|
Andy,
No, I'm afraid you missed part of my gradually refined definition.
If you bought a custom knife and sold it 20 years later it would
still be a custom made knife. It was custom made for you, not the guy
who is buying it today but still custome made. Same as a tailor
made suit to draw a parallel. Maybe in 20 years no one would care
but it was and is a custom made knife.
By my definition there is no difference in a custom made knife and
one made by a maker on his own volition as far as quality, etc is
concerned. The only difference is that someone ordered it made the
way it was made however that may have been. It would not need to
become synonymous with weird etc unless the knife maker (in fact, a
lot of knife makers) made a lot of knives that most all of us would
say was a very bad design and should never have been made. That's
stretching a point pretty far to make that connection, I think. After
all, there are already plenty of custom knives and guns that contain
input from the people who ordered them and it hasn't hurt us yet.
As for ordering a knife and not giving any specifics about what the
maker should make that, in fact, is still a custom knife. We must
assume for this example that the customer in question wants something
that you don't have on your shelves, probably something special.
I have one customer who does that and I would never send him a simple
plain Jane knife on an order like that. But, if you think such and
order might be placed with the intent of receiving a run of the mill
knife then your customer's probably differ from mine and no definition
will cover every eventuality perfectly.
Yes, a knife with scrimshaw or your initials would be custom. If a
maker wouldn't normally have what you want on hand and you have to
order it made, it is the very definition of custom.
I understand what you mean by '40' and the different ways words are used
in different professions. We are in the process of trying to define
how we want some words defined for the knife making profession as
you have no doubt noticed....
|