Economic Trends in the Secondary Knife Market???

[mmadison]

TLDR: Do resale knife market pricing / demand trends act as a useful "heads-up" on the direction of the general economy? Would you use a tool that aggregated this information in real-time and, if so, for what purpose?


Please pardon me if this has been explored in a previous thread. A reasonably diligent search didn't indicate one.

I find it very interesting to follow the trends in the secondary market for knives. By secondary market, I mean p2p or "street" price (Ebay, forum exchanges, FB, etc.); Basically the prices the market supports outside of dealer / manufacturer channels.

Currently, our general (macro) economy seems to be (on paper) running ferociously hot (It is not my intention to discuss whether any of this is "healthy", economically sound, or even sustainable over the long-term). This is also observed in the current v historical prices on many market commodities (energy, lumber, food, etc.), and is especially apparent in collectibles (art, baseball cards, NFT's, etc.).

Having observed the knife market for about 15 years, it seems it has exploded in popularity / demand in the last few years, and the prices seem to reflect as such. One can draw a correlation between the collectible knife market and baseball (sports) cards. Baseball cards, however, have a much larger historical data set regarding current prices compared with macro-economic conditions.

It seems the collectible knife market has, in recent years, begun to scale to that of a data set large enough to draw certain conclusions from, just like baseball cards.

My questions are the following:

-Has anyone created an index, kinda like Beckett magazine is for baseball cards (seems not) and would such a tool be of use to you?
-Could a person forecast general economic trends using pricing / demand data derived from the collectible knife market with a useful degree of accuracy?
-What would Spydieheads use as a consensus market pricing indicator (resale price of production model PM2 with current standard steel and G10, standard VG-10 Delica, etc.)?
-Does the market appear to have "cooled-off" to you in recent months?

The reason I chose to share this, is that it seems to me like the market has cooled a bit since peaking about May / June 2021 (inflation considered). I may be totally off-base or outright wrong, but that is the "gut" feeling I currently have.

How about you?

[samdasnake]

I look at prices on eBay a lot, and it seems to me as well that the market is cooling somewhat. Of course the ridiculous prices set for buy it now sprints and exclusives are still ridiculous. But it seems that auction prices, which tend to reflect real demand, are down a little but recently.

[Manixguy@1994]

I see where you are coming from as far as eBay but to me there are some other factors to consider . One is what is rare and what is not . Let’s face it a lot of early knives are coveted by die hard collectors and production numbers will always come into play . Some knives that only made it a year or two have less volume and will always be unable to satisfy demand down the road . I have been guilty more than once looking at a Spyderco and thinking I want one but never get around to buying the knife and poof the knife is discontinued and no stock available . When viewing rare or vintage Spyderco knives a rather big percentage really aren’t rare as one would believe . Just about everyone here knows a rare Spyderco is when they see one . Does the average person checking the site out know ? Nope . They see huge prices and bids and either jump in or bail out because of cost . So my thought is if there is a softness in the market supply should be a factor that plays in the equation . Sorry so long winded , interesting subject for discussion . MG2

[Josh1973]

I don't see the secondary knife market cooling off anytime soon. Not gonna happen.

[spoonrobot]

I think overall the secondary knife market can only serve as a very coarse measure of the overall economy. When coronavirus panic hit the USA hard in mid-March 2020 nobody was buying anything from online forums or eBay. At one point Bladeforums exchange had no replies to any threads for more than a day. However it remained fairly robust during the Great Recession and other major economic hiccups.

I worked on a script to analyze prices from eBay, Reddit, and Bladeforums which would flow the data to google sheets to create visualizations.

It was a fun distraction for a week or so but I got almost no engagement from hobbyists, and there was no money in the venture so I’ve moved in.

From my vantage point I think overall the secondary knife market is down significantly, with a small handful (relatively, perhaps 75-100 models) with significant excess value being sold here and there. Regular knives are selling less well than they used to because there’s a massive glut in the market. “Hot” models sell well but that’s it, many buyers are looking for a feel-good product and not a useful tool. More so in the past I feel.

I used the release of the Slysz Bowie as a case study, found it interesting. The price has shown even more robust stickiness at $400 since this output but I’m not making any more graphs for the time being.

[cycleguy]

I am letting some of my knife collection go. Mostly PM2, Caly 3, a Native Chief, and BRK fixed blades. I'm not seeing the prices today that knives were selling at just 60 days ago. I know stimulus money and federal unemployment has dried up and I suspect that has something to do with it. Obviously, I voted cooling down. On the flip side, between fleabay and BF, there is a national 24/7 stock market of sorts for knife exchanges ... which I think is a good thing. I would never use knife sales to forecast the general economy!!!!

CG

[cycleguy]

I also heard that there was a shift from buying product to buying services (vacation, travel, hospitality) as covid restrictions started easing. This would parallel the drop in knife sales that some of us are claiming to have seen.

CG

[mmadison]

Spoonrobot,

How cool is that!!! How was it compiled? Daily manual entries? Coded script?

[JacksonKnives]

My (purely amateur) chip-in would be that the whole frame of the economic dynamics has shifted because of the flexibility of taste due to social media as a shaping influence.
E.g.: Tracking prices on one knife will never get you an accurate picture of the larger market; you'd need to correlate with mentions on Instagram and some other relevant factors (releases of similar models from other makers, popularity of custom makers with their collabs).

Even if this kind of deeper algorithm could get you a more accurate trend for knife prices, you'd still have underlying problems of analysis if you want to show correlation to larger economic trends. For example, certain products will go down is sale price, but skyrocket in volume (cf the initial PM2 release and lightweight-variant phenomenon as an indicator of Spyderco's overall success); or how a specific notable product may stagnate, but imitations at other price points may be very successful...

But sure, I'd bet you could find a correlation between secondary market prices and spending on a certain definition of "luxury goods," which will tie into economic factors for certain demographics for sure.

[mmadison]

Jackson (and everyone else),

Absolutely. All considerable points.

Still curious what Spydieheads would consider a "base" currency if Spyderco knives had to be used in place of cash. A silly, pointless, and frivolous idea, I am certainly aware, but would it be a current base-model PM2? Delica 4? Another?

[max808]

From my own observation it seems that especially the collectible aftermarket has become increasingly volatile, from vintage reels and lures to next gen consoles. Base currency would be hard on account of all the different alloys used, personally I'd take a reichsmark over a rouble because it tends to hold value better over time...

[steelcity16]

Looks to be cooling off from it's highs. Production of exclusives and other high end models from other companies seems to have finally caught up to the demand and now most people have more than they need and few can afford to keep collecting every new variant. A lot of exclusives are no longer instant sell-out, so dealers are going to need to be very deliberate in choosing every aspect of future exclusives from the model to the color, scale materials, steel, etc to find that goldilocks combo that will still sell through 1,200 units in a day and not worry about sitting on 10s of thousands of dollars in inventory for a few months because they didn't have the foresight to choose the correct attributes. Where any PM2 exclusive in the past was essentially like printing money and an easy 5 figure single day profit for dealers, it is no longer a guarantee and certainly will need to entail more risk management in making these decisions.

Cru-carta anything will still sell out instantly though for the foreseeable future though as the demand there far outpaces the current supply.

[mmadison]

Is it a completely unreasonable or fool-hardy thought to think that one could hedge against dollar inflation by putting money into useful tools that, also, have a bit of a collectible, or brand-enthusiastic quality to them? Obviously, for example, the Rock Lobster (price) or Smallfly (utility) may not serve to meet these aspirations. A pallet of PM2's or Delicas sitting in a garage or warehouse, however, may hold value more robustly than the current world-currency.

Please poke holes in this idea, or indicate if you think it has merit.

[max808]

...
A pallet of PM2's or Delicas sitting in a garage or warehouse, however, may hold value more robustly than the current world-currency.
...

If by value you mean the lengths that people would go through to get their hands on it, then even a bottle of mineral water is more valuable in certain places than hard coin, which today is basically pig iron. At least Spyderco uses noble alloys in their product line. Source a pallet of serrated H1 and watch your stack increase sevenfold post-apocalypse...

[max808]

To illustrate my point here are a few examples of production folders listed at a premium.

[cycleguy]

I've continued with selling off a large part of my knife collection. Prices seemed to max in July and since then have dropped off some or lots but the hottest models are still holding their premium. Always a bunch of bargain hunters looking to pick one up well below or below current market value.

I too tend to agree with the comment most people have more than they need and most can't keep up with purchasing all the new variants.

People are now yawning at steel that made their desire stir.

[standy99]

Collect vintage watches and the influx of pseudo dealers and just the amount of people in the watch collecting scene in the last 10 years has seen prices skyrocket.

The same did happen in the knife world but I see nowadays the sheer amount of new knives and new steels has and will slow the second hand market a lot.
As steels go out of favour it won’t matter what the knife is. Already think a S30V will sit whilst the same knife in a trendy steel will sell quickly.
(True iconic knives will not change and will stay on a upward price point)

[murphjd25]

Yes and no. GEC is hot, and secondary prices are astronomical. Most other knives not so much, you are lucky to break even, but more times then not will probably lose a few bucks.

[TomAiello]

Is it a completely unreasonable or fool-hardy thought to think that one could hedge against dollar inflation by putting money into useful tools that, also, have a bit of a collectible, or brand-enthusiastic quality to them? Obviously, for example, the Rock Lobster (price) or Smallfly (utility) may not serve to meet these aspirations. A pallet of PM2's or Delicas sitting in a garage or warehouse, however, may hold value more robustly than the current world-currency.

Please poke holes in this idea, or indicate if you think it has merit.

I think there are much better inflation hedges to use. Real estate, for example. Lots of people use bitcoin in that role because it's easy and quick to move in and out of it. Low fee, broad based equity index funds (VTSAX, for example) are my personal preference in that role, though.

[mmadison]

Agreed. Certainly there are better hedges. I am thinking more along the lines of diversifying a small percentage of an overall portfolio.

Would tools retain value better than most physical products in an environment of excessive inflation? For the sake of discussion, let's say "Yes". As they would need to be stored physically - volume, weight, and portability must be considered. It may be safe to say that knives, of some sort, would be near the top of the list. What kind of knife, then? Fixed or folder? Selecting from folders, would a particular brand(s) command a premium? From that brand(s), what model, steel, etc. would maximize the value per sq/ft of stored volume? Obviously some models / steels would be superfluous, with too many bells and whistles.

Just thinking along these lines. It might feel good to have a pallet of plain-jane PM2's sitting in the garage whilst a currency is in flux.

Would you pick the PM2?