Spyderco Slysz Bowie Question

I had the Bowie, and it was a good knife, but it didn’t blow my socks off. It was pretty much in the same niche as the AG Russell Acies I have (original version - below), and even at the normal retail price, it wasn’t a cheap knife for its features. If they brought it back, I’d like to see a lockbar insert and some interior milling on the handle scales as the balance was a little handle-heavy for my liking.
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And yeah, anyone buying knives at retail thinking they’re going to make much of a profit is going to be disappointed. I’ve managed to sell a number of exclusives or discontinued models at a sufficient margin to get back all my costs, but I can only think of one knife I could have made a decent amount of money on if I’d sold at the right time (I wasn’t interested in selling it, and now the market has evaporated).
 
Chapp said:
Yeah, I did my best to convince them to bring it back. Sal is a good man, he did listen to my voice, but Spyderco isn't a small company and they have other priorities right now. Sal didn't make any promises, but I'm sure they'll bring it back and probably sooner than 2023. I can feel it. The SB isn't really any other knife.



I live in Europe and I'm knee-deep into the knife community. No disrespect, but I've yet to meet someone who watches Nick videos and I'm sure he would tell you his own metrics reflect that. I do, but so far I'm the only one. Yet, Slysz Bowies are selling at around 950 dollars here and people jump on them.

If there is anything that should die, it's the myth that Nick fabricated the hype. It might surprises one american or two, but the world is bigger than the US. Shabazz videos about the Slysz Bowie are far from being that popular. His review of the knife is at 23k views (with 125k subscribers mind you). Even metrics disagree with you.

Nick didn't make the knife what it is, he just convinced a very small part of his own audience, if they weren't already. Most people I know didn't buy the knife because we all assumed it would be a permanent knife in Spyderco catalogue. We were wrong.

So yeah, let's put that to rest for good because hard numbers and facts don't support that myth at all.
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Officer's Match said:
No.
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Officer's Match said:
No.
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The SB is a damn fine knife. In a way it represents to me what a knife should look like. I understand that there may be a global influence to the SB mania, but you can’t ignore the effect that YouTube, Instagram and social media influencers have on knife demand. Would the Norseman or Specter have the price bubble or demand without social media? Absolutely not.

The SB is a great $300 knife but it lacks a lot at $600. It’s an insane choice at $900. If social media and celebs like Nick didn’t help drive the inflation and craze for the SB, why has he very tactfully and carefully walked back from his initial praise? He’s now mindful to avoid reviewing items that are unavailable.

Social media drives the knife business (and a lot of other things too). There’s no getting around it. If it weren’t for Hype from these channels, the SB would have slipped quietly away, missed by a much smaller group of fans and reselling for a much more reasonable price.
 
Officer's Match said:
No.
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Nice rebuttal there, bucko. Did you finish school? Up there they learn you good how to conduct an argument some. Heck I even learned me a bit of actuarial science, tell you what. I looked at google trends for the knife name and nick shabazz, the publishing date on spyderco page, nick shabazz's page views, and prices on ebay. As the search for the slysz bowie increased on google, so did the search for his name. His mentioning could be linked to the notoriety of the knife and IT IS WELL KNOWN ecelebs manipulate aftermarket prices. No you can't go back far on eBay's completed auctions to see when the price hike happened, but as far as I know it was 600 and fairly recently 800s. However as I recall, no other knife with rarity is constantly gone over by a youtuber than it. You can deny it all you want but it's just too plausible, some facts link up, and you're fake new'n.
 
MyLegsAreOk said:
Nice rebuttal there, bucko. Did you finish school? Up there they learn you good how to conduct an argument some.
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Not arguing Legs. Price didn't go up when Nick reviewed it - it went up when supply was exhausted. Supply/Demand isn't a new concept. Have a great night.
 
I come to this part of the forum expecting “shiny footprints,” even when there’s differences of opinion.

Thanks.
 
Warning issued for insults.
Discuss the knife. Not the other poster.
 
A couple thoughts.

First, the idea that there is "massive demand" for the Bowie is fantasy. What exists now is a highly vocal small subset of the knife enthusiast community who are competing over a now capped supply. When the knife was in production is was rarely sold out at dealers. And it was discontinued because the expense to produce it outweighed its popularity. If it had been massively popular, it would still be in production, simple as that.

Sure, a bunch of us Forumites are crazy about the model, myself included, but the idea that there is some kind of massive demand for it is silly. There's massive demand for PM2s and Delicas, not for any of the high end stuff coming out of Taichung. The market on all of those is limited, and the Bowie was no exception. The image of demand only exists right now because of perceived rarity in the context of a capped off supply.

Second, I'd still love to see a version 2 of it, and I suspect at some point we will. But who knows when.
 
Eljay2 said:
Nick was a huge part (if not all) of it, and will be a huge part of the return. Top knife reviewer. Everyone knows him. He created the mania. Simple fact.
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LMAO. He probably bought a hundred of them then manufactured the hype to drive up the price.

Smart man that ShiBizz.

Had one a few years ago when they were in regular production and have no regrets about selling it.

After owning one I can also say: There are soooo many other knives I wish Spyderco would bring back other than the SB.
 
The real problem is there are more people than are knives. Knife manufactuerers can't keep up with the demands anymore.
 
lieferung lieferung I didn't know if the dealer was a member here so didn't want to mention it by name, but next week is what I heard for drop date.

thanks DA170 DA170 for the link
 
Chapp said:
Yeah, I did my best to convince them to bring it back. Sal is a good man, he did listen to my voice, but Spyderco isn't a small company and they have other priorities right now. Sal didn't make any promises, but I'm sure they'll bring it back and probably sooner than 2023. I can feel it. The SB isn't really any other knife.



I live in Europe and I'm knee-deep into the knife community. No disrespect, but I've yet to meet someone who watches Nick videos and I'm sure he would tell you his own metrics reflect that. I do, but so far I'm the only one. Yet, Slysz Bowies are selling at around 950 dollars here and people jump on them.

If there is anything that should die, it's the myth that Nick fabricated the hype. It might surprises one american or two, but the world is bigger than the US. Shabazz videos about the Slysz Bowie are far from being that popular. His review of the knife is at 23k views (with 125k subscribers mind you). Even metrics disagree with you.

Nick didn't make the knife what it is, he just convinced a very small part of his own audience, if they weren't already. Most people I know didn't buy the knife because we all assumed it would be a permanent knife in Spyderco catalogue. We were wrong.

So yeah, let's put that to rest for good because hard numbers and facts don't support that myth at all.
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I live in Europe and I pay a lot of attention to American knife reviewers on YT, especially when it comes to American made knives. It is kinda impossible to not watch Shabazz no matter where you live, simply because he is always topping the search results. Unless you watch YT videos in non-english languages only.
Otherwise it is 1. Shabazz 2. Metal Complex 3. Slicey Dicey pretty much every single time. I find it annoying personally, as I feel there are many other good, budding knife channels, with more diverse and independent views/opinions.

I also learned about the SB from Nick, while it was still available in my local bricks and mortar shop. Except I was not that deep into knives back then.
 
I’m just stoked that I might be able to buy one for retail instead of secondary prices.
 
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