MT35P - CPM MagnaCut Mule Team - Release Date

[Wandering_About]

Gotta keep in mind this was probably the most anticipated Spyderco knife of the year, or darn close to it. Probably can't judge all Mule drops by this one.

My last (and only other) Mule was the original in 52100. Sent it off to an acquaintance who said he'd put a handle on it, but both the man and the knife disappeared forever. Have really not kept up with the Mule since then, although looking through the catalog there are a few I would have liked to have.

There have been some excellent memes through this process. Kudos to those who have been making them!

[JRinFL]

I strongly suspect the flipper bots are causing all the issues. They can try over and over far faster than any human can hit refresh.

Also, I really want to post mine on eBay with $1.2 Billion* Buy It Now price. Then have a long and angry screed about flippers ruining every single thing as the description. But I won't.


*Maybe Elon, or Bill, or Jeff really want one?

[troutinCO]

Already one on eBay for $225, and it has to be someone who bought one in person because they have pics of it.

*Ships from Littleton Colorado.

One household got 4 total ahead of me in the line. The wife buying them didn't look enthused about being there.

[bjz]

Already one on eBay for $225, and it has to be someone who bought one in person because they have pics of it.

*Ships from Littleton Colorado.

One household got 4 total ahead of me in the line. The wife buying them didn't look enthused about being there.

So glad I’m not participating in this! I have enough to be worried about here at work…

[timlara]

I strongly suspect the flipper bots are causing all the issues. They can try over and over far faster than any human can hit refresh.

Exactly. I guarantee you that's the root cause of problems on most of these types of drops. It's a cat-and-mouse game between the people making the bots and the various e-commerce shopping cart systems that retailers use. I suspect a company like Spyderco has limited resources to spend on keeping up with the latest and greatest bot mitigation technologies, especially since it's not a very good investment for them as the bot people will just come up with new tricks next week.

(Someone like a sports betting company, on the other hand, would have a huge incentive to spend tons of money making sure that their systems are able to handle attacks during big events...even still, those kind of events sometimes get hit, too.)

[WilliamMunny]

In all my trying it looks like I placed two orders.

1. 2 Mules, 1 Sheath - No confirmation or email but CC got charged.

2. 2 Mules - Got confirmation and email. CC charged.

Called the store and was told if two orders are going to the same address they would cancel one so I should not worry. Gave my name and information just in case. He said it’s happened a few times. Makes sense it could happen with the load on the server, sale goes through but times out before it sends the email and confirmation page.

[ladybug93]

Now I wonder...After all this and people that scored after an hour or two of trying...how many will actually provide some feedback on use and sharpening in the Mule Team subforum?? I'll put money on less than a handful

i plan on using mine as a regular fixed blade. unfortunately, i don't have time for a ton of testing and use, but i will absolutely use it an give my opinion for what it's worth. sadly, i've never been able to snag a mule before, so i can't make a completely accurate comparison, but i suspect it will still be interesting to see how it handles. if it's as good as i'm thinking it will be, i really hope to see a g10 manix in the near future.

[Rinzler]

Already one on eBay for $225, and it has to be someone who bought one in person because they have pics of it.

*Ships from Littleton Colorado.

One household got 4 total ahead of me in the line. The wife buying them didn't look enthused about being there.

I saw that too…

[z1r]

Already one on eBay for $225, and it has to be someone who bought one in person because they have pics of it.

*Ships from Littleton Colorado.

One household got 4 total ahead of me in the line. The wife buying them didn't look enthused about being there.

I saw that too…

Yeah, they were in line right behind me. The baby sure wasn't happy about being there.

[resonanzmacher]

I strongly suspect the flipper bots are causing all the issues. They can try over and over far faster than any human can hit refresh.

Also, I really want to post mine on eBay with $1.2 Billion* Buy It Now price. Then have a long and angry screed about flippers ruining every single thing as the description. But I won't.

These people LIKE dog eat dog and your anger is music to their ears. At least, that's what they say when you confront them. I'm just glad not to live in their world or think like them.

I'm trying to think of a process Spyderco could use to foil them, preregistration, a lottery, a minimum timeout period between reloads, continuous monitoring and termination of access like you try to do with DDOS, marking each Mule Team with an individual serial number and then blacklisting everyone whose order turns up on eBay within a specified amount of time, naming and shaming on the forum... but the truth is, everything I think of that might actually work here would be incompatible with a purchase price of 75 bones.

Would I pay more for a process that's assured to be smoother? Probably, but I'll be damned if I want to be a part of the gentrification of the Mule Team project. A lot of folks would probably prefer a process like this if it kept the price where it is, over a smoother process that came with the sort of markup that'd be necessary to cover the cost but they'd find impossible to afford. As far as I'm concerned their access is more important than my convenience. I'm lucky already.

I'm sure if I hadn't managed to successfully purchase mine I'd be a lot less sanguine about everything right now. As it stands it was my first direct-from-Spyderco drop and I didn't know what to expect other than that it'd be a bit of a trial. It was deeply frustrating but if I'd understood that sticking with it for over an hour and 20 minutes would pay off, I'd probably just have set my jaw and went about it in silence. Without anything else to compare it to, my assumption was that it would go like many drops in other places where you'd be SOL if you couldn't get your order in in the first five minutes. When I called in I frankly expected no one to answer; instead someone actually got on and was like 'we know it's an issue, we're trying to fix it, in the meantime keep at it and your order will go through' and if I hadn't gotten that statement I probably would have abandoned the effort or slowed it down enough not to finally get one in the end. So while definitely not perfect, this process ended up being more satisfactory than a lot of businesses I know would have made it.

[Evil D]

[mk2rocco]

I had no idea how difficult it is to get a Mule. Was this release a particularly popular one? Took me one hour to finally make it to check out.

[Rinzler]

Already one on eBay for $225, and it has to be someone who bought one in person because they have pics of it.

*Ships from Littleton Colorado.

One household got 4 total ahead of me in the line. The wife buying them didn't look enthused about being there.

I saw that too…

[Big_Tex]

I was able to get two along with two sets of scales.
I’m excited to put the Magnacut through its paces… will be beating on it for sure!

[Chleiti]

You know you have good coworkers when somebody walks up to your desk with a (fairly important) question and is fully willing to accept "sorry, I'm trying to buy this knife that just dropped" as a reason why they're getting somewhat less than half your attention. He then asked what kind of knife it was, recognized the Spyderco brand, and was very excited when I told him about buying direct with the OpFocus discount.

Speaking of, the mules are already such a good price that I couldn't believe it when my cart loaded and the additional discount still applied. Extremely awesome of Spyderco to do that.

[troutinCO]

I haven't even pulled mine out yet to look at them. They are down in the truck waiting for me though. I bought 2, the last 2 mules I bought I only got 1 of that example.
I bought the second one of this mule with the idea that I want to do some "destructive" testing with one of them. You know just really abuse the heck out of it, for science and country. Its going to take some time for me to forget about the money on one of them before I get to doing that though.
The other knife will see normal use...

[VooDooChild]

I completely forgot.

[RamZar]

Will Spyderco ship the MagnaCut orders today?

Just a couple of business days away from CO to CA via UPS Ground.

[Chleiti]

Will Spyderco ship the MagnaCut orders today?

Just a couple of business days away from CO to CA via UPS Ground.

Got to love that the entire state of Virginia appears to have fallen into its own inexplicable shipping black hole.

[JRinFL]

I strongly suspect the flipper bots are causing all the issues. They can try over and over far faster than any human can hit refresh.

Also, I really want to post mine on eBay with $1.2 Billion* Buy It Now price. Then have a long and angry screed about flippers ruining every single thing as the description. But I won't.

These people LIKE dog eat dog and your anger is music to their ears. At least, that's what they say when you confront them. I'm just glad not to live in their world or think like them.

I'm trying to think of a process Spyderco could use to foil them, preregistration, a lottery, a minimum timeout period between reloads, continuous monitoring and termination of access like you try to do with DDOS, marking each Mule Team with an individual serial number and then blacklisting everyone whose order turns up on eBay within a specified amount of time, naming and shaming on the forum... but the truth is, everything I think of that might actually work here would be incompatible with a purchase price of 75 bones.

Would I pay more for a process that's assured to be smoother? Probably, but I'll be damned if I want to be a part of the gentrification of the Mule Team project. A lot of folks would probably prefer a process like this if it kept the price where it is, over a smoother process that came with the sort of markup that'd be necessary to cover the cost but they'd find impossible to afford. As far as I'm concerned their access is more important than my convenience. I'm lucky already.

I'm sure if I hadn't managed to successfully purchase mine I'd be a lot less sanguine about everything right now. As it stands it was my first direct-from-Spyderco drop and I didn't know what to expect other than that it'd be a bit of a trial. It was deeply frustrating but if I'd understood that sticking with it for over an hour and 20 minutes would pay off, I'd probably just have set my jaw and went about it in silence. Without anything else to compare it to, my assumption was that it would go like many drops in other places where you'd be SOL if you couldn't get your order in in the first five minutes. When I called in I frankly expected no one to answer; instead someone actually got on and was like 'we know it's an issue, we're trying to fix it, in the meantime keep at it and your order will go through' and if I hadn't gotten that statement I probably would have abandoned the effort or slowed it down enough not to finally get one in the end. So while definitely not perfect, this process ended up being more satisfactory than a lot of businesses I know would have made it.

Well said!

I too have thought of ways to make the system better, but they all lead to price increases as you stated.