All About Pocket Knives

For those collecting Case Classics, the new guide depreciates all classics from 30-66%. What gives? Parker says his dad had put too high a value on the knives. "retail". He wants us to keep collecting even though that $500 knife is now only valued at $170.

copdoc wrote:For those collecting Case Classics, the new guide depreciates all classics from 30-66%. What gives? Parker says his dad had put too high a value on the knives. "retail". He wants us to keep collecting even though that $500 knife is now only valued at $170.

I heard many times that he inflated values of knives. I think ebay also shares the blame for decreasing knife values because they made rare knives readily available to the public. One can put together a collection in a few years that would have taken a lifetime before ebay existed. Still need the books, but what the public pays on ebay is probably a better indicator of what the knife is worth. A book is an aproximation, ebay is reality, because that's what they are selling for.

Yep...it's true. There was a lot of discussion before Buzz and Ed did the pricing on the Classics. Jim had really over valued a lot of them and we all felt they should be priced at close to what they have been selling for.

Even though they dropped the prices considerbly, most patterns still don't bring book price. Take the 91 pattern for example, the most common Classic. Most of the bone and celluloid handles sell for around 70.00 to 100.00 on ebay and Buzz still has them averaging 200.00 book price.

There will be a few exceptions, the 88's, 50's, and a few others will bring close to book because they are highly sought after.

I never expected to get the book "value" on the Classics, or any knife for that matter, about 50-70% was more realistic, it (the guide) did need an adjustment.

Expect to see the slowing of sales until this settles in with folks, the best thing to do would be to pull your Classics off the market for a few months.

What I don't want to see as a result of this, is the knives selling at 50-70% of the new prices!

Jim's marketing plan was simple, tell a guy it's worth $1,000.00 he's glad to pay $500.00. Now the reality check.


gary

Those prices in the case classics book have always been highly overinflated.When you are looking at the book and it says a knife is worth 300.00, and you can turn around and buy it the same day from any dealer ,for 100.00, you know it is.As said above, ebay is the best indicator of value to me. I put every knife i see ,that i own one of, and put it in my watch list,record the selling price, and keep a record of it.

got my copy today. have book - will study.

on a side note, it came in one of those fiber filled mailers, soaked through and through. looks like my old wore out copy already. it's floodin here in texas, but the us po don't have umbrellas!

Seems as if the Bulldog section of the book did not change much. Some went up in fact. I did not expect that.

that's what they are sellin.