Twenty 3" EDC3, Delta 3V

freddyn said:
Ok. Newbie. I have no idea what just happened, who’s in who’s out, speed tests and proxies, yikes. I just wanted/want a knife haha
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Yea, it's a little silly. My thinking is; if you're going to post for a spot, be ready to buy. When I opened the link there was 1 view, and it took me 9 or 10 times hitting reply because the server was bogging. I know that's not how this forum works, but that's my smelly opinion...
 
I'd like to buy a blade. But the ordering process has been escaping me. I logged on at 1300 today but I guess on an older sale?

I'm giving this a few more tries then moving on.
 
FN in MT said:
I'd like to buy a blade. But the ordering process has been escaping me. I logged on at 1300 today but I guess on an older sale?

I'm giving this a few more tries then moving on.
Click to expand...

I would venture over to the CPK subforum and read up on all the sticky threads there.

https://www.bladeforums.com/forums/carothers-performance-knives.929/

One of them contains info in the first post about the next sale in any given week:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/the-next-sale.1405869/

Also there are pre-order threads that are sometimes open, and a buy/sell/trade thread for any second-hand sales that may pop up there.

So much good information there you should be able to figure out how to at least attempt to buy a knife from Nathan.
 
FN in MT said:
What happened to simply TAKING AN ORDER?
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Years ago I used to take orders and keep lists. About 10% of the people placing orders would have endless emails that would go around in circles. Or fail to take their knife once it was finished. Or change their minds again and again, resulting in confusion and I'd lose track and spend more time figuring out what someone wants than making their order or make their order wrong. The reality is a hobby maker doing 20 knives a year can keep up with it all and absorb all that time keeping up with lists and running in circles, but earning a living at this is difficult so that doesn't scale up. So, like most makers here, I simply build knives and then offer them for sale here. Exactly the same as any other maker on this sub forum. The complexities and misunderstandings that surrounds taking orders was going to put me out of business, largely due to day dreamers.

Building knives and offering them for sale the way I do is the way the vast majority of knife makers on this forum operate. The only thing that is unusual is the scale of my production and the speed of the sales. It didn't start out this way, it took years. The sales got faster and I ramped up production to meet it. But I can only ramp up so quickly and I'm not sure I want to get very much bigger than I am now. And, raising my prices to reduce demand to meet supply would mean selling my work for more than it is worth which would be unfair to the folks who simply want to buy a good knife to use.

While I'm glad that our work is recognized and appreciated and the sales move briskly, do you think we're intentionally trying to make it difficult to buy a knife? There is nothing I would like better than to be able to push a button and magically produce 100 of the EDC, finished and ready to go and sell one to every individual here who wants one, but anyone who thinks that's how knife production works is sorely misinformed. It's hard. It takes time to make a knife the way we do. I'm simply trying to run an honest business here the best way that I know how. What would you suggest I do differently? If it's something simple, don't you think we'd have tried it?
 
I completely understand what you're saying ... and agree it's a much better business model than having hectic craziness with changing orders or canceled orders ... and wait times of 2 or 3 years ... and with the demand for your knives what it is it would probably be longer.

There is one thing I will say that will probably not sit well with some of the regulars on this subforum ...

but ... having taken part in the sale frenzy and experiencing the lag it ultimately causes ... all the "speed tests" ... or "just trying my connection out" posts ... truely do cause problems for those who are in good faith trying to buy a knife in that days sale ... it causes more lag and errors and muddys up the thread so you aren't even sure where you fall in ...

this last sale there were so many in the top slots that undoubtably it caused several people to miss out on a knife from receiving errors ...

and really what benefit is it truely ... that today you hit #4 ? ... because each sale ... each day will be different in where you will end up ...

just my 2 cents worth.
 
freddyn said:
Ok. Newbie. I have no idea what just happened, who’s in who’s out, speed tests and proxies, yikes. I just wanted/want a knife haha
Click to expand...

hammeredsole said:
Yea, it's a little silly. My thinking is; if you're going to post for a spot, be ready to buy. When I opened the link there was 1 view, and it took me 9 or 10 times hitting reply because the server was bogging. I know that's not how this forum works, but that's my smelly opinion...
Click to expand...

FN in MT said:
I'd like to buy a blade. But the ordering process has been escaping me. I logged on at 1300 today but I guess on an older sale?

I'm giving this a few more tries then moving on.
Click to expand...

FN in MT said:
What happened to simply TAKING AN ORDER?
Click to expand...

I see people getting bent out of shape after only a few sales attempts. It’s not necessary. There are many ways to get your hands on a CPK.
If you want it direct from CPK you will have to compete in the sales. There is high demand. Sales used to be only five or ten knives at a time. I couldn’t win in those - ever. But I keep a close eye on the exchange and I get in on the preorders. Most of my CPK’s I got through preorders.
There is a “sales proxy request” thread where you can ask somebody to proxy for you. If you have a proxy you cannot also try in the sale. I personally only proxy for people who are unable to make the sale themselves.
You could check out fort Henry custom knives.
You could make a “wanted to buy” request over in the “buy, sell, trade” thread.
Consider that CPK has a total of 4 people working in the shop. It’s just Nathan, Jo, Mark and Bo. I think they do a stellar job!
It’s a quality product.
Good luck!
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Years ago I used to take orders and keep lists. About 10% of the people placing orders would have endless emails that would go around in circles. Or fail to take their knife once it was finished. Or change their minds again and again, resulting in confusion and I'd lose track and spend more time figuring out what someone wants than making their order or make their order wrong. The reality is a hobby maker doing 20 knives a year can keep up with it all and absorb all that time keeping up with lists and running in circles, but earning a living at this is difficult so that doesn't scale up. So, like most makers here, I simply build knives and then offer them for sale here. Exactly the same as any other maker on this sub forum. The complexities and misunderstandings that surrounds taking orders was going to put me out of business, largely due to day dreamers.

Building knives and offering them for sale the way I do is the way the vast majority of knife makers on this forum operate. The only thing that is unusual is the scale of my production and the speed of the sales. It didn't start out this way, it took years. The sales got faster and I ramped up production to meet it. But I can only ramp up so quickly and I'm not sure I want to get very much bigger than I am now. And, raising my prices to reduce demand to meet supply would mean selling my work for more than it is worth which would be unfair to the folks who simply want to buy a good knife to use.

While I'm glad that our work is recognized and appreciated and the sales move briskly, do you think we're intentionally trying to make it difficult to buy a knife? There is nothing I would like better than to be able to push a button and magically produce 100 of the EDC, finished and ready to go and sell one to every individual here who wants one, but anyone who thinks that's how knife production works is sorely misinformed. It's hard. It takes time to make a knife the way we do. I'm simply trying to run an honest business here the best way that I know how. What would you suggest I do differently? If it's something simple, don't you think we'd have tried it?
Click to expand...


Hi. I can’t even tell if I was in top 20 or not? That’s how confusing all the speed test/proxy business makes this. It looks like great sport and fun for blade forum whizzes but it can’t be what you want for your sales model. On a lighter note I see you’re up in Mooresville. Charlotte here and yeah I’m over this rain too. Please let me know if I got one of the 20 so if not I can move on. Thanks. No disrespect meant
 
Odog27 said:
I see people getting bent out of shape after only a few sales attempts. It’s not necessary. There are many ways to get your hands on a CPK.
If you want it direct from CPK you will have to compete in the sales. There is high demand. Sales used to be only five or ten knives at a time. I couldn’t win in those - ever. But I keep a close eye on the exchange and I get in on the preorders. Most of my CPK’s I got through preorders.
There is a “sales proxy request” thread where you can ask somebody to proxy for you. If you have a proxy you cannot also try in the sale. I personally only proxy for people who are unable to make the sale themselves.
You could check out fort Henry custom knives.
You could make a “wanted to buy” request over in the “buy, sell, trade” thread.
Consider that CPK has a total of 4 people working in the shop. It’s just Nathan, Jo, Mark and Bo. I think they do a stellar job!
It’s a quality product.
Good luck!
Click to expand...


this isn't about CPK and the number of people in the shop. it's about the way the online sales are handled. The presence of so many proxies, and people cheekily flaunting that they got in for a speed check, and how some will always be faster than others does give the appearance that there are hired guns for sale and that any old person coming along cannot compete for a knife in the sale. We are all aware of secondary markets/ preorders/ buy-sell-trade forums. i got my first CPK recently and only found out this week how sales were offered. i'm used to competing in drops but i've never seen anything like this. The only suggestion i would offer to the maker is in this model is perhaps that they should at the very least limit the number of knives purchased to one per customer. You're right i'm a newbie and don't know how things are done here but from the perspective of an outsider, the optics are terrible. Take care, guys.
 
freddyn said:
this isn't about CPK and the number of people in the shop. it's about the way the online sales are handled. The presence of so many proxies, and people cheekily flaunting that they got in for a speed check, and how some will always be faster than others does give the appearance that there are hired guns for sale and that any old person coming along cannot compete for a knife in the sale. We are all aware of secondary markets/ preorders/ buy-sell-trade forums. i got my first CPK recently and only found out this week how sales were offered. i'm used to competing in drops but i've never seen anything like this. The only suggestion i would offer to the maker is in this model is perhaps that they should at the very least limit the number of knives purchased to one per customer. You're right i'm a newbie and don't know how things are done here but from the perspective of an outsider, the optics are terrible. Take care, guys.
Click to expand...

Well stated. I don't think people are upset at all with the seller, because frankly, they are doing what they're supposed to do; Make badass knives of superior quality. It's the forum which is supporting this mayhem. I feel bad that Nathan even had to take the time to defend his practice, because I can imagine the level of fickleness that hobbyists possess, and I'm sure he has had his fair share of beyond frustrating moments trying to appease customers.

However, simply defending the status quo "because that's how it's done" doesn't sit well with me. Granted, these are different forums, but I've been a part of AR15.com Equipment Exchange (EE) for years, and have completed over 400 buy/sell transactions without a single hiccup. This is supported only by a strict policy of professionalism in its EE posts. Simply put; No extraneous comments to "Bump" the post, no BS comments to trash or fluff the sale. All that is allowed are friendly comments/questions suggesting an edit for clarity, or the occasional kudos based on personal experience with the seller. A post of "I will take it" is more concrete than even an eBay "Buy it now". This is all supported by a robust feedback system, where users rate the transaction on a simple Good/Neutral/Bad scheme with a short comment. If someone is posting spam in threads, or renege on a sale agreement = Permanent ban.

Now, we have this forum; which is basically a Free-For-All where only the initiated collectors who have time to sit on a post and spam it can make any headway. Of course there is a robust secondary market where new guys can go buy these knives, for the $100 markup that most of these knives will go for (free market etc etc etc, I get it). But this system really isn't civil. OP, I think you were right... the speed tests and bids are obnoxious and cause undue network traffic which frustrates and obfuscates the bidding process. I was a first time forum user and buyer for this very sale, and I figured out the bidding process in a grand total of about 15 minutes of cumulative time, and successfully in a reasonably quick fashion (still didn't get it). During the process I was prevented about 6 or 7 times from placing a post because of the Lag/net errors which are no doubt from the approximately 50% "Speed tests". If the Speed Test folks changed the content of their post to from "Speed test - Not buying" to something like "BOOM - haha suckers, just seeing where I landed, not buying/I don't have money right now", it would be more in line with what's actually going on. Sure, regular users and forum trolls might be able to learn the process, but can't we clean it up from the sellers perspective? Now they have to sort through and determine what's a speed test, what's a proxy, who does/doesn't want one.
 
freddyn said:
this isn't about CPK and the number of people in the shop. it's about the way the online sales are handled. The presence of so many proxies, and people cheekily flaunting that they got in for a speed check, and how some will always be faster than others does give the appearance that there are hired guns for sale and that any old person coming along cannot compete for a knife in the sale. We are all aware of secondary markets/ preorders/ buy-sell-trade forums. i got my first CPK recently and only found out this week how sales were offered. i'm used to competing in drops but i've never seen anything like this. The only suggestion i would offer to the maker is in this model is perhaps that they should at the very least limit the number of knives purchased to one per customer. You're right i'm a newbie and don't know how things are done here but from the perspective of an outsider, the optics are terrible. Take care, guys.
Click to expand...
I understand how you feel. I understand the optics may not be great to newcomers.
I’ve also been around long enough to know it’s just optics and people who keep trying do end up getting what they are after.
Some recent examples I can think of are @NiceNife, @inspector-callahan, @halm, @Hundred Acre Wood, @Fullflat ...
I could keep going. Some of these members were initially frustrated. Some got a proxy. Some kept at it and scored on their own.
It may be confusing at first, but in most of the sales there are enough people engaging that even without the proxies and speed test posts you will have to wait minutes to figure out if you actually won. Your post may read #17 but you may actually be 46th in line once the software catches up.
I would say keep at it.
Good luck!
 
You can also “watch” threads through the software. Then you get a notification if somebody posts in that thread. Like the “buy,sell,trade” thread alert I just got. A member just put a FK2 up for sale at a very reasonable price.

It’s probably already sold.
 
The speed tests and "pass it down" are getting out of hand. It is contributing to the forum software tripping up and giving people error messages. This is frustrating the folks who just want to buy a knife. We need to address that.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
And, raising my prices to reduce demand to meet supply would mean selling my work for more than it is worth which would be unfair to the folks who simply want to buy a good knife to use.
Click to expand...

This attitude right here is why I decided to try score a knife from CPK. Reading through various threads, it's become clear that Nathan is well respected, and a genuinely caring and gracious person. Generally, people take it for granted that the market determines value, but Nathan has set a value for his knives, and doesn't feel right going beyond that, even though the demand is greater than the supply. Kudos.

Also, there is nothing wrong with this marketing strategy. Several companies use similar strategies, although CPK releases knives much more consistently (than certain other companies that shall remain unnamed). For a small, high end, high value maker, there's not many better ways to market. Besides, for the vast majority of people, a knife like this is a luxury, not a necessity. No sense getting bent out of shape over a luxury. Just have fun with it.
 
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