Before I launch into the main topic of this post I would like to say that every time I have done business with AZCK has been positive from start to finish. They are excellent with communication, negotiation, organization and shipping, and are very understanding of the customer.
This said, AZCK is not just a dealer but a consignment service as well. My attention has been brought to something that has recently been occurring with consignment knives sold through AZCK that I feel the community should be aware of. These are knives sent by people unaffiliated with AZCK to AZCK to be publicly posted for potential customers to view.
In posting this I speak only for myself and in reference to discussions I have had with other collectors, and do not claim to have full knowledge of either this issue or of how things operate at AZCK.
What we have been observing is the appearance of products connected to obscure knife "pimpers", "customizers" and the like. Often these knives are popular or semi-popular models which have been modified and put up for consignment, usually at exorbitantly higher prices than the base model. While work by well-established service providers such as Razor Edge Knives, or knifemaker Tom Krein, may be indeed more desirable than a stock base model, it is unclear if customization done by these obscure service providers adds to the desirability of a knife.
The cause for concerns comes up with the fact that these modified knives are listed for sale right next to not only work done by the aforementioned service providers but also next to full custom knives in the $1000-10,000 range. Given the relative (sometimes total) obscurity of these obscure knife "customizers" and the fact that their work on AZCK sometimes sells for strangely high prices and is then followed by similar listings of similarly modified knives, we suspect that either an associate of the knife "customizer" in question or a collector rebranding or misrepresenting customization work performed by another service provider is attempting to take advantage of the high-profile audience of AZCK, artificially establishing name recognition and a range for added-value.
Whether this is being done (if this is in fact being done) to sell a few knives in the short term or to build a customer base for the long term, it is highly suspect as the work of these knife "customizers" has not appeared on nearly any knife dealers websites except for AZCK. The consignment nature of AZCK, while enabling private collectors to gain an audience interested in what they would like to sell, enables others to game the system in ways such as these.
This said, AZCK is not just a dealer but a consignment service as well. My attention has been brought to something that has recently been occurring with consignment knives sold through AZCK that I feel the community should be aware of. These are knives sent by people unaffiliated with AZCK to AZCK to be publicly posted for potential customers to view.
In posting this I speak only for myself and in reference to discussions I have had with other collectors, and do not claim to have full knowledge of either this issue or of how things operate at AZCK.
What we have been observing is the appearance of products connected to obscure knife "pimpers", "customizers" and the like. Often these knives are popular or semi-popular models which have been modified and put up for consignment, usually at exorbitantly higher prices than the base model. While work by well-established service providers such as Razor Edge Knives, or knifemaker Tom Krein, may be indeed more desirable than a stock base model, it is unclear if customization done by these obscure service providers adds to the desirability of a knife.
The cause for concerns comes up with the fact that these modified knives are listed for sale right next to not only work done by the aforementioned service providers but also next to full custom knives in the $1000-10,000 range. Given the relative (sometimes total) obscurity of these obscure knife "customizers" and the fact that their work on AZCK sometimes sells for strangely high prices and is then followed by similar listings of similarly modified knives, we suspect that either an associate of the knife "customizer" in question or a collector rebranding or misrepresenting customization work performed by another service provider is attempting to take advantage of the high-profile audience of AZCK, artificially establishing name recognition and a range for added-value.
Whether this is being done (if this is in fact being done) to sell a few knives in the short term or to build a customer base for the long term, it is highly suspect as the work of these knife "customizers" has not appeared on nearly any knife dealers websites except for AZCK. The consignment nature of AZCK, while enabling private collectors to gain an audience interested in what they would like to sell, enables others to game the system in ways such as these.
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