State of the state.....

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Not an expert myself by any means, but in my world I'm seeing a shift toward the tactical. I think Instagram is a huge player these days...probably why my business is doing better than ever right now. That said I've been in the business a relatively short time so I probably don't remember the good old days...traditional ABS style bowies certainly aren't pouring out of my shop:D
 
Don Hanson III said:
Good thread, Steven!

I do really think this time of year 'magnifies' what we are seeing in the custom knife market.
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This time of year has predictably been slow. It's always a slump from July to October, IMO.
 
My biggest problem, personally, is the way 'business' has been conducted these past years thanks to the so called Lotteries, Open Bids, Put-My-Name-In-A-Box, etc.....ruined it for me. That and all of the tremendously over-priced 'tactical knives' made by any and everyone, very few of which have real purpose or thought involved. I don't play the games and if I cannot use my cold, hard cash to buy what I'd like, no reason to even go other than to hang out with my friends and that's not even fun when I'm in a bad mood because of the aforementioned.

I also have a problem with some of these Maker's attitudes, ones that I supported years before they 'Hit the Big Time'.....now I can't even get a return phone call, email, text, etc., let alone a knife and all of the empty promises for knives I've been given. All of this has turned me off to even going to a knife show other than the upcoming one in KC, as I doubt there will be very much, if any, of the above mentioned 'stuff'.

Yeah, I'm Dudley Downer, not a Fan Boy or a Member of the Knife of the Month Club....just a plain ol' Collector.
 
Dudley- Well said!
The ego can be ugly and there's a lot of it in this "business." Even if money was no object for me, I'd never support a puffed up person.
rolf
 
a few years ago, I noticed a shift in the aftermarket and started a thread called something like 'is the aftermarket in the toilet?'
there was substantive discussion then and there, and I think that maybe what we're seeing now is the outgrowth of years of shifting attitudes and expectations
 
Another thought. Making our living off of handcrafted items not just my knives I see a broader market not just knife guys. Besides the summer doldrums as mentioned and happens business wide for us yearly not just on knife sales, I have always seen extra slowing when there's a Presidential election. I think folks get uneasy not knowing which way the ball is gonna bounce and hold onto their cash. I'd kind of noticed this back to the mid 90's or so. Probably before then too but I was too dumb to pay attention.
 
Dawkind said:
My biggest problem, personally, is the way 'business' has been conducted these past years thanks to the so called Lotteries, Open Bids, Put-My-Name-In-A-Box, etc.....ruined it for me. That and all of the tremendously over-priced 'tactical knives' made by any and everyone, very few of which have real purpose or thought involved. I don't play the games and if I cannot use my cold, hard cash to buy what I'd like, no reason to even go other than to hang out with my friends and that's not even fun when I'm in a bad mood because of the aforementioned.


I also have a problem with some of these Maker's attitudes, ones that I supported years before they 'Hit the Big Time'.....now I can't even get a return phone call, email, text, etc., let alone a knife and all of the empty promises for knives I've been given. All of this has turned me off to even going to a knife show other than the upcoming one in KC, as I doubt there will be very much, if any, of the above mentioned 'stuff'.

Yeah, I'm Dudley Downer, not a Fan Boy or a Member of the Knife of the Month Club....just a plain ol' Collector.
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Looking forward to seeing you in a few days, Dudley. :D
 
I'll be into knives my whole life but haven't bought one in a long time (two years maybe). I am having trouble making and keeping the same kind of money I did prior to the last few years. There have been alot of health and house issues to take priority.. but i'll admit im more weary to buy these days due to the hold up on the market. While I haven't been paying as much attention, I still hear things. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things in the near future and come up with the guts to drop a few grand on a knife again.... but we shall see!
 
Dawkind said:
My biggest problem, personally, is the way 'business' has been conducted these past years thanks to the so called Lotteries, Open Bids, Put-My-Name-In-A-Box, etc.....ruined it for me. That and all of the tremendously over-priced 'tactical knives' made by any and everyone, very few of which have real purpose or thought involved. I don't play the games and if I cannot use my cold, hard cash to buy what I'd like, no reason to even go other than to hang out with my friends and that's not even fun when I'm in a bad mood because of the aforementioned.

I also have a problem with some of these Maker's attitudes, ones that I supported years before they 'Hit the Big Time'.....now I can't even get a return phone call, email, text, etc., let alone a knife and all of the empty promises for knives I've been given. All of this has turned me off to even going to a knife show other than the upcoming one in KC, as I doubt there will be very much, if any, of the above mentioned 'stuff'.

Yeah, I'm Dudley Downer, not a Fan Boy or a Member of the Knife of the Month Club....just a plain ol' Collector.
Click to expand...

Well said Dudley! My first time going to Blade I was shocked how many 'Lotteries' I had to enter in hopes of even getting a blade I'd been wanting and saving for... it really turned me off a lot. It was like window shopping only I'd paid all the fees to get to the window... Mostly nowadays I seem to sell from my collection was doesn't interest me anymore and then try and have disposable cash on hand for those odd times I see a bargain come up for something I've wanted for a while.
 
Jon Brand said:
I'll be into knives my whole life but haven't bought one in a long time (two years maybe). I am having trouble making and keeping the same kind of money I did prior to the last few years. There have been alot of health and house issues to take priority.. but i'll admit im more weary to buy these days due to the hold up on the market. While I haven't been paying as much attention, I still hear things. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things in the near future and come up with the guts to drop a few grand on a knife again.... but we shall see!
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Hope things are gettin better, Jon. Good to see your post!
 
I wanted to chime in and applaud Mark with his idea of creating new collectors by gifting knives. That's just cool, man.

Also, I guess I need to get out more. I wouldn't mind finding a nice engraved interframe folder for $1500. I didn't find any with some quick Googling...

I think it was Lorien's earlier thread where I mentioned politics affecting things, like Dave brought up. I do not keep tabs on the larger market, but I can share how it affects me personally. In the past couple years I have spent nearly all of my disposable income on guns, ammunition, and related accessories. Actually, I'm waiting on several packages as we speak. I do not make much money to start with, but it was enough that I could have probably gotten a really nice custom sword, or a whole fistful of good bowies. I honestly did not want to buy all this stuff at once, and would have rather spread these purchases out over the future, interspersed with some nice knives as well. But I'm not gonna wait and see what the next administration brings down on the shooting sports. I've already been kicking myself for 8 years.
 
Don Hanson III said:
Good thread, Steven!

I do really think this time of year 'magnifies' what we are seeing in the custom knife market.
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Thanks, Don...really appreciate your participation.

While the time of year may indeed represent a magnification, the knife market has been showing signs of a correction for a long time.

I think this is going to last a couple years....what this means is that newer makers are going to have to work twice as hard to instill confidence that they are in it for the long haul as well, and established makers are going to have to work harder to retain market share that they might possibly have taken for granted up until now.
Dawkind said:
My biggest problem, personally, is the way 'business' has been conducted these past years thanks to the so called Lotteries, Open Bids, Put-My-Name-In-A-Box, etc.....ruined it for me. That and all of the tremendously over-priced 'tactical knives' made by any and everyone, very few of which have real purpose or thought involved. I don't play the games and if I cannot use my cold, hard cash to buy what I'd like, no reason to even go other than to hang out with my friends and that's not even fun when I'm in a bad mood because of the aforementioned.

I also have a problem with some of these Maker's attitudes, ones that I supported years before they 'Hit the Big Time'.....now I can't even get a return phone call, email, text, etc., let alone a knife and all of the empty promises for knives I've been given. All of this has turned me off to even going to a knife show other than the upcoming one in KC, as I doubt there will be very much, if any, of the above mentioned 'stuff'.

Yeah, I'm Dudley Downer, not a Fan Boy or a Member of the Knife of the Month Club....just a plain ol' Collector.
Click to expand...

Hey Dudley......the lotteries have been around for a long time....Jess Horn used to move his knives with a lottery back in the '80's....they are just a fact of life.

Some of them are actually kind of fun, Tony Bose and Ernie Emerson come to mind in that situation....but I feel you there. The upside of the market correction is in fact that with some limited exceptions, it is a buyer's market and there is a LOT of inventory to choose from right now, so the secondary market is where you can do your buying, and just go to shows for the drinking and BS'ing.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Steven, good thread. Seems like almost everyone is seeing the same trends, and downward, not upward. It took alot of years of overbuilding, adding to the supply, etc for this to finally be visible to the majority. Recovery in two years? We can always hope. So many factors are at play.

And very little has been mentioned here about whether the state of the economy is a driver here, or a braking mechanism. But I don't even wanna go there.
 
I just saw a damascus Fuegen for under 700 bucks on a purveyor's site!
egads- wish I had some extra moolah!
 
nothin but lint :(
 
mwschilling said:
Can't disagree with above comments. I've sold few in the past year and had a couple I thought would sell quickly but didn't. We can all do our part to bring in new collectors, young and old. I've given away several nice knives to people I thought would appreciate them and had disposable income. I give my sons knives but that's a long term play and doesn't really count. They have no money of their own. However, I closed a business deal in NY and bought a very nice folder for the guy who put it together as a thank you. He is a wealthy guy from CT and into nice watches. He had never thought about fine folders. Now he does. A good friend who loves to fish and has a $90K fishing boat (best kind of friend) never accepts my offers to pay for gas or expenses, so I gave him a custom knife (he was using a Bubba blade). Now he has the bug, especially for custom kitchen knives. My point, if you have custom knives you can't sell and that won't hurt you financially to offer as gifts, do so. It may spark new interest and expand the market as a whole. Many other ways to spark interest beyond giving away your knives.
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Very gracious of you Mark. I have given a few away myself over the years, resulting in bringing new collectors into the community. I've gotten pretty heavy into the antique lever action Winchesters and seeing some interest there in custom knives from friends I've met. No surprise I guess, cool knives and cool rifles kind of go hand in hand.

Good thread Steven, thanks for posting it. I remember a few years back when we may have 2-3 good productive threads in play at the same time, not so much anymore.
 
I've never bought any Jess Horn knives so I missed out on that,

I have been to several of Ernie's lotto's but I must admit it was to sit in a nice, cool, relatively dark place, and listen to live music....and watch folks do shots of whiskey and 'shine.

I guess there is a reason for them...;)


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