SFOs ? (Special Factory Order)

glocktenman

glocktenman

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I was looking at a GEC #66 SFO CC HJ6 in the tomato and started wondering how an SFO is created or done with a knife company? Is it a process similar to our yearly trads knife or some other process? Is there a specific quantity or mandated sales needed for an SFO? I also noticed in the CC HJ6 there are different handles. Is that two different orders or one with the handles addressed when the order is made? What goes into the knife design idea for an SFO? Whatcha know Charlie?
 
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I'll tell you what, if there weren't a minimum order for SFOs you can bet I'd have dreamed up some pretty interesting combinations :P
It depends on the manufacturer and their willingness to re-tool or make other alterations to their normal lines. IIRC the forum knife hasn't been a Case because their larger operation requires a much larger minimum order. But the same doesn't hold true for a smaller shop like GEC. Others with more knowledge can chime in.
 
I always thought that SFO's were always either dealers or clubs. So, I would imagine very close to what we do for our forum knife. Someone like Bob, Mike or Charlie submit an idea, and it rolls on from there.
 
silenthunterstudios said:
I always thought that SFO's were always either dealers or clubs. So, I would imagine very close to what we do for our forum knife. Someone like Bob, Mike or Charlie submit an idea, and it rolls on from there.
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Yeah, sometimes I have seen this. A lot of times as a mof.

I cannot speak authoritatively on this subject (well I can but I don't have the knowledge to allow me to do it with a straight face) but I have seen and followed Queen knives for a while when they were big on SFOs. After the company lost the bunch that started Great Eastern their SFO production plummeted. Most of the SFOs fit into a few categories:

1) Club knives: you see them often on any site that sells pocket knives. "1985 xxxxxxxxx Knife Collectors Club", things of this nature.

2) SFO series: This might be a series of special handle, shield, or blade material. Sometimes you got special tang stamps as well.

An example was the Queen series called 'Cozy Glen' back 7 or 8 years ago with 1095 steel, the script tang and a special 'Cozy Glen' stamping on the tang of a blade. The shield was always an acorn. I have the complete canoe series and one of the mini trapper series. It turns out that Cozy Glen was a knife shop that owned the production rights to all queen SFOs. None of us even knew who the heck they were before this series came out. Maybe they acquired the rights figuring to stamp some knives as advertising? Not even the Queen buffs I knew could explain it completely to us.

But there were a lot of other series that would just pop up. They had a couple series I remember that had stag and red stag along with the federal shield. These knives had the normal queen D2 steel and were shaped exactly the same as their regular production lines. The price was premium on them, like most other SFOs.

3) Individual collector or dealer SFOs. This one was a new one on me and I have to admit I hadn't realized there was such a thing until the last few years. There is a fellow on this forum who really likes harness jacks and GEC has made some production knives for him that are truly outstanding. And there is a registered dealer here who has had a couple very nice SFOs made as well. TBH you'll have to ask them how the workings of those deals is constructed.

Hope this helps. TBH I know of a few ways it works but am still in the dark on a lot of other ways.

Will
 
Man I had a Queen Cozy Glen mini-trapper that got away from me. It was fantastic. I know that doesn't contribute much to the present discussion but...

Carrying the CC HJ6 today that the OP
mentioned. Used it to punch a hole in my kid's belt five minutes before taking her to school. It is earning its keep!
 
Cozy Glen was the street that current Queen owner Ken Daniels lived on. And he owned the rights to HIS Cozy Glen SFOs, not all SFOs!
Of course now he owns all of Queen!!:D

Basically the knife company has to make money on a pattern, so the cost of tooling is at least a partial factor in how many must be ordered.
If the order is for a special handle material, that is fairly straightforward.
If the pattern is a new one, that is very different.
As an example, and not confirmed with any knife company, you might be able to order 50 to 100 knives with charteuse bone handles for reasonable money, if the pattern is already in use.
However if you want a double serpentine 5-bladed monster with blubber handles, either the company will refuse or you will have to order 3000 of them to cover the tooling.
We've had it good in that GEC was willing to pick up the tooling costs for Forum knives, if it coincided with a knife they wanted to eventually make anyway!
A smaller company is indeed more flexible than a large one.
Again, an unconfirmed example might be minimum orders for a regular pattern from GEC might be 100, at Queen or Canal street 200, and Case might be 1000!
Hope this helps.
 
waynorth said:
Cozy Glen was the street that current Queen owner Ken Daniels lived on. And he owned the rights to HIS Cozy Glen SFOs, not all SFOs!
Of course now he owns all of Queen!!:D
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Seriously? That is something I would never have guessed.

When the series first came out none of us knew what in the world 'Cozy Glen' was. One of, if not THE, best sources of Queen SFOs told me that Cozy Glen was the knife shop that owned the rights to ALL Queen Classics SFOs and had owned them for a long time. I'll have to dig up the knives when I get home but I know that they are stamped 'Cozy Glen' and 'OH' which I took to mean Ohio. He told me it was located in Oak Hill Ohio.

Will
 
So, the dealer that handles the Queen Classics line, that would be referred to as a SFO, or just a "subsection" of the Queen line?
 
In these cases I'd think you'd have to call it a SFO because they weren't a normal part of the Queen line. Although TBH there were followup lines for the stag series which were very similar but had the normal Queen shield on it.

I'm glad I opened this thread. There are some very knowledgeable folks around here who have dealt directly with the knife manufacturers and they can add a whole lot of inside info that a ham and egger like me would never know. Hopefully we'll get some more out of them on this subject.

Will
 
silenthunterstudios said:
So, the dealer that handles the Queen Classics line, that would be referred to as a SFO, or just a "subsection" of the Queen line?
Click to expand...

If I'm not mistaken (and I very well could be) I belive Ryan Daniels told me that the "Queen Classics" were also the Daniels knives. Made as an SFO by Queen Cutlery. I think the Daniels have had a long relationship with Queen. I do know that is how Ken Daniels and Bill Howard got together.
 
That would make sense RMA. They have a lot of what were called 'Queen Classics' at the time shown on their website as past Daniels lines. I see a lot of ones I debated buying years ago there and some I ended up with. Never regretted a single purchase of that group.

I always wondered how the emergence of GEC came about exactly. I was always torn about it. I absolutely loved the steels, the styles, and the special runs that Queen did back then. But I also really like what GEC became as time passed. Quality control was the one problem with the old Queen stuff and GEC seemed to take theirs to a much higher level. Be interesting to see how Queen changes now under the leadership of the Daniels family. I'll be rooting for them.

Maybe they'll start putting out a few special runs again. Be good to see.

Will
 
There are some great Queen Patterns. I've been jonesing for one of their gunstocks, but I want it in 1095, O1, or something similar besides D2. I know the Queen City has 1095, but the only option is delrin. I did find the used to make 1095 and stag, but I haven't been able to find one.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to Queen's future offerings.
 
So, how can we do a SFO from GEC with a purple haze (starry night) acrylic? Maybe in a model 15 single spear blade?
 
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