Should I chime about drinking (
or there lack of) or the pricing discussion, vis a vis list pricing, second market pricing, suggested but not expected list pricing increases and the dreaded secondary market pricing inflation.
Hmm?! I'll go with pricing issues as we can talk about drinking, over a dink later on
I've gone back and looked at Nathan's sales threads over the last 2-3 years just as my CPK collection has been increasing in volume, not looking specifically for their older list prices but to get more familiar with the history of what was not even on my radar back in 2014-2015! During that excavation process, I came to realize that at the very most there may have been a 10% pricing increase by the Carothers, but like I had said even if that much! In some cases maybe $5 or $10 more plus the shipping gone up from the very ridiculously low charge of $5 in the later past as opposed to the currently subsidized rate of $10 at most! Yes, I am quite aware that some makers / dealers / distributors offer "free shipping" but as we all ought to know, there is nothing really for free. Those free shipping rates are all already baked into the list price but free shipping seems to be the norm within the expectations of many in the knife buying community, when it comes to the bigger sellers / outlets.
While unaware of every little little detail and intricacies which go into pricing a CPK, on the macro level some factors such as design / patent costs, cost of material, cost of labor, cost of manufacturing, cost of tangible and intangible overheads are comprehensively standard. While I totally agree that the current CPK production line can easily absorb a 10%-15% price increasing across the board and still offer tremendous value for the products, the powers-that-be may not agree with me and this kind of mindset at all. IMHO, the current supply / demand curve has heavily turned the tide to the favor of the speculators but a significant price bump even if based on the current secondary market prices will be nothing more than speculatory move and any future pricing adjustment ought to be based on the comparable competition pricing plus the anticipated future output. I still advocate the CPK business model of smaller batches and faster limited production runs albeit at slightly higher prices (
well justified by the high quality and the diverse design of their products) as opposed to the kind of business models which are based on more expansive concurrent models, much larger batches at lower list prices wrapped within under-capitalization with the perils of over promising and underachieving.
TL; DR version: if one cranks up the prices close to the secondary market speculatory prices, the one will most likely imperil the business model! Also to the kiddos, drinking is only good in moderation