After Sale Lounge

To the CPK crew,

You have built an awesome business that produces the best knives of their kind and created a whole following of people that appreciate them. It can be easy sometimes to focus on the few people that may be unsatisfied for whatever reason. I hope that instead you focus on all of your accomplishments and achievements and all of the folks that are dedicated fans and use and enjoy your products every day. It is not an easy thing to do to keep as many people happy as you all do. It is appreciated. Thanks.
 
I like CPK knives. I've only discovered them within the last year and a half or so. I'm pretty happy that I've managed to buy a few. I'm even happier about the lengths CPK goes to to give me a chance to add a few more to my toolbox.

I have bought some on the secondary market, including some pretty special ones. Hollow grinds and popsicle stick/tongue depressor scales and such. I've managed to get in on a few Friday sales, without using ai's, bots, keyboard macros, or anything other than poking at the keyboard with the 10 sausages I got on the end of my upper limbs and whatever connection Herr Musk saw fit to give me at that moment. '40' sales are awesome and pre-orders are a terrible idea freakin rock. I've picked up enough of these works of functional art to share them with some of my friends who will use and appreciate them. I'm within a couple seasons of 3 score turns around the sun, and I've spent almost half of that in the trenches of rural or frontier medicine -- not on the bleeding edge of infotech.

I think Nathan et al are doing an awesome job at maintaining the integrity of their product while serving as many of their customers as they can. If you think they're elitist snobs selling to the P.Diddies and C. Hiltons and K. Harrises of the world, I guess my best advice would be to go look for a better knife somewhere else. Or maybe keep whining for the entertainment of... those who are entertained by that sort of thing...

I Handed my hunting-crazy best friend a shiv 2.0 to examine. "Wow that's a cool blade!". "Damn, that's sharp... I thought that was like a finger choil..." "Can you hand me that pressure dressing, this wad of tissue is soaking through..." "Damn I hate being on Eliquis"... But somehow he wasn't upset when I told him there was a basic 5 with his name on it...
 
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I just got home to read through all the posts since this afternoon. I'll apologize now if this gets long winded. I know ... TLDR

To S surfkiev two points I'll try to make.

1. I can understand your frustration as several people new to CPK have experienced it at times. The big thing is if you get to know the members who frequent the sales many are more than willing to help other members who may not be as quick to post get knives they want whenever possible. As you can see in the 3:00 sale several "proxy bids" doing just that.

So as Pàdruig Pàdruig stated more eloquently than I ... hang out and get to know the group it really is full of good hearted people who want you to get the knives you want almost as badly as you do. At the top of the list of people who want everyone to get what they want are Nathan and Jo and the rest of the CPK crew who work so hard to create these amazing blades.

2. That leads to point two ... as stated in several posts Nathan discouraged preorders, but continues them ONLY to try to get knives in the hands of everyone who wants them at the requests from his customer base. And he has earned our trust of his work and preorders many times over.

So if you truly want to buy an EDC or two ... you made the cut for the preorder, I would suggest you place your order and I think you'll find it well worth the wait.

If you're against the preorder process as CPK's small business model requires ... hang in and ask for a proxy on coming Friday sales.

I'm not a speed demon, but if one of the fastest guns can't try for you I will offer to try to get you a spot in the next EDC sale if you want. You only have to ask we are glad to help.

And thank you Nathan, Jo, and all of the CPK crew for working so hard to please all of us knuckleheads!
 
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Richard338 said:
I'm almost convinced. I suppose I'll feel better about it once I've had a steak at the shindig...
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I’m telling you, in my opinion, those steaks were so good, I’d almost attend the get together just for them. Nathan had three or four Webers (Webbers?) going all at once and delivered all of the steaks, in short order, all at once, perfectly cooked, and with high quality local meat. What also made it special for me, is that I was able to use Nathan’s personal steak knife (skinner). The thought did cross my mind to pocket that fine little knife, but I kicked the devil out of my head and returned it.🤣. Mike
 
What an awesome thread segue to wake up and read!

I have a counter to Nathan’s position, in this regard, and all here are likely fully aware of it. To the chap that’s complaining of ‘unfairness’, I get it. Totally. I’ve even suggested that maybe Nate run an ‘FNG’ sale, where the only people that are allowed to participate in a Friday sale are people that have never managed to get a knife. I’m still not sure how fair that would make anything, though. Really, because of the way I’m wired, what I want is the market to dictate his pricing.

That in and of itself should be fair, right? Free market economy capitalism left to determine the outcome. What could possibly go wrong? I’m wide open to the idea of a $400 retail knife selling for $1600 because that’s what the market will dictate. Not sure everyone else is. I know Nate isn’t.

The fact is that, for whatever reason, CPK has a product in high demand, can’t possibly fulfill that demand, yet strives constantly to improve their ability to change that while also not placing themselves in serious financial jeopardy. How MOST companies would react to this sort of demand would be to push their chips to the center of the table, double down, and expand. Expand, expand, expand. I know of companies right now that didn’t exist as knife companies a scant five or six years ago that have more employees than the ROLLING MILL that produces the steel that 90% of the knives we’re talking about processes.

Think about that.

How sustainable can that possibly be? What sort of risk does it imply? Is that somehow more ‘fair’ because the owner is taking all that risk to make sure you get a chance at a (most likely inherently compromised) $400 knife? Six or seven figures of debt so you don’t have to preorder? Guess we’ll see what the future brings…


I know Nate struggles with all of this. A lot. This is a small shop, doing the best that they can (which, frankly, is really well given all the stuff they’re trying to juggle and still not compromise any of their standards or ethics).

It’s just knives. It’s understandable to be upset that you didn’t get what you want, but show a little respect for the guy trying to keep all those balls in the air.

If it’s that important to you, consider allowing the market to provide you with one, and post a WTB thread offering double the price. In my humble opinion, based on all sorts of other variables I can cite of the existing market, THAT is really a more fair price for CPK knives that what CPK charges.
 
It's not the accusation that it's unfair that bothered me It was the "unethical" bit that triggered me.

I need to work on not letting people get to me. He's entitled to his opinion. I tend to take people's concerns seriously. And I got sucked into defending myself instead of just not worrying about it.

I'll do better next time.
 
The first Mori Seiki I ever bought was used when I got it and it's getting pretty long in the tooth now. 16x30 in travels, it's a 14,000 lb box way machining center and they literally don't make them like this anymore.

Modern carbide cutting tools and coatings are able to turn much faster SFM and achieve enormous material removal rate efficiently utilizing high speed machining strategies where you peel material off at high RPM and high feed rates and take advantage of radial chip thinning and highly sophisticated computer aided machining strategies that can increase the productivity of a machine tool tenfold.

It requires a different kind of construction that can employ very high feed rates, and very snappy machine tool motion. The machines being built today are different than the machines built in the '90s. Objectively better and almost every way. This old pig probably made 15 horsepower and had a maximum spindle RPM of 8000. My newer machines are 30 horsepower and 14,000. They utilize variations of linear ways instead of boxway. And they need to move fast and change direction quickly so they utilize lighter construction in places that used to be very very solid.

The newer machines are objectively better. Mostly.

But there's something about that big heavy old iron and the way that it can push a cutter smoothly and silently through material and just absolutely plow with no effort that the newer machines struggle to duplicate.

Ben wants me to retire it and get another newer machine in there. We don't really even use it in production much anymore it's mostly just for fixtures now. But I have a lot of nostalgia for this machine. He hates it. The human factors ergonomics aren't so swell, it's not easy to use and set up. I love it because I learned CNC on Fanuc OM-C and that's the controller and I like it.

I could get rid of this machine, slide the NV5000 down, and stick another horizontal in there and increase our output. That's probably what I ought to do. But it's such an enormous pain in the ass and I'm happy with the setup like it is and I personally would prefer to just leave it like I have it. Idunno...
 
As far as friday sales go, my first post on this forum was a win on a sale. Folks are happy to share tips about it, and my success rate is probably over 50% at this point. For folks who dont have the luxury of a desk job, there are lots of proxies. The strategy of making bfks more available seems to be working, ebay sales are down in the 4-500 range with fewer of the $1000 outliers.

The current system is clearly in my best interests, but l'll throw out a suggestion anyway - you could run an auction here. Xenforo used to have auction plugins, at least one of em was open source. If there was actual interest i could see if it could be made to work. But i dont think you even need that. limit the auction thread to one unedited post per person with the base price theyre willing to pay not including options. multiple posts = DQ, edit post = DQ. Lock the thread after a minute, or after enough posts if its lower demand. Highest N posts win at the price they wanted, which must be at or above your minimum. Stop doing it if the pain in your ass is disproportional to the additional value youre capturing away from scalpers.
 
kod said:
As far as friday sales go, my first post on this forum was a win on a sale. Folks are happy to share tips about it, and my success rate is probably over 50% at this point. For folks who dont have the luxury of a desk job, there are lots of proxies. The strategy of making bfks more available seems to be working, ebay sales are down in the 4-500 range with fewer of the $1000 outliers.

The current system is clearly in my best interests, but l'll throw out a suggestion anyway - you could run an auction here. Xenforo used to have auction plugins, at least one of em was open source. If there was actual interest i could see if it could be made to work. But i dont think you even need that. limit the auction thread to one unedited post per person with the base price theyre willing to pay not including options. multiple posts = DQ, edit post = DQ. Lock the thread after a minute, or after enough posts if its lower demand. Highest N posts win at the price they wanted, which must be at or above your minimum. Stop doing it if the pain in your ass is disproportional to the additional value youre capturing away from scalpers.
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Very complicated.

Just increase the price closer to what flippers sell the knife for, a few days after receipt. I'd rather CPK get the money than the flippers.
 
ferider said:
Very complicated.

Just increase the price closer to what flippers sell the knife for, a few days after receipt. I'd rather CPK get the money than the flippers.
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ME TOO!

I have no control over what other people do and I have no control over the secondary market.

An aspect of my business philosophy has always been to sell something for what it is worth, not for what you can get for it.


If you can make and sell something that is good bang for the buck, you will always be busy and you will always have food on the table.

I'm not going to start gouging and reduce the value of my work. It's worth what I sell it for, and I'm not going to screw that up.
 
Re charge what flipoers charge, i dont think $1000 bfks are good for anyone including nathans brand. and thats what flippers were getting earlier.

Re auction, its more transparent than the other option i saw suggested and rejected, which was a lottery, that also doesnt capture value. As far as complexity, it boils down to "post what you think is a fair price"
 
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