What do you consider a good deal on a used knife?

pbcg

pbcg

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What do you consider a good deal on a pre-owned knife?

Example: A knife that retails for $100.00 and still readily available and is being offered LNIB. What would you consider a good deal? 5%,10%, 20%, 50% off retail?

Or do you have a formula? I've noticed a tremendous variance in what people ask for their knives when they put them up for sale. I was just curious what others thought and what they look for when determining what is or isn't a good deal.

I'm not talking about limited additions or discontinued knives as they made not be available from other sources, but knives currently in production that you could easily find.

Thanks
 
Retailing for a 100, do you mean MSRP? Because that really means little. Plus, there is a pretty big variance in what a knife sells for, according to where you buy it new. Some places have much better prices on certain brand(s). I always about know where to get a Benchmade, or Spyderco for the best possible price new. So. I very rarely would even consider buying one from a private sale. They generally aren't priced that far below to take the risk for me, not with something that is widely available.
 
Man - good question - On a knife, which could be readily had for 100.00, I'd consider purchase an option at 75.00. (25%) off common price
 
svbk556 said:
Man - good question - On a knife, which could be readily had for 100.00, I'd consider purchase an option at 75.00. (25%) off common price
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Yeah, and that's the TYD cost, not just the cost of the knife. If I were going to go to the trouble of buying a used knife off of an internet board, I'd like to realize a benefit for my trouble, either in a better blade than is locally obtainable, or cheaper in cost than otherwise available.

If it were LNIB, I'd be looking at a price CAP of 75% of original cost to obtain a like blade, for my trouble.

Going down, based on condition, of course.

Other factors, such as scarcity will obviously drive prices up. OP did however, specify an in production, easily to acquire blade.
 
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jill jackson said:
Retailing for a 100, do you mean MSRP? Because that really means little. Plus, there is a pretty big variance in what a knife sells for, according to where you buy it new. Some places have much better prices on certain brand(s). I always about know where to get a Benchmade, or Spyderco for the best possible price new. So. I very rarely would even consider buying one from a private sale. They generally aren't priced that far below to take the risk for me, not with something that is widely available.
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When I say retail, that would mean the best "Street price" you can find. So, if your best or regular place has a knife for $100 what would you consider a good deal on a pre-owned one?

And I agree, very often there isn't that much of a difference so I pay the few extra dollars to buy new but I have bought a couple used before and thought I got a good deal.
 
If a knife's MSRP is 200$.
It sells from online suppliers like (The Headquarters of Blades *cough* *cough*) for 175$.

I'd say for that particular knife, 150$ is a good value, If, of course,
The seller is a trusted member, and lists the condition of the knife truthfully.
 
It all depends on what the knife is. Some hold better value than others. Also it depends on the person selling the knife. Do they need money ASAP, or do they not care as much and selling it off because the wife is crying about how many knives they have laying around.(NEXT TIME I'LL GET RID OF YOU WOMAN!) Sorry that hit a personal note on that one.

Lets use your example though. Lets say we have a Spyderco that retails @ 100$ I think a really good deal would be 75$ for a LNIB condition with original box. That is 25% off.

Now lets say you have a CRK Sebenza with inlays those suckers hold there value trust me I have been looking for a good deal. A large with micarta inlays retails around 480$. On the forum you can find them for around 440$ some times cheaper, but I think that is about average and someone can correct me if I am wrong. We are also talking about LNIB with papers of course. Still that is only ~8% off, and I think that is a good deal as well.

It all depends on what you think is a good deal and what you are willing to pay for the knife. Anything below retail price that is LNIB is better than paying full price for it in my opinion.
 
TheAndrew said:
It all depends on what the knife is. Some hold better value than others. Also it depends on the person selling the knife. Do they need money ASAP, or do they not care as much and selling it off because the wife is crying about how many knives they have laying around.(NEXT TIME I'LL GET RID OF YOU WOMAN!) Sorry that hit a personal note on that one.

Lets use your example though. Lets say we have a Spyderco that retails @ 100$ I think a really good deal would be 75$ for a LNIB condition with original box. That is 25% off.

Now lets say you have a CRK Sebenza with inlays those suckers hold there value trust me I have been looking for a good deal. A large with micarta inlays retails around 480$. On the forum you can find them for around 440$ some times cheaper, but I think that is about average and someone can correct me if I am wrong. We are also talking about LNIB with papers of course. Still that is only ~8% off, and I think that is a good deal as well.

It all depends on what you think is a good deal and what you are willing to pay for the knife. Anything below retail price that is LNIB is better than paying full price for it in my opinion.
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Scarcity is what causes that, combined with perceived desirability of the item. The same would be true of any product that was sought after, but in low supply. Furthermore, it compounds the opposite trend of these two factors reducing (exponentially) the realized value to cost ratio of the item in question, not just crk knives in particular, mind you.
 
The last knife I sold on the exchange was a spyderco sage 3, which usually sells for roughly $135 new. The one I sold was lnib and I sold it for $100 shipped. I like to think that was a fair price for me and a pretty good deal for the guy who bought it.
 
I'd agree that around 25% off street is a pretty good price.

Consider a Delica at $60 street. $45 or better is pretty darn good.
 
In the last month I have sold 3 knives all for within $5 of my purchase price. Thought I did pretty good. Of course the buyers aren't collectors, they were just looking to save a few bucks on some premo blades.
 
I never consider MSRP or list price, I consider what I can buy the knife for new from my favorite source. If I am looking at a used knife in very good condition I would want it to be 70%, at most 80%, of the new price. If the condition is less than very good condition then it should be a little less.

But what I really see in the knife market is that knives in high demand such as Spyderco's will be hard to find new at reasonable prices, and even hard to find used, so sometimes used prices are very near what we would pay for new if we could get them new, and we are happy to pay it. OTOH knives that are not in high demand can sell for a lot less than new prices.
 
I think I get a good deal if it's in good shape and I can save myself 10% or more of what I would have spent on the knife new. More than that is just a bonus.
 
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