What a difference 5 years can make..

That is a cool backward glance. I'd sure love to pick up a damascus Hancock fighter for $1,300 today! :eek: I remember that they had a Fisk san mai Arkansas camp knife once that I dithered on for too long and saw it sold. That was a major should-a-bought. :eek:

Roger
 
I only checked out the MS knives but oh boy what would I give for a time machine:D :D

Marcel
 
Hi Anthony,

You must have a lot of time on your hands! LOL

Five years ago Gas was 85 cents a gallon.

If your going to go back go back to when Abercombie and Fitch sold Loveless Hunters for $12.

Jay and Karen had such a "knack" for buying knives that they are no longer in the business. :rolleyes:

WWG
 
WoodWorkGhost said:
Jay and Karen had such a "knack" for buying knives that they are no longer in the business. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

He didn't say they had a knack for business, just for buying interesting knives. That seems to be a comment that didn't need to be made.
 
If you guys haven't noticed, the knife business has taken a hit lately. Sales are good, but not brisk like they once were. Jay and Karen didn't go out of business, they sold it and moved on. Borders on a brilliant move to me. You ALWAYS start a business with intent to sell it. Even if you never do. The goal is to make the business itself a saleable product. Jay and Karen obviously did that.
 
Actually, I shouldn't have made reference to them not having a knack for business. Maybe they did, I really don't know.
 
Hi Nick,

Shouldn't you be in the shop? :D

Nice has nothing to do with it, facts are facts. While Jay's business model has been successfully copied to a degree by other Internet dealers, it had adaptability issues.

An opportunity (to sell the business...brilliant move by the way) presented itself and Jay and Karen acted on it. Subsequently, due to a miscue on a contractual caveat Jay regained the ability to persue a re-entry into the knife business. While he was and is still very well liked (yes even by me) and that makers were willing to work with him again. He understood that the custom knife world had changed a lot in the short time he had been away. He decided against a return.

No one ever said that Jay and Karen were not astute business people. Based on the SBA statistics below, it would appear it takes more than being an astute business person to run a successful business.


Bailey, I would have to disagree that most business are started with the expectation of selling the business eventually. I read an article in "Smart Money " last week which quoted statistics from the Small Business Adminstration. In 2004 571,000 buiness were started and the same year 566,000 business failed. Further statistics from the SBA show that within the first 3 years 45% off all business fail. Within 5 years it is pushing 70%. In fact only 10% of business's will stay open 10 years or more. Note, these were business's with a viable business plan with extensive capital (in many cases Millions of Dollars).

While people may think they are going to grow and sell their business for a profit. The harsh truth is that this very seldom happens.

WWG
 
Thanks for the thread Anthony. On Thursday I received a knife I bought from AZCK and for some reason was thinking of the old owners. For the life of me I could not remember their names. Then lo and behold you post their names.
I was a pretty regular customer of Jay and Karen and Arizona Custom Knives and I can happily say that I am now a regular customer of Julie's version of that business.
 
WoodWorkGhost said:
No one ever said that Jay and Karen were not astute business people. WWG
Click to expand...


You implied it with this statement,

WoodWorkGhost said:
Jay and Karen had such a "knack" for buying knives that they are no longer in the business. :rolleyes: WWG
Click to expand...

I never did business with Jay or Karen Sadow, but I met Jay a few times, and he seemed to know quite a bit about business AND knives.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
As it turns out, I did buy one of my first Steigerwalt's from them and had a VERY LONG conversation with Karen during the process of the sale. It turns out we both grew up in the same small town outside of Philadelphia, and really the business started almost by way of a lark/accident. They origionally strted out in the antique business/Native American arts business if my memory serves me and Jay ran into D'Holder at a knife show literally by accident.

At the time of the sale, there were some personal issues in their lives that had to be dealt with that really had the impetus to crytallize that decision. Personally, I miss them and their web site, and the current state of affairs at AZCK is NOTHING like it once was.

Although it is true that the vast majority of small business fail, the number one and two reasons have been, and continue to be undercapitalization and poor management. The Sadows had neither of these problems. They made a personal decision.
 
Hi Steve,

As you wrote:

"I never did business with Jay or Karen Sadow, but I met Jay a few times, and he seemed to know quite a bit about business AND knives."

Meeting someone, liking them and never having done business with them makes it difficult to attain an accurate assessment.

WWG
 
Woodwork,

Maybe I didn't explain my statement fully. A business must become a saleable product unto itself if it is sucessfull. I.E. if it makes money...it is sellable. Few businesses are bought if they are not turning a profit. It is true a huge percentage of business fail early on. I had one and can cite a number of reasons why it failed. But, my goal was to build it into a sellable entity unto itself, sell it, and go back to making handmade knives with total artistic freedom.

Jay and Karen had a sellable business. It gave them the option of getting out while the getting was good.
 
Hi Anthony,

You must have a lot of time on your hands! LOL

Five years ago Gas was 85 cents a gallon.

If your going to go back go back to when Abercombie and Fitch sold Loveless Hunters for $12.

Jay and Karen had such a "knack" for buying knives that they are no longer in the business.

WWG
Click to expand...

Hi there "mystery man".
I was actually doing a generic search for a maker I like collecting and came across this link. The wonders of Google.
I only did business with them once and the transaction was very pleasant.

They may not have been the end-all, be-all but they sure did get some nice knives from the bladesmiths I like to collect. Their website was easy to navigate and had better pictures 5 years ago than many POPULAR purveyors sites do nowadays! :)
 
I'm curious to hear from others how the custom knife business has changed in the last few years. I only started collecting, oh, seven years ago, and only very seriously the last 4 to 5 years. What I've witnessed in that time are:
1) Huge price increase for some top ABS bladesmiths
2) Large number of newbies with a level of skill commensurate with many of the well established makers. Some of those newbies have a pricing commensurate with their skills (as opposed to their tenure).
3) Large bowie knives now seem to represent 1/3 to 1/2 of the production. Daggers have all but disappeared. Forged integrals and semi-integrals are popular.
4) Quite a few well put together web-based retailers, with great inventory. Generally, the web's importance has increased tremendously, with makers investing significant time developing the presence and the skills (photography in particular)
5) As far as I can see, the tactical movement is becoming tired, but arguably this is not a big focus of mine.
6) The hamon is catching up (or has already caught up) with damascus in terms of prestige.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top