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

[Mayonardo]

As r8shell said, The phrase laughing all the way to the bank implies some sort of confidence scheme or duping individuals out of money. It’s not a phrase I have ever heard to mean praise, and I am 76 years old and have lived all over the United States. Your tone is one that implies scheming, taking advantage of and conning people knowingly. Not something I would accuse Great Eastern Cutlery of doing.

While there are different business models I think the one you have conjured is false and frankly insulting. Of course there’s no way to change your mind nor do I intend to try. But I would just observe that you are so far off base you haven’t entered the ball park yet.

 

[Danke42]

Anyone trying to parse phraseology should always consider the source first.

 

[brownshoe]

As r8shell said, The phrase laughing all the way to the bank implies some sort of confidence scheme or duping individuals out of money. It’s not a phrase I have ever heard to mean praise, and I am 76 years old and have lived all over the United States. Your tone is one that implies scheming, taking advantage of and conning people knowingly. Not something I would accuse Great Eastern Cutlery of doing.

While there are different business models I think the one you have conjured is false and frankly insulting. Of course there’s no way to change your mind nor do I intend to try. But I would just observe that you are so far off base you haven’t entered the ball park yet.

You find the business model I described as "insulting". At 76, you probably know that it's been at the heart of collectible marketing for a lot more things than just collectible pocket knives. The methodology depends upon the guided self-deception of the collector community to create a strong desire for a product they do not need but can afford. This self-deception is encouraged/guided by the manufacturer & distributors through the practice of "special editions", limited production and "drops" of new product, that's not really all that new. This helps create an artificial scarcity that helps drive the sales of the collectible. It depends upon a "reasonable" price for the first sale in the chain (i.e. distributor to first owner.) GEC and their distributor family do a very good job of this common marketing practice. Mattel does similar things with Barbie

 

[LastRodeo]

You find the business model I described as "insulting". At 76, you probably know that it's been at the heart of collectible marketing for a lot more things than just collectible pocket knives. The methodology depends upon the guided self-deception of the collector community to create a strong desire for a product they do not need but can afford. This self-deception is encouraged/guided by the manufacturer & distributors through the practice of "special editions", limited production and "drops" of new product, that's not really all that new. This helps create an artificial scarcity that helps drive the sales of the collectible. It depends upon a "reasonable" price for the first sale in the chain (i.e. distributor to first owner.) GEC and their distributor family do a very good job of this common marketing practice. Mattel does similar things with Barbie

How are the Case Bose knives different in that regard?

 

[r8shell]

How are the Case Bose knives different in that regard?

Because they're stainless.

 

[LastRodeo]

Because they're stainless.

Don't forget the bushings.

 

[Thomas Linton]

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.
[informal]

"The lucrative contract with television means that England's wealthy football clubs will now be laughing all the way to the bank."

"laugh all the way to the bank
Also, cried all the way to the bank. Exult in a financial gain from something that had either been derided or thought worthless. For example, You may not think much of this comedian, but he's laughing all the way to the bank. Despite the seeming difference between laugh and cry, the two terms are virtually synonymous, the one with cry being used ironically and laugh straightforwardly. [c. 1960]"

"laugh all the way to the bank
idiom
Definition of laugh all the way to the bank: to make a lot of money especially by doing something that other people thought was foolish or amusing. People thought his invention was ridiculous, but now he's laughing all the way to the bank."

"laugh all the way to the bank (third-person singular simple present laughs all the way to the bank, present participle laughing all the way to the bank, simple past and past participle laughed all the way to the bank)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To make a large income easily, especially at the expense of others or by doing something that lacks significant merit. edit][/paste:font]
   • Often used in the present participial form: laughing all the way to the bank.
   Related terms[edit]
   • cry all the way to the bank
   • last laugh"

 

[RayseM]

This thread is becoming tedious Enough already with the economics lesson without the laugh track - please.

There - I vented

Ray

 

[brownshoe]

How are the Case Bose knives different in that regard?

They are no different, except GEC is better than Case at marketing and especially 21st century marketing. Case does a boatload more advertising than GEC but you can readily find new/old stock Case/Bose knives and discounted second hand ones. I think what sells like GEC in the Case Bose line are the small special runs in damascus made after the standard run is released.

I'm as susceptible to the collector urge as anyone, but not to the extent I hate and rant about resellers, flippers, or stockpilers. I have a GEC 25, it's pretty, numbered, real happy its stag, a premium cover, & I bought it new at a gun show for what it originally cost online. Took me until this year to find a GEC knife that tripped my trigger.

 

[LastRodeo]

Let’s all just enjoy our hobby. Like what you like, let others like what they like. If you don’t like what they like or like them, just move on to another thread.

 

[MerryMadMonk]

brownshoe, more than once (not just in this thread) you have compared Bill Howard and his business practices to Jim Parker and Parker's business practices. I'm not sure why you continue to do it other than just to stir the pot. You should know better. Either way, it's the height of absurdity.

But just to be clear and to inform others who may not be familiar with Jim Parker, let's take a closer look:

His main business was as a con man.

Everything else was incidental to that.

He was very good at it.

I still remember the first time I saw him, at the first and last NKCA California show, in Sacramento, circa 1974. I asked the person I was with, Who is that con man? It was that obvious.

I later got to know him.

It is amazing and sad that people could look at him, listen to him, and not realize.

BRL...

He started out swapping and selling fakes, counterfeits, and re-works. But the demand outgrew his ability to supply fakes to suckers, so he began ordering knives with his own name on them -- so he could trade shiny new knives for them funky old (valuable) ones. New lamps for old... I mean knives.

*

The biggest deal he made on his 1974 trip (that I know of) was trading a sack of diamonds to Jack Steed for the biggest Remington Bullet collection on the West Coast. About $20 worth of industrial diamonds. But real diamonds, that weighed exactly as much as he said they weighed.

*

Most of the brands that he registered (over 50 of them) really had been abandoned. Only one was not -- Marble's -- but he figured the owner of the brand did not have the money to sue. He was right, except about that time, the Lauermans bought Marble's, and they DID have the money to sue (and hire me as an expert). And win. But even in the settlement, Parker made money.

*

Once he asked me to appraise three big Exposition multi-blades. He had an "offer letter" from a Japanese gent for $600,000 and change, on which to base the appraisal. I told him I had learned appraisal working in the IRS office that would eventually decide this claimed deduction (he would donate them to his own museum, then take them back and sell them for whatever he could get). They would spot that the letter was from the gent in Japan who made Parker Eagle knives, AND that the "offer" had expired before the letter had been written. Details. So he ran it without my appraisal. And probably got away with it.

*

The Case saga was a whole other kettle of eels. In addition to looting the factory of everything not nailed down, liquidated for him by his brother John, he got the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to pony up an $8 million cash incentive to keep the factory running, which he took back to Tennessee -- and closed the factory. Case was later revived by others, not him. He could never go back to P'a, at least not under his right name.

*

But he was charm personified, and very friendly in his last years. Any time I had a question about who made a fake, I'd ask him. If it was one of his, he'd tell me all about it. If not, he usually knew whose it was.

He never missed going to church, and gave at least a tithe. No one could PROVE that he was behind a notorious home invasion robbery, items from which he later had for sale, but the suspicion was enough to get him kicked out of the NKCA, which he had founded -- among other things, as a great way to get the home addresses of lots of collectors.

BRL...

Yes, and also the Parker of Parker-Edwards damascus knives in Alabama, which he co-founded, then left for dead -- but which, like Case, was subsequently revived by others. It became Bear MGC, now Bear & Son.

*

So... why did he do it?

He did like knives, and he certainly liked money.

But above all he liked proving that he was "smarter" than other people, particularly than anyone "stupid" enough to trust him.

He had (and has) lots of devoted fans and admirers, whom he held in the most abject contempt, while relieving them of their surplus funds.

BRL...

I almost forgot... the Cutlery World chain of 200 stores. Parker looted and bankrupted it, too.

Who got hurt?

The employees.

The store managers, many of whom were lifelong industry veterans -- retired reps and such.

Stockholders.

Lenders.

Mall owners.

Suppliers, just about every cutlery mfr in the industry got bit by Parker. He kept and sold their goods, never paid them.

Their sales reps, who got charged back (their commissions, at least) for merchandise sold to Cutlery World, kept by Parker, and never paid for.

The only bright spot was the chain's buyer, Dan Wright, whom Parker had persuaded to relocate from California to Tennessee. Dan alerted reps to stop shipping knives to Cutlery World on credit, COD only. Many failed to heed his warning. [Later, when Dan was paralyzed by MS, the industry remembered him -- way oversubscribing a fund to buy him voice activated computer.]

*

Yes, Parker imported decent quality knives from Japan and Germany. If that's all you want to see... fine.

His original purpose in doing this was to have ample trading stock, for running scams. That he could make money simply by selling the knives was an unplanned bonus. Of course merely selling them was never quite enough. He just had to mark some of them with old brands, and call them 'factory finds.'

*

I have limited my list of Parker escapades to those of which I have direct firsthand knowledge. He kept plenty busy with other stuff, too.

But some folks (lots of folks) just love to be conned. It makes them feel special, to get attention from such a great man. Heck, look at all the folks who PAY to go to Las Vegas.

It's too bad he didn't live long enough to set up some Civil War stores. Or... maybe he did?

BRL...

 

[Ramrodmb]

brownshoe, more than once (not just in this thread) you have compared Bill Howard and his business practices to Jim Parker and Parker's business practices. I'm not sure why you continue to do it other than just to stir the pot. You should know better. Either way, it's the height of absurdity.

But just to be clear and to inform others who may not be familiar with Jim Parker, let's take a closer look:

That was where credibility was truly lost, as far as I care.

 

[knifeswapper]

Don't lose sight of the fact that we have now attempted to bastardized the view of a company that has set a production goal each year that was higher than the last without such an exorbitant growth that it resembles the recent failures in the respective industry, as a customer robbing marketing scheme. It is easy to manipulate the view of a company's actions only if the readers have no experience and no capability to discern for themselves. Having watched the industry for a long time, I personally have a lot of respect for the owner of a company that will not hire/fire at the ebb/flow of the economy and the expense of workers that become family in such a small operation. Even though that philosophy does not correlate with maximized factory / dealer sales. Eventually most (not all) have to acknowledge that sometimes true demand is not the same as a con game perpetrated on your customer base and friends.

SFO's are set at 500 knives. That is a week's production. If GEC let me contract the #77's I would like to have, they would dedicate the next two months to one dealers pattern. That would be fine with me, but not so much the other 15-20 dealers I suppose. The last "open order" GEC produced (#97) took nearly a quarter year to fully deliver. If SFO's or general production runs were all open to submitted orders, we can plan on 4-5 patterns per year. I don't think anyone chooses that over the current system. And nobody except Bill Howard has the information required to determine how best to keep GEC in business; which he has done during a time when the other traditional companies have closed their doors.

 

[mb>]

Let’s all just enjoy our hobby. Like what you like, let others like what they like. If you don’t like what they like or like them, just move on to another thread.

I agree. I’m surprised at how often someone will post a model or purchase they’re excited about, and someone else will immediately follow with an opinion that is essentially crapping all over the OP’s joy. Poor form.

 

[Mayonardo]

I don’t agree. Stifling dissent and discussion is not in our best interest. Without it I would not have learned from:

brownshoe, more than once (not just in this thread) you have compared Bill Howard and his business practices to Jim Parker and Parker's business practices. I'm not sure why you continue to do it other than just to stir the pot. You should know better. Either way, it's the height of absurdity.

But just to be clear and to inform others who may not be familiar with Jim Parker, let's take a closer look:

Don't lose sight of the fact that we have now attempted to bastardized the view of a company that has set a production goal each year that was higher than the last without such an exorbitant growth that it resembles the recent failures in the respective industry, as a customer robbing marketing scheme. It is easy to manipulate the view of a company's actions only if the readers have no experience and no capability to discern for themselves. Having watched the industry for a long time, I personally have a lot of respect for the owner of a company that will not hire/fire at the ebb/flow of the economy and the expense of workers that become family in such a small operation. Even though that philosophy does not correlate with maximized factory / dealer sales. Eventually most (not all) have to acknowledge that sometimes true demand is not the same as a con game perpetrated on your customer base and friends.

SFO's are set at 500 knives. That is a week's production. If GEC let me contract the #77's I would like to have, they would dedicate the next two months to one dealers pattern. That would be fine with me, but not so much the other 15-20 dealers I suppose. The last "open order" GEC produced (#97) took nearly a quarter year to fully deliver. If SFO's or general production runs were all open to submitted orders, we can plan on 4-5 patterns per year. I don't think anyone chooses that over the current system. And nobody except Bill Howard has the information required to determine how best to keep GEC in business; which he has done during a time when the other traditional companies have closed their doors.

A one sided and biased view, allowed to fester without intelligent rebuttal based on evidence becomes just another stinking pile that can infect the uninformed.

Learning is one of this forums best attributes.

 

[bax229]

Northwoods Signal Jacks already listed on ebay...Flipping before the knife even arrives

 

[Pàdruig]

brownshoe, more than once (not just in this thread) you have compared Bill Howard and his business practices to Jim Parker and Parker's business practices. I'm not sure why you continue to do it other than just to stir the pot. You should know better. Either way, it's the height of absurdity.

But just to be clear and to inform others who may not be familiar with Jim Parker, let's take a closer look:

Al, thank you for that education, it was most enlightening. I think I had heard snippets here and there on things regarding Parker but nothing as definitive as what you posted. Comparing Bill and GEC to that dude is so absurdly offensive, I am amazed that someone managed to arrive to that conclusion...

Northwoods Signal Jacks already listed on ebay...Flipping before the knife even arrives

Our favorite "banned-flipper-who-should-be-a-dealer" already has his multiple scores listed, using KSF's pictures of course... If ever there were an individual who no longer deserved to be here, it was that guy.

 

[steelnut]

Why would you sell it before you got it in hand to see if you like it?

 

[Pàdruig]

Why would you sell it before you got it in hand to see if you like it?

It has become common practice with these folks, they aren't keen on knives or care about the hobby, just concerned about turning a profit. In my opinion, it is a sickness and it plagues an otherwise enjoyable hobby.

 

[r8shell]

Why would you sell it before you got it in hand to see if you like it?

Because he bought it with the intention of reselling it for a profit. That's kinda the definition of a dealer/flipper. If someone wants to do that here, they are required to purchase the proper membership level.