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Great Eastern Cutlery Availability, Dealers, "Drops", Etc.: A Place for People to Vent
- Thread starter stevekolt
- Start date
This may of already been mentioned...
While you can only get one per household on some drops.
People are having their brother and girlfriend score,
This is how you can have someone with 4 for sale on the Bay.
Like a tax loophole ...
While you can only get one per household on some drops.
People are having their brother and girlfriend score,
This is how you can have someone with 4 for sale on the Bay.
Like a tax loophole ...
There are a few dealers on Charlie's list that I have never seen post one of his SFOs. Not saying they don't, I've just never seen them post one.Believe what you want to believe.
I was surprised one of them didn't even respond to an email asking about the availability of the #93 SFO.
For instance... Our good friend Oldhand2013 who was just recently banned. He has four of the Waynorth Lambsfoot knives for sale for $200 each right now. Two in ebony and two in jigged bone.
Or the knife dealer with a blog bragging about how he was able to score six of the GPK SFO 93 black Micarta Ram's Foot.
Missing out doesn't upset me, that's just how it goes. Missing out to resellers who's only intention is to flip a profit is what pisses me off. Since I live on the west coast, things tend to drop while we are still sleeping. So I had been getting up at 5:59am every morning for the four or five days to check the GPK webpage every hour (while recovering from a shoulder surgery a week ago). The knives sold out in less than 3 minutes. I imagine if that flipper and others like him wouldn't have grabbed six knives, I would have been able to make it through the checkout process.
I used to collect certain high-end keycaps for several years until flippers became aware they could make a 2000%+ profit on certain keycaps (that were already selling for $40+ each) and started setting scripts to alert them the moment a product page has been edited and bots that auto purchase them in milliseconds, before anyone else has a chance (these are a real thing, look up AIO Bot and Nikeshoebot). You'd see runs of a couple hundred with "one per household" limits sell out in under a second of dropping. Most of those keycap makers have since moved to lottery systems.
With the resell value of particular releases climbing higher and higher, it just feels like it's starting to happen with knives too... At the same time, if we weren't willing to pay 3x the release price of a knife, this wouldn't be a problem.
Meh, in the end, it' just a knife and really not that big of a deal. Lack of sleep from the surgery and a bit of a pain is probably just making me particularly pissy lately. Feels good to vent though.
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I actually was curious if and/or when he would pop up with Lamb Foot sales. I did notice that he has the micarta 93 (multiples) listed for absurd prices.
I'm glad he got the boot, everything he did was akin to spitting in the face of what a lot of other members here value.
He also goes under the moniker, 3FingerMac on AAPK, if there are those here who are adverse to dealing with him. I can't believe he has the cajones to post such ridiculous markups on that forum. Maybe it is par for the course there, I am not all that familiar with how that place runs.
Agreed. Good riddance.
Yep, that's where I found his four Waynorth's for sale. Jerk.
Lol, yea... We collectors (of anything) are a little weird. Some of the Clack Factory keycaps have sold for over $900. For a single keycap.
That was his price on a different forum (sans eBay fees). He prices his stuff on eBay at a higher price to account for the fees. There are also often promos on eBay that reduce the selling fees.
I have come to like Great Eastern Cutlery over the past couple of years. I’ve moved from “stainless” steels (VG10, S30V, HAP40, and so forth), screwed together steel scales with G10 and the like to brass, bone, wood and 1095. I still have my Lum Chinese Folder with laminated steels, but that is a personal thing.
With patience and checking around now and then I have pretty easily managed to get the few patterns I like. All of mine except my 97 Yellow Rose (being a Native Texan) are users. I even have a #93 natural canvas Micarta on the way. Paid retail.
I suspect I could find a GEC Lamb Foot if I worked at it, but I think some will pop up later at reasonable, if not retail prices. Never had a lambs foot and I’m on the fence about the shape.
Nor do I know what to make of all the angst and whining over availability. I do not appreciate flippers. Yes, I know it’s their “business” but it reeks of immorality to me.
With patience and checking around now and then I have pretty easily managed to get the few patterns I like. All of mine except my 97 Yellow Rose (being a Native Texan) are users. I even have a #93 natural canvas Micarta on the way. Paid retail.
I suspect I could find a GEC Lamb Foot if I worked at it, but I think some will pop up later at reasonable, if not retail prices. Never had a lambs foot and I’m on the fence about the shape.
Nor do I know what to make of all the angst and whining over availability. I do not appreciate flippers. Yes, I know it’s their “business” but it reeks of immorality to me.
- Joined
- May 18, 2014
- Messages
- 9,008
One of the nicest changes here on the Exchange that I have noticed is that for the most part, prices have become more reasonable. I could be wrong, but I think you will see Charlie’s Lambsfoot knives will sell here at fair secondary prices. There aren’t that many to begin with and there are collectors who will not part with them, but there will be those who caught the fever, but once in hand, don’t cotten to it. And there are those who will gladly pay $200, thinking they got off cheap.
When I first got into Traditionals, I was as frustrated as anyone with what I thought was massive unfairness. Because I was new to Traditionals, I grumbled, while still over paying for knives. Once I calmed down, I stopped doing that in general, learned the system, and accepted that there are flippers, and that’s not going to change. I also practice knife therapy, by buying a knife I liked that was available, when one wasn’t. “If you can’t be with the knife you love, love the knife you’re with.”
I can’t guarantee that patience will get you every knife you have ever wanted, but it has gotten me more than I ever thought possible.
When I first got into Traditionals, I was as frustrated as anyone with what I thought was massive unfairness. Because I was new to Traditionals, I grumbled, while still over paying for knives. Once I calmed down, I stopped doing that in general, learned the system, and accepted that there are flippers, and that’s not going to change. I also practice knife therapy, by buying a knife I liked that was available, when one wasn’t. “If you can’t be with the knife you love, love the knife you’re with.”
I can’t guarantee that patience will get you every knife you have ever wanted, but it has gotten me more than I ever thought possible.
Great post Augie. I think there are a lot of people who are newer fans of GEC who don't understand that they're dealing with a completely different type of business than Case or Spyderco.
They made stainless knives recently. Like this year.
Which dealer did that with the 6 GPK SFOs?
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2011
- Messages
- 2,692
I see that the natural micarta Ramsfoot sold for around $70 from dealers, what did the Lambsfoot sell for new?
I've more or less jumped into Traditional knives just this year. After a Case stockman and Lionsteel Roundhead it's been pretty much GEC exclusively with a few exceptions. The flipper game does kind of bum me out. But at the same time I'm not going to spend anything more than I'm comfortable to on a particular knife. I'm sure I've over spent on a few here and there but also have scored some stellar deals. For me it's fairly balanced.
I've more or less jumped into Traditional knives just this year. After a Case stockman and Lionsteel Roundhead it's been pretty much GEC exclusively with a few exceptions. The flipper game does kind of bum me out. But at the same time I'm not going to spend anything more than I'm comfortable to on a particular knife. I'm sure I've over spent on a few here and there but also have scored some stellar deals. For me it's fairly balanced.
I have yet to see a real lambs foot by Charlie for sale on the secondary market. Of course I haven’t been looking specifically for that either. It seems that the frenzy to buy certain patterns from a GEC is a combination of collectors, individuals who just want to have an use a cool knife and some number of profit minded individuals who see those as a way to capitalize on the interest and make, in my opinion, a much larger profit than would be usual for the average reseller.
Not much to do except be patient and I am sure some reasonably priced opportunities will appear.
Not much to do except be patient and I am sure some reasonably priced opportunities will appear.
I've seen 4 and the idiot didn't even wait to get them in hand before posting them, he used the dealer's pictures. And they sold too, he was able to pocket a healthy profit before he even had the knives.
Just scum. I have no use for people like that.
...okay, I made a comment earlier on another thread referring to these "sellers" - got slammed and my post moved to this thread. Not too long ago the Northwoods Coolidge (another "only one per customer") were showing up in multiples up to $299.00 within a couple days of the brief sale/sellout.
Apparently this will happen again & again. I've talked to dealers and I doubt they are complicit, but some individuals (or some group??) keep this frenzy alive. Thing is, I do understand the "well, that's life" attitude and I get that, but I also get the frustration of people on a budget who don't live in front of a computer screen. The playing field will never be level, but it can use a bit of "re-grading".
In another life, I made limited edition items that sold our rapidly for 25 years. It was a balancing act, for sure. As a sole proprietor, however, I was in a better position than GEC to please more of the people (but not all) more of the time...this was by virtue of the fact that I sold almost entirely by direct sales. As a sole proprietor, I could not afford to sell the majority of my production at a heavy discount to dealers, so I kept those sales to 5% or less - and all of those sales were reservations to the dealer's regulars. I've talked to a couple GEC dealers and they acknowledge the supply/demand, SFOs, etc situation with GEC is fraught with imperfections (and many of these are hard to avoid) - but it's the best that anyone can up with.
The problem I'm left with relates to the new Lambsfoot pattern - specifically, limited availability when in the last few years the interest in the lambsfoot pattern has exploded. To say this will never be run again, well...it seems like such a waste to throttle the production of such a popular pattern. Plus, there are no real alternatives in the GEC orbit (like with the Northwoods Coolidge/#12 toothpick/Texax Toothpick).
Still ruminating about all this - (and I thought I had retired).
