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  #76  
Old 02-23-2004, 03:40 PM
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Keith Montgomery Keith Montgomery is offline
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Thanks for the update Jeff. I will keep my eyes open for any announcement of a new web site and look for pictures of any new knives.

Here's hoping that 2004 is a great year for you.


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  #77  
Old 02-24-2004, 03:53 PM
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Chris_Crawford Chris_Crawford is offline
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Well, after reading through the entire thread, I finally made it to the end. I have to say that that's the longest thread that I've read through and not clicked out of it after about two pages. It's quite an interesting on though.

A couple of years ago, I was talking to David Winston about the best way to price knives, and he told me something that I will never forget. He said "If you can not keep any knives in stock, you are pricing them too low. If you have a lot of knives in stock, you are pricing them too high." I found this to be a very wise statement, and have adjusted my prices likewise.

If I have one particular style of a knife that I notices keeps selling, then I may raise the price $25 and see how it does then. If I have a style that I enjoy making that is not selling, I'll lower the price and see how that goes.

I'm a part time maker, and although I really enjoy making knives, I have no desire to be a full time knifemaker. There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, I am in the computer profession, and I don't believe the I could make the same living making knives as I can working in computers. Secondly, I just don't enjoy knifemaking as much when I have deadlines hanging over my head.

Because I'm a part time maker, most of the knives I've been selling lately have been custom orders. When someone contacts me about making them a knife, I'll usually quote them a price that's a little over the price of the last one like it that I made. If they accept the quote and commission the knife, than I know that it's a good price. Eventually this price will level out.

I believe that nothing is worth more than someone will pay for it. For instance, if I have a knife listed on my website for $125 and no one will buy it, maybe I should lower the price to $100. If it then sells at $100, then that was what it's worth. I have had knives that were worth more to me than the public would pay, and those are the knives that I end up keeping or giving to friends and love-ones.

I also believe that there is more to consider when pricing your work than just setting a dollar amount. You have to take a look at your market. If you are a local maker and your primary customers are dear hunters, then you are more likely to be successful selling hunting knives at $100 than you may be at $500. Many of the hunters that I know will not have $500 to shell out on their next skinner, but a nice $100 custom hunter would be right up their alley.

On the other hand, if your market is larger like knife shows, magazine readers, or the internet, than you have to take that into account also. Because you have a larger target group, you will have more people with more money willing to buy your knives. I agree that you don't want to come across looking cheep or like you do cheep work, so maybe in this case you want to have some higher priced knives available.

I guess that my solution to this is to offer a wide range of differently priced knives. If someone comes to my website looking to purchase their first custom folder, they may only have between $100 and $200 to spend. So for them I have several small patterns which fall into that category. If a seasoned collector comes to the site, I have examples of nicer custom knives which have sold for as much as $500. Now that may not seam like much to some of you, but for me, that's quite a lot. Especially since I'm a part time maker and I've only been making knives for about 3 years. I also very rarely have over $15 of material in a knife, so I'm charging for the work not the material. I guess I could make the same knife and put a damascus blade, mosaic bolsters, and ivory bark scales and charge $300 more for it, but I have no desire to make knives like that at this time.

Anyway, I'll shut up now. These are just my opinions. Sorry for the long post. I had intended on writing just a paragraph or two.

-chris


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  #78  
Old 02-25-2004, 03:25 PM
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Thank you fine people for your input which I found not only interesting but a wealth of knowledge. A lot of expert advise--- thanks for sharing.


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  #79  
Old 03-03-2004, 12:19 PM
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Laredo7mm Laredo7mm is offline
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10-4 on this being a great thread. I whish I would have found it earlier. I, as a new maker of less than two years, constantly think about how much I should charge or if I am over charging.

Right now, the last thing I want to do is get booked with two years worth of orders. OK, that is a lie, but I would rather be able to practice and make what I want to make now, while I can.

I think I would enjoy working for myself one day as a full time maker, but I am not convinced of that either.

I can tell you one thing though, it is hard to beat the feeling you get when you sell a knife and are happy with what you got for it. Right now, the knives that I make that are getting most of the inquiries, are the knives I like to make the least. But they pay for my "hobby" and still give me the opportunity to hone my skills, especially when the customer gives me the chance to "run with" the damascus pattern.

The last thing I want to do is get the reputation for being a maker that sells for too low. I have sold 7 Items so far. Five knives and two pens, and have orders for 4 more Items. I am personally happy to sell them for what I am asking. Would I like to get more for them? Yes, but I also like the comments like;

"This knife has qualities of knives costing two to three times what I paid for it."

Now, my friends, that felt great, especially coming from a knife that sold for more than $1000.

Soon, I am going to try some of that marketing stuff and really try to get my name out to the target audience and see what happens. It should be interesting.

And I won't forget all you little people when i get rich and famous.


Really guys, that last line was a joke!


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