The right price??

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DannyDiablo

Joined
Mar 18, 2008
Messages
176
Well I have been made a couple of knives now and inevitably people are now starting to ask me to make one for them. I have just made them for friends and family and have not sold any..I guess my question is how do you guys come up with a price for your knives...I don't want to let them go cheap but I don't want to charge too much either..I guess maybe I should add that I don't have a grinder i just make these with files so there is some definite elbow grease going into these....I love making them guess I was just wondering what a fair price would be. I'm not looking for anything exact just something to go by or a starting point..
Thanks Dan

This is a knife I made for my father for Christmas. Second knife I have ever forged...

Blade is hand forged around 3" oal 7"
brass pommel and guard
whitetail antler handle with brass and buffalo horn spacers
hand stitched sheath..

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I think we all struggle with this question, and there is no simple answer. At the beginning it's easy to under-sell yourself and most of us have probably been in that boat at least once. The best advice I can give is to see what other makers are selling and for how much, and compare your work honestly. Don't charge customers for mistakes or for inefficient methods.
It's easy to see it from the perspective of time and materials invested, and miss the bigger reality that this is a competitive sales market. If you don't target your customers accurately and effectively then even a really good price may not sell your work.
One last thing to keep in mind is that once you enter the market as a maker, you are building a professional reputation that will follow you as long as you sell in this market. The knives you sell today will be building that reputation for years after the sale. Be sure you are confident about how your works reflects on you as a professional before you set any prices.
 
A good rule of thumb in the UK is basically double the materials cost. Once you've got a "name" the cost changes to include labour.
 
Well put...I guess its a trial and error situation...I appreciate the input ...I guess as long as I love to do it their is no wrong way to go...Do you ever see a slight mistake in a knife you have made and sell it for cheaper.. or does it get buried in the yard never to be spoken about again?? :D
 
Good way to go parbajtor...The name is what I have to achieve...I feel I have to work for that..haha I guess don't want to go crazy right off the bat and earn myself some less desirable names..
 
DannyDiablo said:
Well put...I guess its a trial and error situation...I appreciate the input ...I guess as long as I love to do it their is no wrong way to go...Do you ever see a slight mistake in a knife you have made and sell it for cheaper.. or does it get buried in the yard never to be spoken about again?? :D
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I have a bucket full of major mistakes and bad ideas. Usually a slight mistake can be erased at the cost of a higher grind line, shorter tip, etc. Those knives are the ones I keep for personal users or give away as personal gifts when they end up with features that don't fit within my normal standards of consistency. Ones that have obvious mistakes go in the bucket.
 
after looking at your site I'd love to be around when you make a mistake....or get a look at that bucket...lol
 
The one thing I would say is that knife making is probably the wrong endeavor if you are going to try to make money on your time. I can have 2 identical blades but for whatever reason (s) one of them takes me hours longer to complete, I can't charge more for it because it took longer. My advice is post something and see the feedback. If it sells fast and you see comments like "looks like a great value" or "I would have grabbed that" it is probably safe to say that you could have got a little more for it.

Just my .02
 
DannyDiablo said:
Do you ever see a slight mistake in a knife you have made and sell it for cheaper?
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Nope. I'm either satisfied with it or not. There's no sense putting your name on something you're not proud of. The woods behind my house/shop has several unsatisfactory blades in it, someday a hundred years from now someone will find them and think a lunatic lived here :D

Twice materials cost is a good idea to start from. Don't forget to include things you wore out, like belts, files, sandpaper etc. The only other "rule" I know was told to us by maker Tracy Mickley: "If it sells in 30 minutes, you're not asking enough. If it doesn't sell at all, you're asking too much." :D
 
DannyDiablo said:
...Do you ever see a slight mistake in a knife you have made and sell it for cheaper...
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No, that's why I haven't sold one yet. Working on what was suppose to be my first knife for sale now and I already have 2-3 things wrong with it. *sigh*
The pricing thing is a very complicated thing. I hope you figure it out.
 
"If it sells in 30 minutes, you're not asking enough. If it doesn't sell at all, you're asking too much."

This.


Also, better to undersell yourself at the beginning and work your way up. If you start high but your quality isn't there yet, you'll have a harder time, IMO.

And as far as letting one out the door with "mistakes," a significant part of making good knives is learning how to fix or hide mistakes and resurrect those knives that at one point deserved the scrap bin.
 
Is there a perfect knife? Perfect anything handmade? Probably not. But if you are proud enough of it to put your name on it then sell it. If you won't put your name on it don't sell it. Striving to make the next one better than the last one will get ya ahead.
 
Horsewright said:
Is there a perfect knife? Perfect anything handmade? Probably not.
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Sadly in a way, there is. Look at a knife by Nick Wheeler to name one. Pretty darn close to perfection. A majority of knifemakers (myself included) will never make it there. But we still rate our work by what we see the masters do and learning to accept our shortcomings is hard. Harder for some than others. :(
 
Patrice Lemée;10449768 said:
No, that's why I haven't sold one yet. Working on what was suppose to be my first knife for sale now and I already have 2-3 things wrong with it. *sigh*
The pricing thing is a very complicated thing. I hope you figure it out.
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I hear you Pat but then you have too look at the finished piece and say is that flaw, something anyone else but me can see. Someone else already asked the question, is there a perfect piece out there? I doubt it. I always heard that the sign of a true master was one that could take an "OH OH and make it look like an INTENTIONAL"!

If I feel a piece has a flaw that anyone with knowledge can see then it probably don't go out! Pricing is the hard part at first but I find the perfection of the piece is sometimes the hardest. Most knives I have made I never get the return for the real time and materials in it. But if you are not getting the materials and some of time back out of one then you are basically doing it for free. I agree with the idea that sometimes you have to look around the room and see what everyone else is getting. But some of that has to do with your level of experience also. It is kind of like getting hired into a job. You usually don't start at the top you have to work your way up there.
I figure starting out you have got to love it or you will never stay with it. However as the ole saying goes love doesn't pay the bills. So I figure sooner or later my skills have got to reach that level where not only do I love the piece but, everyone else loves it. I don't think there is a magic formula out there, although I have seen a couple of people describe such a formula.

As Pat said good luck with figuring this one out! Look around the room and see what others are getting for a knife similar to yours? Then ask yourself are my knives as good as those that are being offered at that price range or better? Do I have the experience that a seasoned maker has and can I ask as much as he does? Do I offer a sheath and are my sheaths as good as my knife?
 
Ah Pat I agree with ya there, Nick's work approaches perfection, no doubt. But is it perfect? To you and I, a stunning and breathtaking yes but to Nick, what does he say? We'll never get there, no one will but its the journey anyhoo that's important not the arriving. Some years back I ordered a pair of silver inlaid and engraved spurs for my wife. The order was placed with an acknowledged master of the bit and spur craft. He has since become a close friend. He has tried several times to buy these spurs back. To us they are just as perfect as the day they were delivered. He wants to cut them up with a torch. To him they look like "Freddie Flintstone made them" as he put it.
 
Pricing IS tough. Basically for me, it shakes down to materials and time. Materials include belts and propane, and a $5 general shop charge to cover all of the occasionally consumed items like sandpaper, cutting oil, drill bits, end mills, etc. Labor is now figured at $15/hr. I gave myself a raise from $10/hr. after I'd been making knives for five years, and thought my work sufficient. When I started out, almost all of my knives were ultimately given away. I figured that was the cost of my apprenticeship to myself. One thing that makes sense about giving yourself an hourly raise when prudent, is that as your skills improve, the time it take to make a given knife will decrease, and the end product quality will increase.

I charge $20 still for a sheath that takes me over two hours total to make, it comes out nice but it's basic and I don't kid myself that I'm a skilled leatherworker. Maybe someday.

As for mistakes... very occasionally, on a custom order, if something marginal happens such as the mark etched roughly onto an otherwise finished and excellent knife, I'll offer the customer a good discount on it, or the option to have me start from scratch if it can't be fixed. (I almost unequivocally don't accept deposits, so the customer's money does not become an issue.) That would be in a case where the knife is significantly personal in design/materials. I've never had a customer want me to start over, and rarely had one accept a discount. (In the few times this has happened over the years.) I know some makers will think this is incorrect. But, I'm trying to do this for a living, and sometimes a mistake on a finished knife hits the wallet HARD.

My big advice is DON'T ACCEPT DEPOSITS EXCEPT MAYBE FOR MATERIALS IF YOU NEED TO. I've seen that lead to spectacular failures in knifemaking careers. I've seldom been more stressed in my life than on a few occasions when I was way behind on a knife, having already accepted a hefty deposit. So now, although my wife still tries to talk me back into it, I just don't take them.
 
Tons of great advice guys....you gave me a great starting point..I'm probably going to just keep at it until I feel I have hit that point where I feel I really got something...I love to make knives so it will happen eventually (especially with the help and advise you guys give) until then I'll just posting them up until all of you start fighting over who wants one and then I'll know I got something ;)

Thanks again Dan
 
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