What does the future hold?

[Mountainwind]

This also applies to Camillus as the two companies are somewhat related, and both are history now.
What will things look like 10, 15 maybe 20 years from now?
It seems like most of the good collector items have been bought and hoarded by people here and about.
As more people in the years to come, start collecting, I would think they would go on to other brands since Schrade and Camillus will be scarce, and what would be avalable, would be common items, cause I know you guys ain't givin up the good stuff.
So from your own perspective, what do you see down the road? For collecting, and just the market in general?

 

[Bob W]

I think many of the most rare and valuable items have been hoarded. But new items will continually come to light as people die, new stashes are uncovered, hoarders need money, or collectors simply move on to other things. And as prices rise, people who bought as "investments" will begin to sell.

Also, I must point out that the majority of current buyers are more interested in the oridinary production items than the rarities or limited edition knives. And although those normal production knives may seem in short supply at times, in reality they were mass-produced by the thousands or tens-of-thousands and will always be available in the resale market.

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As far as the market in general, I foresee an ongoing process of balancing and redistribution. For the moment American knife producers are in decline, while low-cost Chinese imports are a hot spot.

But the price of producing in China will increase dramatically in the future due to labor, fuel, materials, energy, and transportation. So in order to compete with products of the same price, Chinese manufacturers will have to increase the quality of their products. Meanwhile the bottom-feeding importers (Frost, Fury, Taylor, BudK) will move on to other areas of the world for lower-cost producers, perhaps Africa, the Middle East, or the Carribean.

I think it's even likely that in the distant future transportation costs will be sky high, making any importing prohibitively expensive. A Chinese pocketknife will be an exotic treasure.

-Bob