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Steel Flippers

B

beattheheat

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Joined
Jan 13, 2018
Messages
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What comes to my mind as of lately that there are a significant amount of new members (2018-2019) who flip knives for (in their mind) top dollar,we've had many discussions about the topic of "flipping" and i think i'm not the only one who is bothered by this "flipping behavior",just my thoughts!

minor correction!you guy's were right,but i f.....g hate flippers and will NEVER deal with them!
 
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I became a gold member within a month or two of registering, for reasons other than selling; and would have have found being blocked from doing so very offputting. The reality is that these memberships help keep the site running, so it would be a poor business choice for Spark to restrict access in that way.
 
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This has been a subject beat to death. It's generally frowned upon here, especially when the member doesn't really participate in the forums, except in the exchange area. I don't like flipping but who cares what I think anyway
 
I came here to buy, then bought a membership to sell. And it was after a good amount of both that I began to participate in discussions and developed an interested in what others had to say on the forums. I imagine I'm not the only one.

Restricting access is going to kill the site - or at the very least starve it. And there's nothing wrong with 'flippers'; people here can buy and sell to whomever they please - nothing is stopping you from not dealing with members whom you deem distasteful.
 
I don’t always find flippers looking to do it for money aswell. I’ve seen many that don’t really have the funds to buy many knives or the more expensive ones, so they tend to buy a few already knowing they’ll probably flip them but only cause they need the money to move on to the next knife.

I’ve bought many knives I liked until I received it, then realized it just wasn’t for me so might aswell move it along to someone that wants it and try your hand at something else.
 
Switchblade_renegade said:
I don’t always find flippers looking to do it for money aswell. I’ve seen many that don’t really have the funds to buy many knives or the more expensive ones, so they tend to buy a few already knowing they’ll probably flip them but only cause they need the money to move on to the next knife.

I’ve bought many knives I liked until I received it, then realized it just wasn’t for me so might aswell move it along to someone that wants it and try your hand at something else.
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I don't think that's the type of flipping that is the issue with people. I've purchased knives and listed for sale sometimes the same day. The flippers that seem to get frowned upon are the ones that almost all activities are in the exchange. Purchasing alot of knives that usually are limited with the sole purpose of reselling at a substantial profit. No rules are being broken unless the buying and selling are considered dealer behavior. At the end of the day if the community doesn't like flippers, don't buy the knives.
 
I’ve seen several forums go through a death cycle.

People with a common interest exchange ideas, techniques and info.
Newcomers are drawn to the site and bombard the old timers with questions that have been hashed out already.
Site traffic grows then more and more people sell for profit because they get exposure.
Many old timers get tired of being unappreciated and generally sick of people’s crap.
Site ends up being full of bad information and 10x the people selling vs the people buying.
Then it’s only a glorified classified section.


Hopefully that doesn’t happen here.
 
I understand flipping will happen - and I get it. Someone will always show up after a drop - that's life. To restrict it would be ridiculous and detrimental.

....on a slightly different note, here are a couple newb/non-paying members doing some extensive, daily "poaching" on the Traditionals FS sub-forum. I have talked to some other members and they have noticed the same ones as I have.

You have to sit in front of a computer every waking hour of every day hitting the refresh button every minute or so. If that's the life you want, well you got it. One gets the lion's share of the best deals since he joined as a non-paying member His accumulation often shows up as the first post in a FS thread as trade offers - since he can't sell. This non-paying member is doing a significant volume of transactions & is essentially running (at the very least) a part time business on the forum without permission or being held accountable (are there rules?).

Bottom line, I am loath to offer up anything/solution as I am sure there are more good people among non-paying members than bad. I've been a member for 17 years and keep my paying membership up when I am active. For me, the forum offerings have always more then covered the membership cost. I've been retired for a few years now. I am also a former knife maker and am still a collector. BF has been a community and a refuge. An idea: "buy less, talk more"
 
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southriv said:
I understand flipping will happen - and I get it. Someone will always show up after a drop - that's life. To restrict it would be ridiculous and detrimental.

....on a slightly different note, here are a couple newb/non-paying members doing some extensive, daily "poaching" on the Traditionals FS sub-forum. I have talked to some other members and they have noticed the same ones as I have. I have messaged a moderator on the forum and no response.

One in particular (I cannot figure out how else) must sit in front of his computer every waking hour of every day hitting the refresh button every minute or so. As a result he has picked up the lion's share of the best deals since he joined (as a non-paying member) in July. His accumulation often shows up as the first post in a FS thread as trade offers - since he can't sell. This non-paying member is doing a significant volume of transactions & is essentially running (at the very least) a part time business on the forum without permission or being held accountable.

Bottom line, I am loath to offer up anything/solution as I am sure there are more good people among non-paying members than bad. I've been a member for 17 years and keep my paying membership up when I am active. For me, the forum offerings have always more then covered the membership cost. I've been retired for a few years now. I am also a former knife maker and am still a collector. Money is tighter and I cannot be reduced to paying whatever the BIN price is on Ebay. BF has been a community and a refuge.

I would hope some moderators are listening. PM me if you would like more info.
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If he were selling them here at a mark up or selling them en masse elsewhere, then I could understand your point as a part time business. A Gold member got banned for just that not too long ago.
Not sure how you classify buying in volume to offer trade fodder as a part time business. That seems like a very poor model if profits were the goal.

Sellers have a right to sell to whomever they choose, whether that be an extremely active newbie or a chill old timer or anyone in between.
 
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I think some flippers motivation may be buy limited production or out of production knives and flip them for profit. Then use profits to fund their hobby at little to no cost. I can understand the method to the madness even if I don't agree with flipping
 
Sellers have a right to sell to whomever they choose, whether that be an extremely active newbie or a chill old timer or anyone in between.
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....like many I've talked to who are unhappy with this situation, I've decided only to deal with paying members- which is a shame, to penalize a group because of the actions of a one or two people. I had been wondering why I was seeing a lot of " I reserve the right to sell to..." Now I know.

I'll repeat what I said about flippers - basically, (after much ruminating) I could care less. They show up once in a while (usually during a drop) so live with it...

My problem is with one or two individuals who are doing possibly thousands in transactions but are too cheap to get a paying membership. For over a month it has been like daily virus that has made it almost impossible to buy anything unless you want to spend every waking minute hitting the refresh button...who can compete with that?
 
As long as people are willing to pay, there will always be flippers. Capitalism at it's best.
We all have a choice whether to give in or hold out on secondary market prices. But, sometimes the urge outweighs the sensible, logical choice.
 
I agree that I hate to see it happen when limited runs of a specific knife gets snatched up by someone that has zero intent on keeping the knife ...

and I also agree that this subject has been gone over and over and beat to death ...

and there is only one way it will ever stop ... the manufacturers or knife makers can't stop it (and why would they if their products sell fast? that's the American dream no?) ...

and I will repeat it one last time ... there is one and only one way this will ever change ...

and that is if as a whole the knife community as a whole just refuses to pay the inflated prices and the "flippers" are stuck with knives they can't sell unless they lower the price to a fair and realistic price ...

and there will always be collectors and people that will pay the inflated prices for prestige or to brag or just because they can ...

so for your blood pressure and piece of mind I recommend ignoring flippers ... and if you miss out on a knife occasionally ... pull up your britches and move on ... there will be others come out soon ...
 
In the end all you can do is buy if you think it is a fair price and pass if you don't. What a fair price is will vary from buyer to buyer.
but some of the sellers do show an excessive amount of greed, which I don't find as a particularly good character trait.
 
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