Northwoods Big Bay

The Northwoods Knife brand name originated in Gladstone, Michigan when a man named Dave Shirley adopted it as his knife company's name in 2004. Dave was well known for collaborating with popular knife companies to have knives made to his specifications for resale well before 2004 & beyond. KnivesShipFree bought Northwoods from Dave & has continued to team up with respected makers to produce knives marked with the Northwoods brand name.
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Northwoods Big Bay

Post by robbobus »

Announced today, goes on sale Tuesday at 4 eastern. I think is based on the 78 frame. Handle materials not released yet.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by kootenay joe »

Thanks for posting this. It is a decent looking knife as are most GEC's. Northwoods has become another name for GEC. There is no longer any attempt to make Northwoods knives more unique. A few years ago there was Northwoods Wharncliffe Whittler and a Northwoods Norfolk pen knife, both of which are exquisite designs. Now a Northwoods is a single blade Jack same as regular run GEC's except for price.
I am disappointed. I did write to Derrick B. about 3 weeks ago to express my disappointment that Northwoods had become just another 'ho-hum' brand.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by kootenay joe »

Anyone know what the handle choices are ?
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by gsmith7158 »

Mammoth Ivory, Giraffe bone and micarta.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by Tsar Bomba »

There might not be any choice in the matter if they keep relying on their regular buyers and "forgetting" to notify those of us who have done a good bit of business with them but maybe can't be relied upon to open the wallet for every NW handle variation that comes out.

I'd be willing to look at the mammoth but I suspect by the time I made the decision it would have already been sold out for 5 minutes. ::shrug::

If the business model works for Derrick, then good for him. He may not even want to help grow the brand since it seems to be having no difficulty selling out or maintaining value on the secondary market.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by kootenay joe »

I have an appointment right when these will be released. Would someone please get a Mammoth one for me ? :)
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by kootenay joe »

This pattern is one of the most 'basic', a Barehead Jack, with a long bolster. I see it as not quite long enough to be a Barlow. It is also why it looks just a bit 'odd' or 'off'. Bolster is too long for a Barehead jack and too short for a Barlow. Nothing wrong with this but i perceive it as a bit 'off', maybe it is the bolster/handle proportion ? Certain proportions are just naturally more pleasing to most.
How come no one else is commenting ? Co'mon eh, it's a knife forum, it's our duty to talk about knives even when we have nothing to say.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by gsmith7158 »

Roland, I am guessing that this knife is on the 77 frame since that is in production at the moment. As one who is fairly new to the GEC and Northwoods patterns i am not certain that i have seen any of the previous 77 pattern knives so it's new to me and with the rounded bolsters and butt matched with the BohnClip blade i think it does have a certain simplistic flair to it. I believe i saw that it is under 4 inches closed so it is a rather serviceable knife for pocket carry. I like this one and I'm going to be at the computer come 4pm. Of course my computer skills are not exactly top shelf so I may come up empty again.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by 313 Mike »

kootenay joe wrote:This pattern is one of the most 'basic', a Barehead Jack, with a long bolster. I see it as not quite long enough to be a Barlow. It is also why it looks just a bit 'odd' or 'off'. Bolster is too long for a Barehead jack and too short for a Barlow. Nothing wrong with this but i perceive it as a bit 'off', maybe it is the bolster/handle proportion ? Certain proportions are just naturally more pleasing to most.
How come no one else is commenting ? Co'mon eh, it's a knife forum, it's our duty to talk about knives even when we have nothing to say.
kj
Ok, I'll chime in. I agree the proportions look a bit off, looks like a short bolstered Barlow, and the arrowhead on the short bolster looks like it is not centered, throwing the proportions off even more to my eye. I am sure it looks just fine to others though, and that's great, to each their own! Good luck to those of you hoping to score one ::tu::
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by gsmith7158 »

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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by robbobus »

Screenshot_2018-03-13-15-04-41-1.png
I will call this one a bareheaded giraffe boned jack knife. I think it looks fantastic. With the longer bolster a shield in the handle may have looked odd. It will be interesting to compare with the Little Bay side by side. I was slow on the mammoth I wanted. The #2 mammoth was gorgeous crackle mammoth of unquestionable beauty. I watched after checkout, 16:08 and they were all spoken for. Sorry KJ, If I had saw your post I would have grabbed one for ya.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by m0nk »

I meant to watch the scramble but I was working and missed it. What were the prices for the various covers? I'm guessing $250 for mammoth. How far off am I?
gsmith7158 wrote:I am guessing that this knife is on the 77 frame since that is in production at the moment.
Greg, I suspect the Big Bay is built on a #78 frame because of the completely rounded bolster end. The 77s have slight corners on the bolster if I'm not mistaken. The CK 77 SFO and this Northwoods run are both standalone SFOs of probably about 500 pieces each, so GEC will use whatever frame the customer wants. You can only order fewer than 500 pieces during a full production run, which the CK 77 SFO run is not, so these two SFOs do not appear to nor need to be sharing a common frame.

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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by Railsplitter »

I'm only going by memory but I thought I saw that the Mammoths were $299. Black Linnen was $129 and the other Micartas were $139. I think the Giraffes were $189.

I noticed also that the quantity in stock was not listed on the Micartas. I used to able to watch the quantity descend to zero but this time it just said "In Stock" until they were gone.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by gsmith7158 »

Thanks for that info Lee! The mammoth was $229 . Giraffe was $189. Don't know about the micarta.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by m0nk »

Well, watching that count down to zero was the fun part! Looks like I didn't miss anything then, except for seeing the prices. Maybe they're trying to reduce server load by eliminating people like me hitting F5 every few seconds just for the hell of it.

I was surprised to see a NW run so soon, since the last one was in early February, I think. It only supports my theory that GEC has significantly increased their production capacity, which is fantastic. Maybe they'll get to the point where they can do 1000-piece standalone SFOs without impacting their regular production. ::woot:: Take that, scalpers!

What I really want to know is, When's the next run of Fremont Jacks????

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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by m0nk »

gsmith7158 wrote:Thanks for that info Lee! The mammoth was $229 . Giraffe was $189. Don't know about the micarta.

Doh! ::dang:: At that price I would have gone full cave man and killed me a mammoth and taken it home!! Probably for the best. I need to keep my eye on my big prize... I'm in touch with a maker who's gonna build me a custom knife this summer. KSF is doing their best to drain my custom knife money and ruin my plans!
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by gsmith7158 »

robbobus wrote:Screenshot_2018-03-13-15-04-41-1.png

I will call this one a bareheaded giraffe boned jack knife. I think it looks fantastic. With the longer bolster a shield in the handle may have looked odd. It will be interesting to compare with the Little Bay side by side. I was slow on the mammoth I wanted. The #2 mammoth was gorgeous crackle mammoth of unquestionable beauty. I watched after checkout, 16:08 and they were all spoken for. Sorry KJ, If I had saw your post I would have grabbed one for ya.
Robbobus I don't know how in the world you had time to save pictures in that mad scramble. I felt a little dizzy and had to lay down afterwards ::facepalm::
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by gsmith7158 »

Well the scalpers already have these listed on the bay. They've tripled the price of the micarta and more than doubled the price of the mammoth and the giraffe bone. ::td:: ::td::
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by kootenay joe »

I cancelled my appointment to try for this Northwoods. I was there the very second the knives showed up. I was already logged into PP. Wanted mammoth so went directly to last page of mammoth (3 or 4 pages, i did not even look), saw a nice one , into cart, checkout with PP, Pay with PP balance, yes, pay: --- "The inventory quantity is below what you ordered" i.e. sold in the 3 seconds i took to get through PP.
So, try again, Giraffe this time, find a nice one in 2 seconds, into cart, over to PP, hit "Pay" ---- "the inventory quantity is below what you ordered".
Wow, bad luck, back for a third try, quick giraffe grab, to PP pay, same thing.
I felt a deep disappointment and admitted to myself i did not want to be disappointed again. I shut my computer off and went outside.
Right now there are 4 Northwoods Big Bay on ebay with high BIN prices.
Stock traders are moving close to stock exchanges so that their ultra high speed computers and internet can get a trade order in a NANO-second ahead of other traders. Yes, one billionth of a second counts, which is why they are moving close to the stock exchange computers, to save nanoseconds.
I live where 'hi speed' internet is not the same as urban centers' high speed. It is slower. I think in a competitive situation the internet always gives precedent to the highest speed message even if there is a slower speed message being processed.
With the high volume of inbound messages involved in a Northwoods release, i believe it is not possible for those of us with slower internet to win.
I will not participate in this demeaning process again and really i will not be missing much. Recent Northwoods are rather 'ho hum' compared with the lovely knives of 6 or 7 years ago. Remember the "Conductor", #33 pattern ? marvelous knife, a far more exquisite knife than any recent Northwoods.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by gsmith7158 »

Roland I have to agree with you on the speed issue. In the Fayette Jack release I was in rural North Carolina, three attempts on my phone at knives and no luck. Today at home on my desktop I missed the mammoth then went well into the giraffes and finally scored on that one . I tried on two more but they were gone. I don't seem to get the posting of the knives until about 2 minutes after 4pm. Does any one else have that issue?
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by kootenay joe »

It was 1300 hrs here in B.C. and the knives showed up 2 seconds after my computer showed 1300 hrs, so there was no delay.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by robbobus »

gsmith7158 wrote:
robbobus wrote:Screenshot_2018-03-13-15-04-41-1.png


Robbobus I don't know how in the world you had time to save pictures in that mad scramble. I felt a little dizzy and had to lay down afterwards ::facepalm::
After I checked out I just hit the browser back button and I got back to my pics. Easy peasy. Any higher tech and I am out. KSF will send pics if you ask as well.

I buy alot more than sell so I usually use my Mastercard when shopping at KSF. I am logged in with my address etc, my phone knows my cc number, I punch in my 3 dig security code and have had very good success. The one time I had and tried use a PayPal balance, the extra lag time equalled no knife.


Personally, I think Derek and GEC are consistently producing unique to the market, interesting and well made knives. If I did not already have alot of users, any one of the Lincoln, Esky, Delta, Michigan, Broadway, Big Bay, Hawthorne could very happily reside in my left front pocket. I do enjoy these first world dilemnas.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by m0nk »

I'm surprised that nobody is talking about the high likelihood that people are using shopping bots to automate the selection and checkout process on these NW releases. Anytime there's money to be made scalpers will figure out ways to game the system, and in this case it's fast and good money. I haven't heard anything about KSF taking any anti-bot measures in their cart system. Using bots has been common practice in the sneaker enthusiast community for a long time for limited runs like Yeezys and Jordans. People buy these bots and it doesn't seem to take a lot of technical sophistication to operate them. Really any scripting language capable of emulating a browser and pressing buttons can be used to code a bot.

If you really want a NW knife and you don't want to go to the trouble and expense of using a bot, then at least don't use paypal because it slows down the checkout process too much. People on this forum that are copping these Northwoods seem to be using a credit card instead of paypal. Also going for the micartas seems to give you better odds since its a countdown rather than a race condition of multiple buyers going after the same item as with the giraffe/camel/mammoth individual knives.

Some of the automated techniques might include: Scraping the site ahead of time to get the product ID links and possibly even pictures before the "add to cart" buttons appear at go-time. These links can then be loaded into the bot so it's primed to fire as soon as the purchasing buttons come up. Serious scalpers are no doubt using multiple accounts to log in simultaneously as several buyers, and then using a multithreaded bot that can add multiple items to the cart and attempt many purchase attempts at once. And like others, I'm on a not so fast connection, so if I were serious I'd rent a cheap cloud server from Amazon or someplace like that and launch my purchasing bot from there. Welcome to the wonderful world of online product scrambles for limited run items that fetch a high pricetag on the "secondary" market! As long as the scalping market is good, this trend will only continue to get worse. The only way this will slow down is if GEC increases their production or people stop buying from scalpers. ::td:: ::td::

Lee
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by kootenay joe »

Lee, thanks for the explanations in your post. What does this mean: "Scraping the site ahead of time to get the product ID links" ? I do not know what it is to "scrape" the site but it seems to imply that the info on these knives can be had before the release time ?
Are you sure that checkout with PP when already logged in to PP is slower than going through the multi-step KSF check out ?
One possible solution is to have all who want a knife submit an 'entry' with their email and mailing address and handle choices (1, 2 and 3rd choice) and then the KSF computer randomly selects the winners. The downside would be that the winners would not be able to select which mammoth or giraffe handle they would receive. This would not matter for the other handle materials.
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Re: Northwoods Big Bay

Post by m0nk »

kootenay joe wrote:Lee, thanks for the explanations in your post. What does this mean: "Scraping the site ahead of time to get the product ID links" ? I do not know what it is to "scrape" the site but it seems to imply that the info on these knives can be had before the release time ?
Are you sure that checkout with PP when already logged in to PP is slower than going through the multi-step KSF check out ?
KJ, no I'm not sure about the PP speed, but it's my suspicion because you get redirected to the PP site and sometimes that takes an arbitrary amount of time. When I bought my Mudbug I felt like PP was going really slow and I was nervous the whole time. But in that case I was getting a common item not a specific item, and it took an hour and a half to sell out of Mudbugs, so I didn't have anything to worry about. I feel like when I'm entering my CC number (copied and pasted from Notepad or something) I'm in control of the checkout process and with practice one can get fast at it rather than hope that PP is doing me right in that moment.

A web scraper is an automated tool that can grab the entire contents of a website, whether links to all that content is visible or not. For example, if you google images for "71 Bullnose knives ship free" you can see pictures on the KSF site that are there but aren't linked, i.e., you can't find them on the site just by normal browsing. But the google crawler finds them for you. A web scraper does a similar thing but downloads the entire site contents. From there you can browse the contents or parse it with a script looking for whatever you want. I have no idea if KSF uploads their release content ahead of time, but other online vendors sometimes do, and "early links" are a thing in the sneakerhead community. Even if everything suddenly appears at once, it could be possible to automate the process of finding "add to cart" links quickly and press a bunch of them. The bottom line is that a script can fill in a form and click buttons much faster than humanly possible, and do many of these actions at once.

Regarding the careful selection of the particular beautiful bone handle cover that your heart really desires... it seems like people aren't really able to do that now anyway because it's just a mad grabbing, so what difference does it make?

Lee
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