Secondary Market Prices

GEC specializes in highly collectable and premium quality usable pocket knives. The company's USA manufactured knives have quickly proven to be a big hit with both collectors and users who seek quality American craftsmanship.
kootenay joe
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by kootenay joe »

I predict that the very high prices for some GEC's have peaked and will begin to come down to more reasonable levels, like double the original price. There will be exceptions but most of the GEC's will soon be selling for less than what they have been in the last 6-12 months.
I could be wrong. Time will tell. Let's see how prices are in September, 6 months from now.
kj
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by cudgee »

Mark 24th of September in your calendar, and see how your prediction goes, and we will revisit this thread.
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by QTCut5 »

GEC has already lost me as a customer. :( I don't even bother to look at the new GEC releases anymore. Not only am I totally turned off by the new release "lolly scramble" absurdity, but I've purchased custom handmade knives that are even better than GECs for the same amount (or less) than the ridiculous prices people are willing to pay for GECs on the secondary market.

I just read an article that explained how there are now software programs that are specifically designed to instantly purchase high-demand items (everything from sneakers to designer handbags to you-name-it) by filling in multiple order forms in fractions of a second, much much faster than any human can possibly fill out a single purchase order manually. This proves what I have long suspected, i.e., the deck is stacked in favor of those who have access to and use such technology to immediately purchase multiple items from a given seller the instant they become available. The software is even sophisticated enough to use multiple ISP addresses as well in order to thwart efforts such as the lottery system Austin Risner is now using at Traditional Pocketknives.com to weed out multiple entries from a single buyer.

Personally, I feel that GEC should expand, hire more workers and manufacture more product in order to meet the obvious demand. Either that or raise the retail prices of their knives...perhaps even to the same level as custom knives. Isn't that what any other hugely successful business would do? ::shrug::
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cudgee
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by cudgee »

You have just stated what many have known for a long time. ::tu:: When ever high trade/turnover results are required someone will come up with software to expedite the trades in milliseconds. This type of software has been around for years in different industries. This software for using in the context you mention is not expensive, so it will pay for itself in one trade. It is just the way of the world now, i don't like it, but that is the way it is. I could say more about the whole situation, but this thread is about secondary market prices, and not the place. :) .
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by Ivoryman »

I just saw a run of the mill Tidioute American Jack in Elderberry bone #78 sell for $430 at auction. That was what the open market will bear, not a sellers pipe dream BIN price. It was $104 when it came out in 2017. The run didn't sell out fast, they sat around for weeks, they were seemingly not that popular as a #15 or #66 or #47, or others. But times have changed now. Even less popular patterns are skyrocketing. I have seen GEC Northwoods selling for $6-800 lately, open market. Many here have said these prices will come down, it's just a fad, it's not sustainable, it's a gimmick, it's a crime. When are they coming down? When will the fad end? We're all still waiting and will be. It won't end because it's no fad. The price trajectory is still going up. It's very high demand and growing demand as well, with same old limited, small numbers supply. Simple Adam Smith economics and all of us are hoping the prices come down, crossing out fingers, and all in vain. Because people like their knives and more and more people are starting to like them every day. They are making a better product than Case or now defunct Queen was and there is no Schrade. GEC has earned and built a reputation and a customer base and fanbase with quality products and stylish designs. That's the American way, build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door. GEC has the best mouse trap going in American traditionals. No contest. Rock on GEC. Love every one I have and can't get enough and a lot of sour grapes because of GEC success says a lot more about the critics and cussers than the GEC company or their products. Maybe some won't pay the price, but I bet they still like the knives and wish they had some. Fox and the grapes.
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by kootenay joe »

I am just making a prediction. I admire GEC, the company and the knives. I am not angered by the high secondary market prices.
It's just a feeling i have that some of the GEC 'spenders' will drift to other interests. I expect demand will still be strong but not as strong to drive prices to current levels. I think the GEC prices will stabilize at a lower amount than they are now.
There will be exceptions but in general the peak has been reached.
Again, this is just a feeling i have. There is no economic theory or consumer statistics involved.
kj
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by Sharpnshinyknives »

Ivoryman wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:09 am I just saw a run of the mill Tidioute American Jack in Elderberry bone #78 sell for $430 at auction. That was what the open market will bear, not a sellers pipe dream BIN price. It was $104 when it came out in 2017. The run didn't sell out fast, they sat around for weeks, they were seemingly not that popular as a #15 or #66 or #47, or others. But times have changed now. Even less popular patterns are skyrocketing. I have seen GEC Northwoods selling for $6-800 lately, open market. Many here have said these prices will come down, it's just a fad, it's not sustainable, it's a gimmick, it's a crime. When are they coming down? When will the fad end? We're all still waiting and will be. It won't end because it's no fad. The price trajectory is still going up. It's very high demand and growing demand as well, with same old limited, small numbers supply. Simple Adam Smith economics and all of us are hoping the prices come down, crossing out fingers, and all in vain. Because people like their knives and more and more people are starting to like them every day. They are making a better product than Case or now defunct Queen was and there is no Schrade. GEC has earned and built a reputation and a customer base and fanbase with quality products and stylish designs. That's the American way, build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door. GEC has the best mouse trap going in American traditionals. No contest. Rock on GEC. Love every one I have and can't get enough and a lot of sour grapes because of GEC success says a lot more about the critics and cussers than the GEC company or their products. Maybe some won't pay the price, but I bet they still like the knives and wish they had some. Fox and the grapes.

I agree with you 100%. Just to add onto this thought: I don’t understand the way secondary prices seem to pick at some folks soul the way it does? What would you rather, have a free market or one where the government sets the prices like in Venezuela? If you want someone else to set the prices that others can get for their product, move to Venezuela and tell us how great it is to live there.
GEC dealers are raising prices on new releases, anyone who has bought from some of them know that they are charging double and more in some cases for new releases. My understanding is that GEC is encouraging them to raise prices and that GEC is soon going to raise their prices to take advantage of this craze. So everyone will soon be paying higher prices for GEC knives. So I guess this is what some wanted, for someone other than a “flipper” to make such a big profit on GEC knives. Seems to me the end result is all the same, but now we will shift the profit to a big business from individuals.
SSk Mark “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” Ronald Reagan
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by Ivoryman »

Hear hear SSK, free market, open commerce, free enterprise and free trade. Everything else is command economy and doomed to fail. Amen and amen. Glad there are still some cool heads and thinking minds out there who actually appreciate what the inspired founding fathers set up for us. Now if we can just teach the young and future generations to value it.
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by kootenay joe »

My posts have nothing to do with opposing 'Free Market' or being 'upset' by high prices for many of the GEC knives. I am just making a prediction that interests will shift to other knives or other commodities and over time, secondary market prices will come down from the high levels of the last year or so.
I could well be wrong and prices could go even higher, but it won't last 'forever'. At some point the 'market' will peak and then decline. Such is the nature of the Free Market.
kj
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by Ivoryman »

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"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes them afraid." -No Name, High Plains Drifter
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by Dinadan »

I am not against free market or folks being able to pay what they want. What puzzles me is the way that GEC handles sales. If I were making a product, and noticed that on the secondary market the stuff I made was selling for double or triple the price I sold it for, I would darn sure change my ways!
Mel
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by Ivoryman »

Another headed for the stratosphere, where it will land I don't know but it won't be around here.




https://www.ebay.com/itm/Great-Eastern- ... Sw9apgX3XV



Yet another of the same wood. Two to watch skyward.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Great-Eastern- ... 0010.m2109
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

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There's no interest like self interest.
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by edge213 »

I have a friend who used to pick up a roll of the gold colored dollar coins before a show.
He would price them at three dollars each. He sold out every time.
I couldn't figue out who would pay $3 for a dollar.
Now I think I know.
David
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

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"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes them afraid." -No Name, High Plains Drifter
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by kootenay joe »

Buy high, sell low will eventually happen with GEC knives but predicting when the peak is reached as with any commodity is not possible. There may be some upside still to come. Maybe todays $875 for a 852118 will be $1500 in a year's time ? Or, maybe it will be $400 ?
kj
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by edge213 »

There is a GEC Beer Scout for sale in an AAPK store for $550, but it is free shipping.
Mine cost under $100 when brand new ::shrug::
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by Umcknifeguy »

Let me start by saying I love great eastern cutlery. One of the last companies making high quality knives here in the good old USA. They make a high quality product,and have great authorized dealers who sell them at fair prices. Props to all the authorized GEC dealers. The problem comes in with all the secondary SELLERS, not dealers who buy them all up in a matter of seconds, and turn around, selling them at 200 percent or higher mark up. As much as I love GEC knives, I can't afford to pay secondary market prices for them. These secondary market sellers are ruining our knife collecting hobby. Us folks who collect knives for the love of knives can no longer afford to do so. All this greed is giving knife collecting a bad name. No longer a hobby but a greed driven way to make a quick buck. I haven't bought a knife ina year or so for this reason and if things keep going this way I may give up knife collecting. Sad times if you ask me. Thanks all for reading my rant
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

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Couldn't agree more Umcknifeguy my friend. I hate to pay what they are going for, and the prices are still going up, not down like I keep hearing they will. I have to laugh every time I hear or read that. It hasn't' been true since I got into GEC seven or eight years ago. The opposite is happening. I would love to pay less, but fact is more and more people want to buy GEC, the fans and buyers and collector numbers are rising. That means higher demand, higher prices. I've heard the prices will fall and it hasn't happened yet. Quite the contrary. Do the math. It's because people love the product. It's so obvious to me and I have been saying for years prices will keep going up. Others say they will come down. Still waiting. Didn't appreciate how good we had it a few years ago when they sat around at the dealer for weeks or months and you could buy most GECs for less than a hundred bucks. Northwoods for just over a hundred. SFOs for 80-90 bucks. I'm not sure even GEC making a lot more numbers of knives would do it because demand is still growing. More and more people every day want GEC and can't afford them. Thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands of people, want a few hundred knives that are produced. Very high demand for very few knives. I don't hear that about new Case knives. No scramble for them. No secondary market people paying two or three or four or five times retail price for a Case. Or about any other maker I can think of. That tells you something about demand.
"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes them afraid." -No Name, High Plains Drifter
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by kootenay joe »

Ivoryman i agree with what you say. There are way more people wanting GEC knives than there are knives available. And to date the number of people wanting GEC knives keeps increasing. However collectible markets are 'fickle'. The interest in certain items changes over time. Eventually many of the people now wanting GEC knives will move on to other items or just loose interest in knives. When this shift will happen cannot be known. It might happen in 10 years time, or in 20 years but eventually the current very high demand will subside and then prices will decrease somewhat.
I don't think this change is imminent. I think it is still some years in the future.
kj
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by QTCut5 »

Considering the stratospheric prices we've been seeing on some other GECs, I fully expected the final selling price for this Mammoth Ivory Northwoods Big Bay to sell for much more than $567.00. Maybe the mammoth on this particular knife isn't as "interesting" or "characteristic" as people want, but even so, mammoth ivory almost always sells for much more than knives with bone handles. Trying to figure out the psychology driving the prices of GEC knives seems to be somewhat of a fool's errand; too many "X factors" come into play that no one could possibly predict, and a certain degree of luck and timing also seem to be factors that are totally unpredictable.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/154528312153?s ... true&rt=nc
Northwoods Big Bay Mammoth.jpg
Northwoods Mammoth Ivory Big Bay.jpg
We are all just prisoners here of our own device.
In the master's chamber they gather for the feast.
They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast.
(Eagles: Hotel California)


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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by Ivoryman »

QTCut5 wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 8:41 pm Considering the stratospheric prices we've been seeing on some other GECs, I fully expected the final selling price for this Mammoth Ivory Northwoods Big Bay to sell for much more than $567.00. Maybe the mammoth on this particular knife isn't as "interesting" or "characteristic" as people want, but even so, mammoth ivory almost always sells for much more than knives with bone handles. Trying to figure out the psychology driving the prices of GEC knives seems to be somewhat of a fool's errand; too many "X factors" come into play that no one could possibly predict, and a certain degree of luck and timing also seem to be factors that are totally unpredictable.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/154528312153?s ... true&rt=nc
Northwoods Big Bay Mammoth.jpgNorthwoods Mammoth Ivory Big Bay.jpg

I'm no expert, but the Big Bay never seemed to be their popular pattern. In fact, I've never heard anyone say they wanted one, or would trade for one, or were on the look out for a Big bay. Not once. I have seen all kinds of guys looking for other Northwoods patterns. I don't know why, maybe it's like a Granddaddy barlow, just too big for the average pocket and not high demand. The pattern was never popular like a Freemont, Hawthorne, Presidential, or Broadway or the popular patterns. And then again, I believe these mammoth Big Bays sold for about $235 new. So even being a less popular patter and some run of the mill ivory, it still sold for way more than double, something like double retail plus a hundred bucks. Not bad appreciation. Hell of a lot more appreciation than a Case, Benchmade, Spyderco, Queen, etc. Not like the popular patterns going through the roof though. I don't try to figure out the psychology either, that's way beyond me, but I watch and learn what patterns are popular and I try to get the ones I like when they come out because I know soon they will be out of my price range, into the stratosphere, and only the fools or deep pocketed will be able to buy them or win the auctions. All I know is the patterns I like, are going through the roof. The others maybe not, but all the ones I like are pricing me out of the game.
"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes them afraid." -No Name, High Plains Drifter
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by kootenay joe »

$567 is a lot of money and a high price for this knife. As Ivoryman points out the "Big Bay" is not a popular pattern and the mammoth on this knife is plain, rather boring.
The Northwoods that are desirable patterns with 'interesting' handles will hold their value much longer than this Big Bay. At $567 i think the buyer will take a sizeable loss when he comes to sell it.
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by cudgee »

Just saw the latest release GEC on the members store going for a handsome profit from one of the regular re-sellers, and he has not even received it yet. That's a new one.
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Re: Secondary Market Prices

Post by edge213 »

There is one of the new GEC key chain knives for sell in an AAPK store by a seller that appears to never even had one post on the forum.
I don't know what these sold for, but he is asking $139 + 6.50 for shipping.

Can you say "flipper"??
David
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