Well-made production versions of customs: How do they affect custom sales?

[Kevin Jones]

Generally once the factory knife comes out...demand for the same custom knife goes down.

Confusion is caused in for sale forums when you see:

For Sale: Carson, Terzuola, Elishewitz, Emerson, Lake, Osborne and Fisk.

Only to find out that these are all factory knives. This is the strategy of the factory...to give a false impression that the knives are similar since the names and designs are being utilized.

As Bruce says the factory deal can be the brass ring. However, the businessmen among the knife makers know it is best to give the factory and "exclusive" design...as opposed to one of the models the makers spent years developing and marketing.

Severed Thumbs brought up Neil Blackwood. Actually Neil was very well known...which is why the factory went after him.

BTW, Severed what every happened to Neil....after all he had all that "Good Factory Press".

The biggest benefit to the custom knife market that factories provide is to introduce custom makers and their knives to factory buyers. The mean age of buyers of custom knives has consistently dropped over the past 15 years.

The majority of the factories out there owe their very existence to the custom knife makers.

Just curious, for which Fisk models has demand decreased as a result of a factory version being made?

If in fact a particular model from a maker does have a decrease in demand after a factory version is made, that in my opinion doesn't necessarily mean that the maker's overall demand/sales will not increase as a result of his increased exposure as a maker.

 

[Les Robertson]

It would appear that I have, at least in the minds of their collectors seem to be "picking" on some makers.

I used the list of makers previously to illustrate a point.

The knife makers like Fisk, Osborne and Lake have given a "DESIGN" to the factories.

Kevin, the factory Bowie that was produced that Jerry designed had no affect on his sales or his popularity...but you already knew that.

Because of the demand in the aftermarket Ron Lake's knives will obviously not be affected by a Lake DESIGN.

As for the Osborne in Marc's Avatar, looks like some Gold on that one...I'm pretty sure factories do not offer that as an option. Maybe it is just the photo?

As I wrote previously (man I have to repeat myself a lot in this thread) Makers do get the advantage of the "press" the factory provides them. As well (as I wrote before) the average age of the custom knife buyer has been steadily declining over the last 15 years.

This is all good for the custom knife makers.

To sum up:

1) Custom knives that are copied (NOT DESIGNS GIVEN TO THE FACTORIES), generally will have a negative affect on the sales of the custom version.

2) Custom Knives that are copied factories will have a negative affect on the sales of the custom version of that knife. NOT THE MAKER OVERALL!

3) The list of knife makers I used previously was to illustrate a point of the way that some people list their FACTORY KNIVES FOR SALE....UTILIZING THE MAKERS NAME....NOT THE FACTORY NAME.

Ok, feel free to pick at the scab.

 

[Lorien]

I get it.

 

[severedthumbs]

Hi Severed,

Pricing had something to do with it.

His folder prices got away from him and he could not recover. Which is too bad Neil is a very good knife maker.

If I recall at one time a base Curr was $1800 and a Skirmish was somewhere around $3000, crazy scary prices. I'm not sure of his current pricing but I hope it has come down from those prices...he does make one knice folder, but its unobtainable at those prices.