Thoughts on authorized dealers raising GEC prices above the minimum sale price.

knifeswapper said:
There are a lot of things being stated as if they were historically accurate - that require us to ignore most data points. Sure, if you pay $500 for a knife you could have purchased for $100 shortly prior, you are behind the curve. If you pay $99 for a knife you could have purchased elsewhere (or abstained) for $69; you are a bit behind the curve. But over the past 40 years I don't see quality knives being any worse an investment than land, cattle, gold, etc. if you weren't cautious when you bought. Now, if you want to cut out one moment in time to base your entire argument - ok. But then you also have to talk about oil prices going below zero; the crashing cattle market for our American ranchers; gold doubling inside a five year period; etc. etc. Typically I don't see any release prices on quality American traditional knives decreasing over any significant period of time.

We are all welcome to our opinion, but we are not afforded the same to facts. This is a place for great discussion and reason; but please don't be offended if others don't take what they recognize to be purely opinion posted time and time again as a truth. Especially when the truth is already known by most. Just because we don't understand the reasoning for decisions/policies of others, does not mean there is not valid reasoning - it only means we don't understand it.
Click to expand...

Have to disagree with you there. To me, investment is something that is done over time and something that is invested in typically has significant intrinsic value, i.e. Land, bonds, mutual funds et al. (Yes it can be argued that of those three only land has any actual intrinsic value) So called short term investing is really just speculation i.e making a bet that the market will move a certain way leading to short term profits. Although knives do have some small amount of intrinsic value as a tool they have historically have proven with a few exceptions to be speculative propositions rather than true investments. Hinderer that I mentioned is a great example. People went nuts due to the perceived scarcity. Eventually supply went up, scarcity vanished and with it much of the value. I expect the same will happen here.
 
Fixall said:
We've been seeing this more and more. Several authorized GEC dealers have recently been raising their prices above the minimum set by Great Eastern Cutlery.

For example, the recent thread brought attention to Triplexxxcutlery posting knives on ebay for double the minimum price set by GEC. Now non-ebay dealers are getting into the mix.

GPKnives is currently selling the GEC #19 Little Rattler in Micarta for $99.95 and Gunstock Jack is selling it for $89. DLT and KnivesShipFree choose to sell these knives at the minimum price of $69.90. That's a markup of $30 for GPK and $20 for Gunstock Jack above the standard markup. It was the same thing with the GEC #74. Both Gunstock Jack and GPK were selling the #74 for $20 - $40 more than I paid at KSF.

Thoughts?

Personally, I'm a bit torn. On one hand, when the dealer sets a higher price it leaves less profit for scalpers which makes them less likely to buy them to resell... And if someone is going to make a little extra money off of the sell, I would prefer it to be the dealer who put in the work, rather than a reseller who snapped a couple pictures and posted the knife on a forum/ebay.

On the other hand, paying 40% above GEC's minimum price leaves a bad taste in my mouth... Especially when other dealers like DLT and KSF
Click to expand...

For most posters on BF knives are a hobby. For dealers they are a business.
Businesses are "for-profit" enterprises. They all have people who are dependent on them remaining solvent.

I don't know any successful businesses who won't increase the price of an object if there are customers who are willing to pay the higher price. This is particularly true in this time of the covid, especially for outfits who have brick and mortar operations. GP Knives has a brick and mortar operation. Most of the other outfits you mentioned are web based only and have a correspondingly lower overhead. If an outfit prices themselves out of the market, they will likely lower the price.

As for us, much like marital bliss, the key to happiness is to figure out what you want and how much you are willing to give to get that before you start. Which is to say, if the knives are too expensive, don't buy them.
 
knarfeng said:
For most posters on BF knives are a hobby. For dealers they are a business.
Businesses are "for-profit" enterprises. They all have people who are dependent on them remaining solvent.

I don't know any successful businesses who won't increase the price of an object if there are customers who are willing to pay the higher price. This is particularly true in this time of the covid, especially for outfits who have brick and mortar operations. GP Knives has a brick and mortar operation. Most of the other outfits you mentioned are web based only and have a correspondingly lower overhead. If an outfit prices themselves out of the market, they will likely lower the price.

As for us, much like marital bliss, the key to happiness is to figure out what you want and how much you are willing to give to get that before you start. Which is to say, if the knives are too expensive, don't buy them.
Click to expand...

That's a really good point about the brick and mortar overhead vs web based sales. I didn't take that into account at all.

Honestly, the more I think on it, the less I believe there is even a good solution to the annoyance. The feeling of getting fleeced when you buy a knife from a dealer you're fond of when you see it selling for 40% elsewhere sucks. It also sucks to see KSF, CK, DLT, etc sell knives at MAP, leaving money on the table during these hard times, only to watch scalpers snatch them up and make a killing. But how do you fix it? People are willing to pay well above MAP for a popular patterns... Raise the MAP? You do that and people start to complaining (even more) about price fixing and you might end up pricing the knives right out of people's hands. All the dealers agree to sell at MSRP? Same issues as raising MAP. All dealers sell at or near the current MAP? With the lowish prices and huge demand, you end up with a huge scalper/bot problem and they become even more impossible to get. I don't think people really understand how much of an issue sneakerbots have become... Unless you tried to get in on the recent PS5 release, lol. It started with basketball shoes. Limited Jordan releases that had high resell value. People made programs to purchase the shoes from websites before human buyers could even add the product to their carts. When a high value sneaker drops, bots account for nearly 100% of the websites traffic. Some are rather advanced and can circumvent household limits. They've now spread to nearly every product that has good margins. Game console releases, new computer CPU and GPU releases, knife releases, mechanical keyboards, even limited release makeup sets. It's crazy.

And like I said, I'd much rather see the businesses that put in the work get the majority of the profits, rather than the scalper who hasn't done jack.

Here's the best solution I can think of. Upgrade websites to help prevent bots and people circumventing the household limits (and also add household limits to popular limited releases) and let me kick every scalper right in the crotch.

Alright, it's my Friday and I'm almost three drinks in so I'm going to stop rambling.
 
brownshoe said:
That’s a hoot. Only a knife dealer would say that. :)
Click to expand...
Right, the person with serious skin in the game. I think you were trying to disagree with what he said but ultimately your snarky rude response is right in line with why he knows so much. Now, if we are talking the guy a while back who posted about buying all those hinderers at peak bubble prices and is now looking to unload them but wonders why he can't recoup anywhere close to his investment, those are times when knives as an investment are a poor choice. But we aren't talking about that, are we...

And, in your shot at knifeswapper knifeswapper you conveniently left out this part in the same sentence which immediately came after the part you quoted: "if you weren't cautious when you bought." Kind of an important qualifier, don't you think? Again, we aren't talking investing in high end Ti frame locks in an obvious bubble.

Seems like you are cherry picking and sharing your opinion as fact to further your own agenda. Not quality mind support there bud :D
 
Triton said:
Have to disagree with you there. To me, investment is something that is done over time and something that is invested in typically has significant intrinsic value, i.e. Land, bonds, mutual funds et al. (Yes it can be argued that of those three only land has any actual intrinsic value) So called short term investing is really just speculation i.e making a bet that the market will move a certain way leading to short term profits. Although knives do have some small amount of intrinsic value as a tool they have historically have proven with a few exceptions to be speculative propositions rather than true investments. Hinderer that I mentioned is a great example. People went nuts due to the perceived scarcity. Eventually supply went up, scarcity vanished and with it much of the value. I expect the same will happen here.
Click to expand...

I really don't think you had to disagree - I think we are saying near the same thing. My point was that there is a good time to buy and a bad time to buy - and both are only realized in hindsight and over some amount of time the difference erased. I have seen men buy cattle for $2 at the top of the market and declare bankruptcy when the bubble burst - I have seen others buy them below $1 and make out like a bandit. All in a surprisingly short timeframe. Gold has swung from $1k to $2k (and back) inside a decade. My father bought our childhood farm for $300/acre and sold it 25 years later for $500/acre; a 66% profit over that entire time. The buyer had it a little less than 25 years and sold it last year for $3500/acre. Wind turbines are going in around here; so many speculators bought much of the land in the proposed path for way over market value; then a military flight plan scrapped the path and the speculators went broke. So, my entire theme was price points. Many people quote flipper prices when talking about how over-priced the knives are today - but that only comes after at least two levels of sales have already taken place (except when dealers become flippers). I personally used DRP investing when I was out of college to buy $100/mo worth of stock directly from the companies. That $100/mo over 10 years ending up buying my house; so when things go right, scheduled investment is great. But not really what I was driving at. Nobody else can make knives exactly as they were made 100 years ago at the price point newly produced knives can by purchased, albeit not easily at times. So, if that is something that a person desires in 2020; their markets are rather small. And although only hindsight will determine if we are at the top or the bottom; most of us don't have the time travel power harnessed yet. I ask myself all the time, "Would I rather have USD in the bank or quality knives in my vault?". Sadly, my shop is running out of vault space....

craytab said:
Seems like you are cherry picking and sharing your opinion as fact to further your own agenda. Not quality mind support there bud :D
Click to expand...

There are two folks out of thousands that I can count on taking a jab every time they feel like they can justify it; not a bad record for a business owner. God bless them and help me to take it for what it is.
 
Last edited:
Knives as an investment is a bad idea. The collector market is just too volatile. Just look at all those Camillus-made Remingtons selling for less than original price.

However, when a collectible becomes hot, those who sell collectibles get rich. The smart sellers take that money and invest it elsewhere, just like professional gamblers.

Actually buying any collectible as an investment is a bad idea. If you don't know why, you shouldn't be investing, give it to someone else to invest for you.
 
brownshoe said:
Knives as an investment is a bad idea. The collector market is just too volatile. Just look at all those Camillus-made Remingtons selling for less than original price.

However, when a collectible becomes hot, those who sell collectibles get rich. The smart sellers take that money and invest it elsewhere, just like professional gamblers.

Actually buying any collectible as an investment is a bad idea. If you don't know why, you shouldn't be investing, give it to someone else to invest for you.
Click to expand...

Once again, you state an opinion as fact when actually, that's false. Disappointing as usual.
 
knifeswapper said:
I really don't think you had to disagree - I think we are saying near the same thing. My point was that there is a good time to buy and a bad time to buy - and both are only realized in hindsight and over some amount of time the difference erased
Click to expand...

To balance things out I will have to agree with that. :)Apologies if I misunderstood your point.
 
brownshoe said:
Knives as an investment is a bad idea. The collector market is just too volatile. Just look at all those Camillus-made Remingtons selling for less than original price.

However, when a collectible becomes hot, those who sell collectibles get rich. The smart sellers take that money and invest it elsewhere, just like professional gamblers.

Actually buying any collectible as an investment is a bad idea. If you don't know why, you shouldn't be investing, give it to someone else to invest for you.
Click to expand...
In general I agree. That said, the discussion we are having and the quote you are ranting about is not relevant to the point you are making. Just like any investment, buying without cation can make the investment poor. That was the point being made in the quote you conveniently ignored. Stop cherry picking to make a point no one but you is discussing.
 
The dealer prices we see result mostly from marketing decisions, not supply and demand.

Today, GP Knives offers the Little Rattler in kingwood at $108. You don’t have to buy it, but that’s the most you have to pay right now if you want it. When it goes, I learn someone was willing to pay $108 for the knife. That’s good to know. On the other hand, if it sits on GPK’s website for a while, that tells us that the interest just isn’t there at that level.

I stumbled across the micarta elsewhere and bought it on impulse for about $80, all in. Knowing a kingwood is sitting on the shelf tells me that I’m probably not getting rid of mine for anything more than I paid, at best.

That’s ok, I’m expecting to lose on this hobby. I won’t buy anything I’m not willing to carry and use.
 
byjiminy said:
The dealer prices we see result mostly from marketing decisions, not supply and demand.
Click to expand...

I think the sampling size has skewed the opinion. The dealers deciding to increase prices or go direct to eBay, etc. is in direct correlation to the recent market pricing of GEC knives. And those market prices are directly in correlation to the fact that there are way more people wanting them, than knives produced. Now the fact that that has carried over to a pattern that is not in extreme demand, and produced in significantly higher numbers than recent production runs, is simply just that - a spill-over. You will see the genuine supply/demand market at work again with the #47 Viper, which is a known commodity.

But trying to match a variant pricing schema on one dealers site for a product that has already been purchased by a majority of those desiring it in earnest, is a bit problematic in drawing significant "marketing" conclusions. For example, I see 20+ ip addresses refreshing my Early Reserve page ever since GEC announced the run. I could increase the estimated price to $200 and would still allocate them all in under one minute. My "marketing" decision is to sell GEC knives as I always have - but it would make very little difference to the immediate allocation. Because for my 10(made up) Ironwood #47's there are 200 people wanting to reserve one. Maybe I lose 100 people that are aggravated at the price; but that still leaves me 1000% oversubscribed.
 
knifeswapper said:
I think the sampling size has skewed the opinion. The dealers deciding to increase prices or go direct to eBay, etc. is in direct correlation to the recent market pricing of GEC knives. And those market prices are directly in correlation to the fact that there are way more people wanting them, than knives produced. Now the fact that that has carried over to a pattern that is not in extreme demand, and produced in significantly higher numbers than recent production runs, is simply just that - a spill-over. You will see the genuine supply/demand market at work again with the #47 Viper, which is a known commodity.

But trying to match a variant pricing schema on one dealers site for a product that has already been purchased by a majority of those desiring it in earnest, is a bit problematic in drawing significant "marketing" conclusions. For example, I see 20+ ip addresses refreshing my Early Reserve page ever since GEC announced the run. I could increase the estimated price to $200 and would still allocate them all in under one minute. My "marketing" decision is to sell GEC knives as I always have - but it would make very little difference to the immediate allocation. Because for my 10(made up) Ironwood #47's there are 200 people wanting to reserve one. Maybe I lose 100 people that are aggravated at the price; but that still leaves me 1000% oversubscribed.
Click to expand...
Curious, when you say you see 20+ ip addresses refreshing your Early Reserve page.. do you mean like bot(s)?
 
knife_fan said:
The best way to get rid of the bots is to require people to do those reCAPTCHA picture puzzles at checkout. That would prevent the bots from being able to make purchases.
Click to expand...

From what I have seen of knifeswapper for the past few years he is most likely very aware of the technical aspects of selling knives online. If he isn't using this sort of thing it is probably not because he hasn't heard of it.
 
LastRodeo said:
Curious, when you say you see 20+ ip addresses refreshing your Early Reserve page.. do you mean like bot(s)?
Click to expand...

My guess is fingers hitting F5. But I suppose there is/should be a tool to do the same. Last I checked though; automated tools intervals were too wide to be useful.

knife_fan said:
The best way to get rid of the bots is to require people to do those reCAPTCHA picture puzzles at checkout. That would prevent the bots from being able to make purchases.
Click to expand...

There is nothing a bot can do other than notify a human in this scenario. It is only a check to see if a page is updated.
 
knifeswapper said:
I could increase the estimated price to $200 and would still allocate them all in under one minute.
Click to expand...
If you raised your advertised prices “too high”, I imagine GEC might have a word in your ear. Your price reflects your judgement of the trade-off between short-term gain and long-term sustainability. Some dealers want the last dollar* before the flipper gets his. In your case, your willing to bet on your customers. That’s all I meant by “marketing”.

FWIW, I’m a happy CK customer, and expect to remain one in the future. I admire your ethics and your contribution to the community. Finally, I am noob and you are more than entitled to ignore me. Thank you.

*(and maybe more!)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top