First, while I haven't talked to Mr. Ralph about it yet, I recall that the members of a set must be identical. That's what make's 'em a set.
Second, Mr. Ralph has been working on the prototypes even before sales began. They were not contingent on sales. In fact, we did not expect this edition to sell out quite so quickly.
Mr. Ralph is well underway and has already produced some excellent work. He'll show it to you when he's ready. Why not now? Well, because it's not very far along yet and we don't want to create expectations or biases when many aspects are still subject to change. If Mr. Ralph presented an early concept, someone might fall in love with some aspect of the design and then be rather disappointed if that feature got changed before the design was finalized. On the other hand, someone else might very much dislike that same feature and reject the design because of it. Even after that feature was changed, that person may still be biased against the design.
When Mr. Ralph feels that the design is stable enough, he'll present some works for you to look at and comment on.
When? Well, the current plan is about end of the year.
I want to restate to all of you who have placed orders that acquiring a custom knife is often a long process. There is only one Darrel Ralph and he makes just about every aspect of this knife himself to his own high standards and to the exact customer specifications. This is also not his only project. His work is very much in demand and he is a very busy man. Some of us will not receive our Gemini Balisongs until, perhaps, spring... spring of 2002.
Mr. Ralph will not be completing the knives in the order that they were ordered in. He will not be going in serial number order either. The order of completion will depend on complexity, material availability, and, frankly, Mr. Ralph's muse. And I don't what to hear any whinning.
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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com
