• The rules for The Exchange can be found here. Please read and follow them. Stop using Paypal Friends & Family and follow our best practices to prevent getting ripped off or having a bad deal.

Great Eastern Cutlery Availability, Dealers, "Drops", Etc.: A Place for People to Vent

The dealers and GEC are as happy as clams, laughing at y'all on their way to the bank. Maybe next time they'll up the price on those 1095 blades and keep some of the aftermarket gravy for themselves. Y'all bitch about aftermarket prices, ever think about the markup behind the dealer price...:)

Looking at the knives made by other companies who produce in the US, GEC's knives are fairly priced for what you get. I don't see how either GEC or the dealers could be making outrageous profits considering that most of the knives sell for around $100.
 
Greed and envy is what this 16 page thread is about.

The dealers and GEC are as happy as clams, laughing at y'all on their way to the bank. Maybe next time they'll up the price on those 1095 blades and keep some of the aftermarket gravy for themselves. Y'all bitch about aftermarket prices, ever think about the markup behind the dealer price...:)
Hmmm… appears that money and profit, as much as possible rules your world. “Laughing all the way to the bank…” You have a naive and warped idea of how business works. Maybe some night classes at your local community college would be helpful. Education is a valuable thing. Think about it.
 
Hmmm… appears that money and profit, as much as possible rules your world. “Laughing all the way to the bank…” You have a naive and warped idea of how business works. Maybe some night classes at your local community college would be helpful. Education is a valuable thing. Think about it.

Thanks for the advice. I gather your education has ended :)

GEC has great businessmen. You don't see them participating in the on-line discussion, but that's what drives their sales. Very little advertising but their product flies off the shelves. Direct sales are done by a trusted few dealers distributing the risk and getting a broad market. Traditional pattern knives are relatively inexpensive to produce, it's been done profitably by many firms for years, I'm pretty sure GEC is making money. That's great!
 
Thanks for the advice. I gather your education has ended :)

GEC has great businessmen. You don't see them participating in the on-line discussion, but that's what drives their sales. Very little advertising but their product flies off the shelves. Direct sales are done by a trusted few dealers distributing the risk and getting a broad market. Traditional pattern knives are relatively inexpensive to produce, it's been done profitably by many firms for years, I'm pretty sure GEC is making money. That's great!

Education never ends, or should never end. I think I can accurately say that Great Eastern Cutlery’s business model is unlike the other traditional knife manufacturers like Case, Buck, Schrade, etc. Theirs seems to be based on high volume, wide distribution coupled with mass marketing and low margins tied to volume production at the least cost possible. A fairly standard but low-quality practice.

Great Eastern Cutlery attracts loyal customers, more than they can serve, by focusing on quality and skilled hand craftspeople. Their runs are short, compared to say Case, varied and produced at a much higher level of quality. And, I would also reckon that making their knives isn’t cheap. No exotic materials, but they depend on skilled workers and they are paid well and appreciated.

If a knife sells for $100 retail, I buy it and resell it for $150 that is merely an indication of the market value. If the reverse were true, that would still be a market valuation.

I can’t see that any of this is a “laughing all the way to the bank” scenario. Perhaps you could clarify.
 
... Theirs seems to be based on high volume, wide distribution coupled with mass marketing and low margins tied to volume production at the least cost possible. A fairly standard but low-quality practice...

They almost certainly go through distribution as well. That was the standard years ago, before the internet, and it raises the selling price compared to wholesaling directly to retailers, as GEC appears to do. Once you start going through distribution, it's hard to stop. GEC's business model depends entirely on the internet. People who actually give a rip about high-quality traditional cutlery are such a small percentage of the population that selling only through brick and mortar stores would be a disaster. The internet allows those few to shop a handful of online stores and buy up the ridiculously low volume of knives that they produce. Since we're not on the porch, I'll bring up Spyderco for comparison. They have a reputation for paying employees well and pricing knives only high enough to generate a reasonable profit margin. They produce a lot of knives in the US. They go through distribution. I think the bang for the buck of a GEC is way ahead of Spyderco save for the very high-volume models with injection-molded handles. For comparable-quality handles, they aren't even close. I can't believe that the difference in steel can account for it. It's got to be overhead and channel costs. My point is that the retail price of GEC knives isn't high enough for them to be laughing all the way to the bank. If they were priced comparably to Spyderco or Benchmade, then yes. But GEC may or may not be able to raise prices that high. I stopped buying Spyderco because the prices had gotten to be just stupid high for what I was getting. $100 is right around the "Why not?" price level for me. It's low enough that average people can aspire to own every model in every cover ... and that drives sales. Pricing is tricky when a big percentage of your product doesn't actually get used for it's intended purpose. The fickle nature of collectibles creates risks for the manufacturer, too.
 
I do wonder how much GEC pays it's employees. Somebody in another comment mentioned that they are paid well, but I don't know if that was an assumption or based on actual knowledge.
 
They almost certainly go through distribution as well. That was the standard years ago, before the internet, and it raises the selling price compared to wholesaling directly to retailers, as GEC appears to do. Once you start going through distribution, it's hard to stop. GEC's business model depends entirely on the internet. People who actually give a rip about high-quality traditional cutlery are such a small percentage of the population that selling only through brick and mortar stores would be a disaster. The internet allows those few to shop a handful of online stores and buy up the ridiculously low volume of knives that they produce. Since we're not on the porch, I'll bring up Spyderco for comparison. They have a reputation for paying employees well and pricing knives only high enough to generate a reasonable profit margin. They produce a lot of knives in the US. They go through distribution. I think the bang for the buck of a GEC is way ahead of Spyderco save for the very high-volume models with injection-molded handles. For comparable-quality handles, they aren't even close. I can't believe that the difference in steel can account for it. It's got to be overhead and channel costs. My point is that the retail price of GEC knives isn't high enough for them to be laughing all the way to the bank. If they were priced comparably to Spyderco or Benchmade, then yes. But GEC may or may not be able to raise prices that high. I stopped buying Spyderco because the prices had gotten to be just stupid high for what I was getting. $100 is right around the "Why not?" price level for me. It's low enough that average people can aspire to own every model in every cover ... and that drives sales. Pricing is tricky when a big percentage of your product doesn't actually get used for it's intended purpose. The fickle nature of collectibles creates risks for the manufacturer, too.

You make some good points. It does seem that Great Eastern Cutlery is solidly an internet based company, which in these times is good and will get better. I, for one, am glad that I can take advantage of that. If there was a Great Eastern Cutlery Stockman next to a Case at my local hardware dealer I’m sure it would languish there for quite some time.

I too was a big Spyderco fan until I discovered Great Eastern Cutlery. Even though I get the OpFocus discount, many of Spyderco’s knives are too highly priced in my opinion, especially compared to what you get with Great Eastern Cutlery. And, I am stuck on the traditional designs for personal reasons.
 
Education never ends, or should never end. I think I can accurately say that Great Eastern Cutlery’s business model is unlike the other traditional knife manufacturers like Case, Buck, Schrade, etc. Theirs seems to be based on high volume, wide distribution coupled with mass marketing and low margins tied to volume production at the least cost possible. A fairly standard but low-quality practice.

Great Eastern Cutlery attracts loyal customers, more than they can serve, by focusing on quality and skilled hand craftspeople. Their runs are short, compared to say Case, varied and produced at a much higher level of quality. And, I would also reckon that making their knives isn’t cheap. No exotic materials, but they depend on skilled workers and they are paid well and appreciated.

If a knife sells for $100 retail, I buy it and resell it for $150 that is merely an indication of the market value. If the reverse were true, that would still be a market valuation.

I can’t see that any of this is a “laughing all the way to the bank” scenario. Perhaps you could clarify.

Quick google "If you say that someone is laughing all the way to the bank, you mean that they are making a lot of money very easily." I'd say the collector frenzy observed in this thread, makes it very easy to sell GEC knives, thus they do not have to advertise, send out salesmen to make calls, develop new technology, etc. Happy to educate you :) on what the phrase means. It's a pretty common phrase in parts of the US where I used to live and is not derogatory, but actually is often used as praise tinged with envy.

What GEC is not is being "unlike other traditional knife manufacturers". In many ways, the short runs with a business designed to use collector greed and frenzy to sell knives is absolutely like one past master marketer and knife maker...James Parker. GEC have updated the Parker business practices to utilize the internet and "social media" where he used shows and knife clubs. Just like Parker GEC takes standard patterns and existing tooling (how many versions of the #25 exist?), have a variety of covers, neat packaging, maybe a different blade (e.g. think Beer Scout) and the collector frenzy is off and running. Parker had stories behind the knives to make them special, and so does GEC, e.g., Navy knife. Bruce Voyles in Knife and Knife World magazines and Bernard Levine in this forum and magazines have written a few articles on this type of marketing...more education for ya :)

I much prefer the Case Bose efforts in this particular area of "traditional" knives. Unlike GEC, they use premium materials, updated mechanics (e.g. pivot bushing, milled liners, etc.) so their product is a "modern traditional." Plus they make enough knives so a regular Joe can buy one...but then Case's product is more expensive.
 
Last edited:
Quick google "If you say that someone is laughing all the way to the bank, you mean that they are making a lot of money very easily." I'd say the collector frenzy observed in this thread, makes it very easy to sell GEC knives, thus they do not have to advertise, send out salesmen to make calls, develop new technology, etc. Happy to educate you :) on what the phrase means. It's a pretty common phrase in parts of the US where I used to live and is not derogatory, but actually is often used as praise tinged with envy.

What GEC is not is being "unlike other traditional knife manufacturers". In many ways, the short runs with a business designed to use collector greed and frenzy to sell knives is absolutely like one past master marketer and knife maker...James Parker. GEC have updated the Parker business practices to utilize the internet and "social media" where he used shows and knife clubs. Just like Parker GEC takes standard patterns and existing tooling (how many versions of the #25 exist?), have a variety of covers, neat packaging, maybe a different blade (e.g. think Beer Scout) and the collector frenzy is off and running. Parker had stories behind the knives to make them special, and so does GEC, e.g., Navy knife. Bruce Voyles in Knife and Knife World magazines and Bernard Levine in this forum and magazines have written a few articles on this type of marketing...more education for ya :)

I much prefer the Case Bose efforts in this particular area of "traditional" knives. Unlike GEC, they use premium materials, updated mechanics (e.g. pivot bushing, milled liners, etc.) so their product is a "modern traditional." Plus they make enough knives so a regular Joe can buy one...but then Case's product is more expensive.
Case Bose knives are made in a greater quantity than GEC? This is the first I have heard that. What is your source for Case Bose production numbers?
 
Quick google "If you say that someone is laughing all the way to the bank, you mean that they are making a lot of money very easily." I'd say the collector frenzy observed in this thread, makes it very easy to sell GEC knives, thus they do not have to advertise, send out salesmen to make calls, develop new technology, etc. Happy to educate you :) on what the phrase means. It's a pretty common phrase in parts of the US where I used to live and is not derogatory, but actually is often used as praise tinged with envy.

What GEC is not is being "unlike other traditional knife manufacturers". In many ways, the short runs with a business designed to use collector greed and frenzy to sell knives is absolutely like one past master marketer and knife maker...James Parker. GEC have updated the Parker business practices to utilize the internet and "social media" where he used shows and knife clubs. Just like Parker GEC takes standard patterns and existing tooling (how many versions of the #25 exist?), have a variety of covers, neat packaging, maybe a different blade (e.g. think Beer Scout) and the collector frenzy is off and running. Parker had stories behind the knives to make them special, and so does GEC, e.g., Navy knife. Bruce Voyles in Knife and Knife World magazines and Bernard Levine in this forum and magazines have written a few articles on this type of marketing...more education for ya :)

I much prefer the Case Bose efforts in this particular area of "traditional" knives. Unlike GEC, they use premium materials, updated mechanics (e.g. pivot bushing, milled liners, etc.) so their product is a "modern traditional." Plus they make enough knives so a regular Joe can buy one...but then Case's product is more expensive.

You may be correct in some of your assessments, but I would ask you to consider your tone.
There may be regional or generational differences, but when I hear the phrase: "laughing all the way to the bank", I infer some sort of con-man, the mocking laughter at the chumps that bought his story.
If you think running a successful business making a product requiring skilled labor is 'easy', I believe you are mistaken.

As far as your description of: " ...business designed to use collector greed and frenzy to sell knives" I'd appreciate not being painted with that broad brush. I've been buying around two or three GEC knives a year, for a few years now, because I like them. (don't we all like knives? What would we be doing in this forum if not?) I do not buy them as an investment, or because of collector frenzy, as you have implied. I won't deny that I'm pleased that they'll likely hold their monetary value better than shoes or handbags, so I could theoretically recoup some funds should the need arise, but I hardly feel like a profiteer, nor a con-man's mark.
 
You may be correct in some of your assessments, but I would ask you to consider your tone.
There may be regional or generational differences, but when I hear the phrase: "laughing all the way to the bank", I infer some sort of con-man, the mocking laughter at the chumps that bought his story.
If you think running a successful business making a product requiring skilled labor is 'easy', I believe you are mistaken.

As far as your description of: " ...business designed to use collector greed and frenzy to sell knives" I'd appreciate not being painted with that broad brush. I've been buying around two or three GEC knives a year, for a few years now, because I like them. (don't we all like knives? What would we be doing in this forum if not?) I do not buy them as an investment, or because of collector frenzy, as you have implied. I won't deny that I'm pleased that they'll likely hold their monetary value better than shoes or handbags, so I could theoretically recoup some funds should the need arise, but I hardly feel like a profiteer, nor a con-man's mark.


The slight tweak to the common phrase "laughing at y'all on their way to the bank" does give off the connotations of a con man's swindle, rather than envious praise.

These drops (and others like it) are too much for me, although I do really dig the pair of GECs my brother has kindly gifted me.
 
You may be correct in some of your assessments, but I would ask you to consider your tone.
There may be regional or generational differences, but when I hear the phrase: "laughing all the way to the bank", I infer some sort of con-man, the mocking laughter at the chumps that bought his story.
If you think running a successful business making a product requiring skilled labor is 'easy', I believe you are mistaken.

As far as your description of: " ...business designed to use collector greed and frenzy to sell knives" I'd appreciate not being painted with that broad brush. I've been buying around two or three GEC knives a year, for a few years now, because I like them. (don't we all like knives? What would we be doing in this forum if not?) I do not buy them as an investment, or because of collector frenzy, as you have implied. I won't deny that I'm pleased that they'll likely hold their monetary value better than shoes or handbags, so I could theoretically recoup some funds should the need arise, but I hardly feel like a profiteer, nor a con-man's mark.
Also, to add to that. The popularity and shortages is a relatively new thing. When I got into GEC, in the ballpark of 8 years after GEC began, current runs of knives could be found in dealer stock long after release. Even TC Barlows would be in dealer stock for awhile.

If Bill was going for the con, it was the loooonnnnggg con.
 
Have the Northwoods drops always been this way?

I almost/should have bought a Norfolk Whittler when they came out. If I remember correctly they were in stock for at least a week or more.
 
Have the Northwoods drops always been this way?

I almost/should have bought a Norfolk Whittler when they came out. If I remember correctly they were in stock for at least a week or more.
No. The feeding frenzy started about 2016. Prior to then, most knives stayed up for a day+ and some knives stayed up for weeks. The Norfolk Whittler with purple camel bone (2014) stayed up for months. The Willamette Whittler with Crosscut Mammoth Ivory (2015) stayed up for weeks. The 2-blade Madison Barlow (2015) stayed up for months, etc.

Those days are gone, gone, gone.
 
No. The feeding frenzy started about 2016. Prior to then, most knives stayed up for a day+ and some knives stayed up for weeks. The Norfolk Whittler with purple camel bone (2014) stayed up for months. The Willamette Whittler with Crosscut Mammoth Ivory (2015) stayed up for weeks. The 2-blade Madison Barlow (2015) stayed up for months, etc.

Those days are gone, gone, gone.


The purple Norfolk is the one I had my eye on. At that point I couldn't fathom spending $100 on a traditional. I couldn't remember how long ago it had come out, thank you.
 
Back
Top