Howdy Ladies and Gents,
The Forum knife is supposed to be an effort among friends here on BF, but as the number of knives involved has ballooned, the project has become harder and the last few years we have been working with dealers who could handle the money, instead of doing everything with volunteers as was done at the beginning. Gotta remember that 200 knives at $85 a pop is $17,000. That's a lot to be responsible for, and requires the order taking abilities and banking wherewithal to deal with it.
Gary and I have been talking this year, and Spark has added input. We are going to do things a little differently this year in several regards. One thing is we are changing the way the knives are purchased in order to reduce the financial burden on the knife dealer who is helping us.
We are also taking added steps to limit purchases to BladeForums members due to past complaints of people buying knives just to flip them. When folks are doing things at cost, as Steve is this year for us, buying knives merely to flip for profit, is ... well I'll let it go at saying it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
So there are a couple of changes this year.
- All knives must be paid for at the time of ordering. This means that once the ordering is done. It's done. In past years, we've sometimes had knives left over for folks to buy later and the dealer has had difficulty collecting all the money that was spent buying them from the manufacturer. That's not fair to a fella that is making no profit on the deal, so that's not happening.
- Who can buy: Any BladeForums member in good standing. That would be one who has been a member for at least 3 months prior to this post and has 30 posts on BF spread over at least that amount of time. (Note: if the posts are all, "nice knife" or similar, they don't count.) The posts need not be in Traditional. They can be in any of the discussion forums. If they are all in the exchange, then not what we are looking for, either.
What you get:
A knife from the Buck Custom Shop:
- A 2 Bladed Buck 301, Clip and Sheepsfoot on opposite ends of the knife.
- Blade steel is CPM-154
- Both blades have Full Flat Grind and long pulls.
- Bolsters are plain NICKEL SILVER.
- Handle material is ELK and this knife will have PINS.
- Knife will have a tang stamp
- It will come in a plain cardboard box.
Final price is still being worked out but at this time we can say: $81 ±5%, plus shipping.
How many can each person buy: a maximum of two.
How does this work?
- Post your intent to buy in this thread. You don't have to say whether you want one or two. This thread will stay open as long as the ordering window is open. Do not post in the thread unless you intend to buy a knife.
- Make certain you have not turned off the ability to receive personal messages.
- Steve will set up a hidden page on his web site. Once that is ready, the title of this thread will be modified to tell you. You will subsequently receive a PM with the web address of the ordering page. (Not to worry, registered members. Super Mods can send PMs to registered members.)
- Buy the knife. There will be a place on the order page for you to provide your BF handle. Please do so. Steve will have a list from this thread.
- The ordering page on Steve's web site will be open for two weeks. Then he will take it down and order the knives from Buck.
- The waiting and fidgeting begins.
Edited to add:
Steve says, "Yessir, I'll be able to take either paypal, debit or credit."
Also added:
If you don't quite meet the membership qualifications, contact Gary or I outside the thread and we'll look at your posting history. The intent is to exclude flippers, not be mean-spirited or form a clique.
Another add:
This thread will stay open throughout the order process. The ordering site should be up by next weekend (7/7). It will stay open for ~2 weeks. Then, both this thread and the order site will close, and the order will be placed with Buck.
