spyderco mule i need info

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canadian1

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the spyderco mule series or project.... its a limited run of knives? when does it happen?
could somebody explain it to me
 
Spyderco releases four mules a year, each being a different steel, and each release being 600-1000 pieces total.

What is the Mule Team:
For those of you unfamiliar with our Mule Team Project, it is unique to Spyderco. In-house we call knife samples designed and built for testing and evaluation Mules. We know a healthy percentage of knife users are interested in different blade steels and their performance abilities. Running with that, we released an ongoing Mule Team Project. Several times per year we unveil the same single-piece fixed blade patterned knife in a different and exotic blade steel. This lets steel-obsessed knife knuts test, try and use something normally not offered to the industry. Product runs are limited to 600 – 1000 pieces of each steel type depending on foundry requirements.

Mule Blades are leaf-shaped with a sharpened and finished PlainEdge blade but with an unfinished handle providing a do-it-yourself opportunity. The unfinished handle has a series of holes for attaching custom handle scales or for wrapping with para-cord. Each piece is sold without handle scales or a carry sheath focusing the project on the blade steel. This opens endless creative possibilities for the owner to design their own handle scale and carry options.
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Here's Spyderco's webpage on the Mules http://www.spyderco.com/about/mule.php
 
kreole -thanks for the info, do you happen to know if they are hot sellers ,by that i mean like u2 tickets or the like,...and i am assuming there arent many unsold ones of the previously released models about ,on amazon or yourcornerstore.com,or online stores
 
AFAIK they are only sold through Spyderco's Factory Outlet.

Sometimes they pop up on the exchange here.

You can pick up the M390 Mule right now, that is going to be a desired one for sure.
 
I forgot to mention they only sell through Spyderco.com, not any knife sellers. The current release (M390) and the Cobalt Special are the only ones currently available. (edit: beat by 5.56 :D)

As for popularity, I think M4 and S90V currently fetch the highest prices on the forum. M390 will probably join them, as it's one of the new popular steels when it comes to edge holding.
 
went to the link, when do these things come up, 4 times a year ,every three months or so...i cant put a question mark,keyboard is whacked
 
Roughly every three months. They generally post an announcement in the Spyderco sub-forum here as well as on the factory forum, on Facebook and Twitter and probably a few other forums I don't frequent, a couple of weeks before they go live. The announcement tells you when it will go live, what the steel is, how much they'll cost and what the purchase limit is. Most have been limited to 2 per customer, a couple have been initially limited to one but later opened up, and one had no limit.
 
well, thanks everyone , i`m well educated about it now, seems like something i`m interested in keeping an eye on
 
I have #8, 9, and 11. #10 was already sold out when I became aware of the Mules, so... apparently they don't always get released in numerical order.

If their purpose were truly for everyone to have a chance to test various steels then Spyderco would periodically make small batches of each variety... but that's not how it works. The S90V Mules are locked up if safes and there'll be no more. So Mules are really collectors items. Some more than others.
 
RandomAyes said:
I have #8, 9, and 11. #10 was already sold out when I became aware of the Mules, so... apparently they don't always get released in numerical order.

If their purpose were truly for everyone to have a chance to test various steels then Spyderco would periodically make small batches of each variety... but that's not how it works. The S90V Mules are locked up if safes and there'll be no more. So Mules are really collectors items. Some more than others.
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#10 was released out of order because of production delays on a couple of others. It was done and on the shelf when release time came, the one that was supposed to be released wasn't ready, so rather than delay the whole line, Sal elected to release what he had.

The project isn't for everyone. The steels are not always readily available. They are sold to us only through the Spyderco Factory Outlet at the price they would normally sell them to dealers/distributors becuse the middleman markup would render these very expensive. Another factor to consider is in the beginning, when they were trying to gage interest, they got less than 200 e-mails from people who said they would be willing to commit to the project.

Oh, and my favorite Mule to carry for nasty jobs is still the S90V. Safe queen it ain't.
 
yablanowitz said:
#10 was released out of order because of production delays on a couple of others. It was done and on the shelf when release time came, the one that was supposed to be released wasn't ready, so rather than delay the whole line, Sal elected to release what he had.
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OK that makes perfect sense. These days it seems like most knives get delayed in production.

Oh, and my favorite Mule to carry for nasty jobs is still the S90V. Safe queen it ain't.
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Cool. So you wouldn't feel betrayed if they made more periodically? I have a nagging feeling that some folks wouldn't like their discontinued rare knife being devalued by new runs. But I'm just guessing.
 
It wouldn't bother me a bit. I've bought two of each (three of the 9Cr18Mo, but I gave one away) to have one to beat the heck out of and one to finish for a nice knife. I've never planned to flip any for profit.
 
I'd use my M390 Mule if I had handles and a kydex sheath. Unfortunately I've spent all the money I can on knives this month, so that'll have to wait:D.
 
This S90V has been used to hack up a road killed deer and to trim a kevlar fan belt. I don't think you can call it a safe queen.

mule3.jpg


Periodically making small batches of each one doesn't make sense economically. Make one batch, then move on. It's a pain in the production schedule to revisit a product. Chevy can't just stop in the middle of their 2011 Impala production to make a 57 BelAir, no matter how much I wish they would.
 
Noctis3880 said:
I'd use my M390 Mule if I had handles and a kydex sheath. Unfortunately I've spent all the money I can on knives this month, so that'll have to wait:D.
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Wimp. ;) Mine is wrapped with purple paracord and carried in a cardboard and duct tape sheath in the ruler pocket of my carpenter jeans. Just like the 10 before it.
 
I was never crazy about a sheath that dulls the knife you put in it. Also a bit weary of cardboard sheaths mostly because the knives I've sharpened have cut through them on more than one occasion.
 
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