That said, those who get a Howling Rat are likewise getting an astonishingly capable knife. (this post was made while HR's were still available on the website) I regard mine highly and it receives my recommendation in its price window, as do the other Rat blades.

I hope that the new Rat models will offer similarly high bang-for-the-buck. Given the founding philosophy for the company and its historical track record, I find reason for that hope.

Now about the size of the production runs.....
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RokJok:

Excellent post. I am sure that there are folks reading it who will never understand or be able to come to terms with the laws of supply and demand. I can remember when '03 Springfields sold for $17 from the DCM and you could mail order one for $30 from various gun dealers. (Does anyone remember Golden State Arms?) That same rifle now sells for $600 to $800.

I think the problem for some is that SRKW prices jumped so fast. It seems that CTs went from $129 to $280 almost overnight. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see them well over $300 soon along with $200 HRs.
 
UffDa said:
RokJok:


It seems that CTs went from $129 to $280 almost overnight. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see them well over $300 soon along with $200 HRs.
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The average selling price of a CT is more like $180-220. $280 is the highest I've ever seen it go and it wasn't on this site. I have a feeling price will drop once the "improved" line is here. Ya, right ;)
 
I've got a Howling Rat on its way. If someone offered me $200 for it, I doubt I could turn that down. I'm patient enought that I could wait for a replacement when SRKW finally comes out with its new line. I've got other knives that I could carry and use in the mean time.
 
In a free market economy whatever someone is willing to pay, that is the reasonable price. Not what it originally sold for. That rifle analogy is a perfect example of just that. :thumbup: No one is being ripped off because no one is forced to buy. There is a brand new line coming, with the same value for the dollar prices that we have come to expect from Swamp. If you don't wish to wait, then you pay what is being asked. IMHO all these knives were sold under value when honestly compared with the competition out there. That is one reason that it is so easy to command a premium price, especially in times of limited availablility. Just my $0.02.
 
A CT went for $291.50 on ebay about 3 weeks ago! That is the highest I've seen. The ResC has gained quite a following and think there is some concern that it might not make it into the new line. IMO, that is a big part of why people are willing to pay so much for them right now. My bet is that if the new line has some offerings with ResC, prices for the old line will come down. If ResC is gone, who knows what people will pay.
 
madfast said:
the thing that pisses me off is that people are selling these special run knives with 100% markup now when rats are hard to get and prices are out of hand. the thing is these people INTENDED to do this by buying multiple knives.

i luckily have the specials that i wanted BUT i could have EASILY bought like 10 rat daddy LE's and sold them for 600 or whatever these ridiculous prices are nowadays. but i chose to let others in on the fun. these people make me sick. denying knives to those who want them for personal profit...sigh...:grumpy:
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I buy an extra or two of a particular model if I really like it. One for using and one for keeping. Something else comes along that I dig better and if neither are used I will sell them, at a fair mark up if the market shows me that they will go for it. I don't twist anyone's arm to take them off of my hands and so far I don't think any of the guys who have bought knives from me feel like I raped them. Do you guys? If I ordered a half dozne blades with the intent of reselling them later that I see nothing wrong with it. Just as I would have no problem with Eric giving me a call and saying hey man, you ordered six of these (hypothetical number mind you) and RF really wanted one but was right behind you in the pecking order, would you be cool with taking five and letting him have one. The resale market has it's dry spells too, so don't think for a minute that some guys have a boat load of cash tied up for over a year at a time sometimes. Right now the rats are hot, when the new line comes out, they will cool off. Supply and demand, patience versus the "need it right now" impulse is what drives it all.

Right now it is a sellers market for Rats, just like before Blade it is usually a buyers market for either Rats or Busse. The last quarter of 2005 was very slow for selling your Busse knives, definitely some good deals for buyers then.
 
Overbuying for profit while your brother rat does without is being HOGISH. :mad:
 
Z51 said:
Overbuying for profit while your brother rat does without is being HOGISH. :mad:
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I think you may be either mistaken or misinformed about this issue. On a normally stocked model you can purchase as many as you want for as long as that model is available. If you have the extra cash available and am willing to speculate and tie it up on extra knives, you may make out like now. If it turns out to be a buyers market as was the end of last year, you may end up with a lot of cash tied up and not so much profit to be made. On a limited edition although there is only a set amount available, I don't believe that folks are buying large amounts and reselling for profit at all. After the RM sale, it was almost immediately announced that most orders were for one knife only. On one order, although one fortunate Rat had scored two, one was to be passed on to another Rat who was not able to make the sale. Now if folks wish to part with what they did score for whatever reason, that is entirely proper and thier business.

Very soon the new line will be announced nd the whole market may well reverse on itself again.
 
Z51, equal distribution of goods suggests communism, wouldn't you say? You wouldn't want to be a...commie, would you?:D

Didn't someone say that men are more easily ruled by their vices than their virtues? Hmmm. I wonder what that says about our "friends" at SRKW and Busse. Perhaps their efforts are part of a sinister and complex plan to bring us under their sway. Scary stuff.

Maybe I should just go to bed. Tonight was parent-teacher night, and I'm wiped out.
 
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