What is the Grimsmo Norseman considered? Mid-Tech, Production, Custom?

What is the Norseman?

  • Production

    Votes: 26 31.0%

  • Mid-Tech

    Votes: 41 48.8%

  • Custom

    Votes: 17 20.2%
  • Total voters
    84
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Y'all are falling into the trap of prescriptive language. Are any of you really, sincerely confused when someone calls a knife a midtech? Ditto for custom or high end production? If so, read more and post less, if not you're completely wasting your time with the argument.
 
HowAmI said:
There is very little time and labor when you're just assembling and sharpening a blade. Both the Rask and Norseman are just modified versions of already pre existing styles of knives. If GEC made a new Barlow all they did was just slightly change a few things and test it out to see if it would work.

Material has to factor into real world cost. RWL-34 / CPM-154 is a cheap and easy to work with steel.

As somebody who is studying machining (and even if you don't), it's not hard to know what the difference is between easy to work with materials and bloated price tag versus hard to work with and costs what it should cost.

GKs have cut corners to lower their cost while not lowering the price of their knives.

- CNC Engraving via Milling is cheaper than sending it out for Laser Engraving.
- GK has a company waterjet some of their blades out which costs them even less than cutting everything from the steel.
- Using a cheap and easy to work with steel cuts costs, not having to grind bevels in any sort of manner cuts down time and costs
- Not removing the milling marks means less they have to do to finish the knife
- Soft milling costs more than hard milling
- Using fixtures and creating fixtures costs a lot of money, and soft milling requires more than hard milling.
- Offering very few options (at the time) meany they could pick what materials they wanted to work with which means less money and time.
- Being a makers choice also cuts costs down allowing the maker to make the cheapest knife for the most amount of money.
- Eliminating having to even grind a bevel by hand and using a soft cheap easy to sharpen steel makes sharpening a really cheap process. They also use a grind (which is fine) versus a WE to cut their cost down
- Taking a pre existing models that are over used and slightly modifying them doesn't cost much
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A knife is worth what someone will pay. A simple concept really.
 
I appreciate the time and effort that an excellent craftsman takes to make an excellent knife.

So I do value good handcrafted knives very much.

And after watching CNC knife making Youtube videos, particularly of Grimsmos and Gough, I now understand that it takes a lot of time and effort to make a good knife on it. So I value these high-end small-batch production knives as well.
(Also, their prices may go down as they nail down the process and increase the batch size like CRK)

Since Bob Loveless allegedly called himself a "Bench Maker" rather than a "Custom Maker", for using only the patterns he designed, I guess we could call Grimsmos and likes the same. To me, many full time knife makers these days are like that, anyway.
 
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craytab said:
A knife is worth what someone will pay. A simple concept really.
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A knife is worth what a person who has more power in their wallet than in their brain is worth.

Don't try to play the "nothing is overpriced card" because guess what things are over priced.

Hinderers, Chris Reeve Knives, Emersons, some Spydercos, Shirogorovs, Etc. are all overpriced. It's not a hard concept to grasp but obviously you aren't grabbing it.
 
HowAmI said:
A knife is worth what a person who has more power in their wallet than in their brain is worth.

Don't try to play the "nothing is overpriced card" because guess what things are over priced.

Hinderers, Chris Reeve Knives, Emersons, some Spydercos, Shirogorovs, Etc. are all overpriced. It's not a hard concept to grasp but obviously you aren't grabbing it.
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Geeze, like being judgemental much? :rolleyes:
 
Perhaps we should all remember something...
No matter how "value priced" you might think your preferred brand is, the average guy on the street likely thinks you're an idiot for spending that much on a knife when you could have gotten one for six dollars at the gas station.
 
One thing that we need to keep in mind, is that knives are more than the sum of their parts. Sometimes people only want to pay for the materials used, but place no value in the time and expertise it takes to reach the point that they can make a knife. Even with CNC machinists, it takes years to be able to program a CNC to produce anything, let alone with tight tolerances and functional action/lockup.

Then you have to take into account the specific model you're buying, and how much time they spent on that specific design?

The formula is: Years of experience + Specific knife design + Materials + Quality Control + Warranty + Customer Service = Price you pay.

Now, I'm not going to tell anyone what price they should pay for a knife because that's up to everyone specifically. But it's not fair to discount someone who makes something on a CNC machine instead of by hand. Completely different skill set, both of which took years to develop.

Over the long term, and with regard to a price per unit profitability, the more they produce the more profitable they are (set costs vs variable). But knives aren't mass consumer products so that type of pricing approach doesn't work.

... just .02
 
HowAmI said:
A knife is worth what a person who has more power in their wallet than in their brain is worth.

Don't try to play the "nothing is overpriced card" because guess what things are over priced.

Hinderers, Chris Reeve Knives, Emersons, some Spydercos, Shirogorovs, Etc. are all overpriced. It's not a hard concept to grasp but obviously you aren't grabbing it.
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No they aren't. You aren't grasping it. You clearly have a thing against expensive knives. Fine. I own inexpensive knives also. I don't own knives I think aren't worth it.
 
So, I keep seeing brand new Norseman knives being sold in the forum in the $1200 range. Never do I see terms like; "I just want what I got in it", "same as I paid for it", etc. Seems like the sellers are charging a premium, which makes sense since they are hard to obtain. I was just curious how much over msrp are these sellers charging. In other words, how much does Grimsmo charge for a Noresman if you win their lottery.

Also, this is just a passing curiosity. I have no plans to get on their lottery just to make a few bucks off of the secondary market and I don't have any interest in owning either of the Grimsmo knives. I do wish all the best success to Grimsmo knives and do enjoy watching their YT videos. As a novice CNC machine owner, I can appreciate what it takes to produce quality products like the Noresman.
 
Charlie Mike said:
I have turned a profit (100+) on a knife maybe 5 times in my almost 20 years in the hobby. I consider myself extremely lucky if I can sell a knife for what I paid.
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My man! I don’t make knives and haven’t sold any on here.

However when I do sell a knife (or any used item) I am almost always selling at a loss. It makes me happy that my used item is going to a home where it will be loved. It brings me great joy to share something I loved with a buyer, I want them to feel like they got a good deal. I usually already extracted joy from the item by owning it, and if I didn’t then it might as well go to someone who wants it.
 
HappyDaddy said:
This has always struck me as a strange "controversy." Why would it matter? If a knife appealed to me and was selling for what I considered to be a reasonable price, why on earth would I care whether it was labeled a "custom," "mid-tech," "production," or "super-duper production?"
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You shouldn't care. It's just a descriptor. A long time ago, in a knife market far far away, it used to point to why a knife may cost what it did too.
Insipid Moniker said:
Y'all are falling into the trap of prescriptive language. Are any of you really, sincerely confused when someone calls a knife a midtech? Ditto for custom or high end production? If so, read more and post less, if not you're completely wasting your time with the argument.
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I tried to avoid that trap by mentioning my knowledge of the descriptions were 20 years old! :)
HowAmI said:
A knife is worth what a person who has more power in their wallet than in their brain is worth.

Don't try to play the "nothing is overpriced card" because guess what things are over priced.

Hinderers, Chris Reeve Knives, Emersons, some Spydercos, Shirogorovs, Etc. are all overpriced. It's not a hard concept to grasp but obviously you aren't grabbing it.
Click to expand...
I wasn't going to stray into the price debate, but I think the Norseman is overpriced for the materials and what has been done to them. Of course this leaves out scarcity which I think is the only reason they can sell for what they do. Especially since they started out at $500-$600. But I also don't desire knives to the point I have to have them either and I'm sure not going to be scalped by a re-seller just to have one. It's just a personal thing, but I don't scalp and won't buy anything that way either.

You mentioned Kizer before. I think after what they have turned out on their makers collaborations (Sheepdog, Willumsen, Laconico, etc.) they would be a great shop for a high quality and competitively priced Norseman.

craytab said:
No they aren't. You aren't grasping it. You clearly have a thing against expensive knives. Fine. I own inexpensive knives also. I don't own knives I think aren't worth it.
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You are both right! It's just an opinion from each of you and makes sense to me they way you've described them.

Of course you don't own a knife you think isn't worth it. That would be calling yourself stupid, unless you thought it could re-sell at a profit some day. You can't price desire but for yourself. Desire is created differently in each of us, but way too similar also which is why advertisers/marketers/propagandist are so good at it. Edward Bernays is mostly attributed for starting what we see and know today and an interesting read/watch. "He showed American corporations, for the 1st time, how they could make people want things they did not need by linking mass produced goods to their unconscious desires." Which points to the old philosophy of desire for items. Most people don't want or need the item, they want to feel the way they think owning that item will make them feel. So then you get into how bad you need to feel the feels of ownership. LOL.

Glenn Goodlett said:
So, I keep seeing brand new Norseman knives being sold in the forum in the $1200 range. Never do I see terms like; "I just want what I got in it", "same as I paid for it", etc. Seems like the sellers are charging a premium, which makes sense since they are hard to obtain. I was just curious how much over msrp are these sellers charging. In other words, how much does Grimsmo charge for a Noresman if you win their lottery.

Also, this is just a passing curiosity. I have no plans to get on their lottery just to make a few bucks off of the secondary market and I don't have any interest in owning either of the Grimsmo knives. I do wish all the best success to Grimsmo knives and do enjoy watching their YT videos. As a novice CNC machine owner, I can appreciate what it takes to produce quality products like the Noresman.
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They started at $500'ish new from the maker. Now they're $925. For damascus etc. they go up from there. I've seen several brand new from them for 50% to 100% mark up on the 2nd hand market.

Charlie Mike said:
I consider myself extremely lucky if I can sell a knife for what I paid.
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Same here and I don't think I've been able to do that except two or three times.
 
craytab said:
No they aren't. You aren't grasping it. You clearly have a thing against expensive knives. Fine. I own inexpensive knives also. I don't own knives I think aren't worth it.
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No, I'm grabbing it buy you're not. I actually have a thing for expensive knives. What I don't have is a thing or knives that have a couple hundred percent markup on them because people are brainwashed. Brous is a perfect example of what the Grimsmo Brothers are. Cheap Materials with High Pricing, and artificial scarcity.

Maybe if you pulled your head out of the Grimsmo Brothers you would see their knives are just sharpened fidget toys for brainwashed fanboys.

The ZT 0055 0850 0999 all have attention to detail and work put into them than any of the products GKs sell, all of which use superior materials for less money.

Even CKF does a better job than GKs for less.
 
HowAmI said:
No, I'm grabbing it buy you're not. I actually have a thing for expensive knives. What I don't have is a thing or knives that have a couple hundred percent markup on them because people are brainwashed. Brous is a perfect example of what the Grimsmo Brothers are. Cheap Materials with High Pricing, and artificial scarcity.

Maybe if you pulled your head out of the Grimsmo Brothers you would see their knives are just sharpened fidget toys for brainwashed fanboys.
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Why bother with this more than a week later if you're not just trolling for drama? The thread was done.
 
Ok, they are over priced. I think most would agree. That said, you calling everyone fan boys and insulting people will only get yourself infractions. Calm down, not everyone is a fan boy.

The grimsmo brothers are capitalizing on an opportunity. People are paying for their product. Get over it.

Would I buy one for their price? Hell no.
 
HowAmI said:
No, I'm grabbing it buy you're not. I actually have a thing for expensive knives. What I don't have is a thing or knives that have a couple hundred percent markup on them because people are brainwashed. Brous is a perfect example of what the Grimsmo Brothers are. Cheap Materials with High Pricing, and artificial scarcity.

Maybe if you pulled your head out of the Grimsmo Brothers you would see their knives are just sharpened fidget toys for brainwashed fanboys.

The ZT 0055 0850 0999 all have attention to detail and work put into them than any of the products GKs sell, all of which use superior materials for less money.

Even CKF does a better job than GKs for less.
Click to expand...

Who cares, dude? There are people who spend their money on much worse things.

Go throw a temper tantrum somewhere else...
 
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