All About Pocket Knives

What makes people want to use the RARE Card when describing a knife whether it is on eBay or for sale otherwise?

Is it a that they feel that it increases the value because they say it's RARE?
Why can't we just call it as it is...really burns my backside. The other issue that gets me is the unbelievable prices some of these folks ask for their knives.

Just my thoughts....anyone else got an opinion?

Tom

Tom....what bothers me is the "NO Reserve" . Then they start the knife out at $59.95. What do they think that is?
IT'S A RESERVE

Tim

yep, terms like rare, antique, old....and its usually just a frost cutlery or some other mass produced brand.

and VINTAGE! (not old enough to be antique)
and COLLECTABLE (aren't they all...)

Along with the above mentioned gripes, those that end the heading description with WOW
make me want to puke.

DoN't FoRgEt ThE IdIoTs WhO mIx LeTtErS, or fonts, and colors to show their sense of style.

It's called marketing. They are looking for the gullible with money to waste and irritating those of us with more than two brain cells to rub together. My personal favorite is the sellers who will make stuff up and tell it to you in person at the shows in the belief that they know more than you or that you are gullible. The sad part is that they do it so confidently that you know they've had success with this tactic before on someone that was stupid.

Sometimes when I see one of these clowns post something on eBay, I just want to send them a message to tell them what an idiot they really are! I realize it is marketing, however, I can't stand a person who makes stuff up or over-embellishes their product just to make the sale or increase profit.

"Please see the pictures of this one of a kind knife" and I know it's one of a kind because I've never seen one before.....HAHAHA. Jacklegs!

Oh well, what are you gonna do? You can't shoot em...well, legally anyway...LOL

Tom

I know basser 5.....No Reserve....but the price is 59.95....that always erks me!!


NOW, on the other hand some of those words: Old, Vintage, Rare, Antique are "key words" that people use to search eBay, so it may in fact help their listing be found more times. I use the word "vintage" ALL the time in my knife listings, if of course it's vintage.


I do agree though, some "L@@K NOW! RARE! WOW" listings make me skip right past 'em!

Just my 2 cents....

standard shipping 9;99 on a rare pen knife.

TripleF wrote: NOW, on the other hand some of those words: Old, Vintage, Rare, Antique are "key words" that people use to search eBay, so it may in fact help their listing be found more times. I use the word "vintage" ALL the time in my knife listings, if of course it's vintage.

I'm with you on this 3F. I think it's worth having a list of "key words" down in the description in a very small font and labeled as key words.

Rare urks me because, as everyone has said, it's overused and applied to items that aren't (rare). It's been over used to the point where a truly rare item is listed and the word rare has lost it's punch and no longer adequately describes the item. You could use a synonym but IMO there's only one in this list that comes close to rare - attenuate, attenuated, deficient, extraordinary, few, few and far between, flimsy, inconceivable, isolated, light, limited, occasional, out of the ordinary, rarefied, recherché, scanty, scarce, scattered, seldom, semioccasional, short, singular, sparse, sporadic, strange, subtile, subtle, tenuous, thin, uncommon, unfrequent, unheard of, unimaginable, unique, unlikely, unthinkable, unusual, unwonted.

Wosey, as far as starting the listing at 99 cents, my philosophy on that tactic is the item will bring what it will bring and starting at 99 cents opens the possibility of a bidding war (no matter how slim). Someone says to himself, "99 cents and $2 shipping. I don't need it but I'm not going to let a bargain like that pass." The next guy in line says to himself, "I'm not going to let that turkey steal that for 99 cents." and bids a little higher. And so on and so on. Yeah, yeah. Maybe it doesn't really happen that way but there's no harm in trying.

Dark, out of focus pictures from twelve feet away are a turn off for me. I just go on to the next item. Bad spelling, grammar and no punctuation make a listing difficult to read but it's not a deal breaker, if the pictures are good and the price is right. Outrageous shipping costs pluck my magic twanger. A shipping cost of $15 for a two ounce item that's not expensive enough to require insurance will send me to the next item as quickly as bad pictures.

I'm just a cranky old curmudgeon and lots of things piss me off BUT with all it's faults, I have to give a couple of things to eBay; It can't be beat when you're looking for an unusual item you haven't seen in 40 years and it's still the largest open market place in the world with the greatest variety of merchandise.

Almost any old knife from the 1920' or 1930's is rare. I keep track of every knife I own in terms of selling prices on eBay and less than half of the 600 or so has a price associated with it. Of course, I only keep track of comparables so some of them have come up again since I bought them but I simply haven't recorded them. The problem with most sellers is that they confuse the concept of "rare" with the concept of "valuable". There are two reasons for something to be rare, one is that people want it and therefore it's hard to find. The other is that no one ever wanted it and therefore it wasn't produced in sufficient quantities to be found. Most sellers can't distinguish the one reason from the other.

JMO

This situation isn't just with knives.

My main hobby is actually photography and some of the junk offered as "rare" is laughable. Lenses that you can buy used at places like KEH or B&H by the dozen are advertised on auction sites as "rare", with reserve prices and "buy now" prices that are insane. As P.T Barnum said....there's a sucker born every minute.

Don't even get me started on what some sellers call "mint" or "like new" condition.

Here is a sellers prospective.
Some of the comments hit home with me. For instance, I just finished up with a one week auction of 6 Schrade Cut Co knives. I started all at a price that I felt reflected about the minimun amount I would accept in a transaction. None of the 6 knives sold.
Now, the reason I did that was because my previous adventure into eBay was one where I listed 12 nice Case knives. I started most all of them at either 99 cents, with a few at $9.00 and one at about $30 or so. Of the 12, one sold for about what it was worth in book value terms and 10 of them sold for about half what they were worth. The one started at the higher price did not sell.
The truth is that I took a shelacking on the sales. I just can't afford to sell knives at that kind of pricing.
So for now, I'm pretty much off eBay as it is not reliable from a sales standpoint. It is time to buy. Wouldn't you know it would come along when I am trying to liquidate. Timing is important.
The knives I 'protected' didn't do well but I had to give it a try. My knives are going into my store where they can sit until the cows come home.

Ray

Chase wrote: Is it a that they feel that it increases the value because they say it's RARE?

Look at sales on ebay of certain knives. Lets just say two case tested green bone jack knives, both in identical condition. One has a bad description and says nothing much about the knife. The other knife has a pretty description, with tons of compliments to the knife (although not unfounded) and talks aobut how hard it is to find it. The latter will sell for more.

Its a fact that better descriptions, upselling your product, and excellent photos do make knives bring higher prices. Look at all of the obviously FAKE knives, with huge descriptions about how great they are, bring MORE than what the real deal is worth. And even thrown into some descriptions is the NO REFUNDS no returns.

Simply saying something is rare often wont work, but coupled with other used car salesman tactics, it works GREAT

856,992 results found for
old

1,260,186 results found for
rare

man, almost a million old things, and over a million rare things on ebay....

All of the above does bother me somewhat...but on the other hand it just sends up a big red flag.

.

"NO Reserve" . Then they start the knife out at $59.95

This one ..I don't agree with....Especially if its a new seller.....I sure wouldn't want a $75 dollar knife to sale for $20. and I have seen this happen on numerous occasions.
I would rather know what the starting bid was than have a hidden reserve that when you send them a message and ask what it is..75% won't tell you.

johnnierotten wrote: I would rather know what the starting bid was than have a hidden reserve that when you send them a message and ask what it is..75% won't tell you.

Yeah, I don't understand the thinking on that. What's the purpose of keeping it secret? I've seen some who will tell you in the listing what the reserve is. I fully understand the purpose of a reserve but not being willing to reveal the reserve price just boggles my mind. If there's someone here who practices this, please educate me.

I do a daily search on ebay for Boy Scout knives. The Ulster USA official scout knife is generally one of the most commonly seen among those listed. I have seen days when there would be four or five of the same model newly listed and often at least two or three of them would be listed as "RARE". Correct me if I'm wrong, but if there are 20 or more of the same item listed on ebay at any given time and they continue to show up at that rate week after week after week, are they really rare? I think not.

I'd do a daily search for "RARE" knives but I simply don't have enough to look at them all.

Phil

I've also taken quite a shellacking selling as some of the others here. I've put Mint $120.00 knives on ebay, more than one, I sold many at $40.00 and some at $30.00 range all because they were listed at .99 cents to start. I don't think any of us want to pay more for an item than we have too. But a starting price of $59.00 has nothing to do with a reserve. A reserve is a hidden $ figure that if not met the item does not sell. Any starting price say of $99.00 only means the seller won't even condsider a sale if your not interested pass it on.

If these sellers want to start the price for a $20.00 knife at $59.00 that will generally turn most away, it's just preying on others and IMO stupid. If he wants to start a $250 knife at something he is willing to be comfortable selling with, in this case say $125 I think this is good business. I will always list my $100 knives for not less than $40.00, its still not a reserve but will keep me from giving them away... If it doesn't meet this limit I don't sell, Thats OK, Both a "Reserve and Starting" price are levers for the seller, their option and the buyers decision if he wants to bid. Something that may iritate some , me included but there seems to a lot of this going on today.


On the other hand There does seem to be a lot of rare knives.

BH

$99.00 only means the seller won't even condsider a sale.. if your not interested pass it on.

Yes Sir!! ...I agree.

RARE is a word that is definitely over used on fleabay!!

jerryd6818 wrote:

johnnierotten wrote: I would rather know what the starting bid was than have a hidden reserve that when you send them a message and ask what it is..75% won't tell you.

Yeah, I don't understand the thinking on that. What's the purpose of keeping it secret? I've seen some who will tell you in the listing what the reserve is. I fully understand the purpose of a reserve but not being willing to reveal the reserve price just boggles my mind. If there's someone here who practices this, please educate me.

No one has ever asked me to reveal a reserve, but I would if it was a reasonable reserve (I most always have reasonable reserves, otherwise it would be pointless to list in most cases).

I can think of one reason for not revealing a reserve though, number of bids. If an item has 25 bids it may entice people to bid MORE money on it, thinking there is a great want or a lot of people interested in the price. Possibly raise the end price of the item.

And, its more fun just to see what people would bid on it not knowing.

Well, a lot of interesting thoughts here. I`ve sold a few knives on Ebay but bought a heck of a lot more and something I think maybe a lot of us may not be considering is that we , as collectors, probably look at comparative prices, rarity, and the many particulars concerning knife collecting a whole lot closer than many of the people selling knives, which in many instances are offered along with listings of a lot of other collectibles that people have purchased in estate sales, auctions etc. While we(collectors) may indeed know if a knife offered is a true rarity or not, I`ll bet that half of the sellers have no idea, but they may honestly think the item is indeed RARE/valuable! Unless you are a well established seller with a great following who can alway list items during primetime selling times , I think starting an auction for $.99 is foolish for a good expensive knife unless you just have money to give away! I have to agree with Ray on most of his points, there are a lot of good reasons why a person has a higher starting price....who wants to lose his ___ in a deal and even moreso, who can afford to? When it comes time to sell, for whatever reasons, I`m basically going to list so I don`t take a loss (and good detailed listings protect the seller and the buyer from misunderstandings and dissatisfactions after the sale is done), then if I get more due to competitive bidding that`s great, but if I can`t get what the thing is worth it will stay in my collection. The point is, that there are a lot of reasons why a person might call somethin rare, or have a high starting price and so on and so on.....we all have different situations to contend with.....thats what makes us good ole free Americans!!!

This is a beaut and a prime example of what this thread is all about.
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/e11050.m4 ... AUS%3A1123

For posterity:
OLD Vintage Whittler BUCK 310 3 Blade KNIFE MINT in BOX
I couldn't keep my mouth shut (big surprise for anyone here?) so I sent a message to him:

Dear bryarts,

OLD? Vintage? Nothing of the sort. The knife has a 2010 date code stamped on the tang. the <- to the right of 309 stands for 2010.

For the love of Mike. I'm surprised he didn't add rare. What's next? Something that just came off the assembly line will be "Old", "Vintage" and "Rare" before it even goes in the package?

quite honestly ebay is still an auction,lets see u put a reserve price on your wares at the local auction house,i think they should take away reserve prices alltogther and start out all items for$.99 it would weed out a lot of the pros on there and get back to the way it was years ago with people selling items they found and finding deals,the one thing that really irks me is the ones that say they now nothing about knives but list as a buy it now for full book funny how that works