Is it possible to commission a one off?

[nick800]

Just curious if this is possible. What I would want, is an existing knife with some different materials. So no change in tooling or machine programming.

[The Deacon]

Short answer, no. Only "one off" custom work Spyderco has ever offered is laser engraving, unless you want to commission an entire production run.

[nick800]

Would I be free to sell them? I would maybe finance a 600 sprint run, but i'm not a dealer. Surely Spyderco has no shortage of dealer requested sprints, but who knows.

[Xplorer]

I could be mistaken but I think the run qty is 1200.?.

Changing frame, scale, screw, pin, pivot and other hardware materials on an existing knife is something you can likely get a custom maker or knife modifier to do. Changing the blade material into something Spyderco doesn't make for that knife is a much bigger challenge. What were you thinking of doing?

[The Deacon]

Would I be free to sell them? I would maybe finance a 600 sprint run, but i'm not a dealer. Surely Spyderco has no shortage of dealer requested sprints, but who knows.

Sure, you'd have bought and paid for them, so they'd be yours to do with as you pleased. Not something most folks could afford to gamble on, but Spyderco has done Exclusives for companies that were not knife dealers or distributors. Bayou Shooter, Woodcraft, and Lone Wolf Distributors come to mind.

Minimum run quantity would depend on where the model you're interested in is made. Pretty sure Japanese models require a 1200 piece order. US model run size is lower, and somewhat flexible. No idea how many for the ones made in Taiwan, or even if they'd do it.

[holeshot]

How about a semi custom knife? Could say the PM2 be offered from the factory with existing blade stock and offered with a handful of different G10 scale colors?

[ZrowsN1s]

Anyone know off hand what something like that costs? For a run of pm2's say 1200 pieces? $100 a piece,$120,000? Am I in the ball park? more or less?

[tvenuto]

Anyone know off hand what something like that costs? For a run of pm2's say 1200 pieces? $100 a piece,$12,000? Am I in the ball park? more or less?

You're probably in the ball-park considering some recent sprints went for $150-170.

[yablanowitz]

Anyone know off hand what something like that costs? For a run of pm2's say 1200 pieces? $100 a piece,$12,000? Am I in the ball park? more or less?

Your math needs work. 1200 pieces times 100.00 dollars comes to $120,000.00

How about a semi custom knife? Could say the PM2 be offered from the factory with existing blade stock and offered with a handful of different G10 scale colors?

In other words, once again, "How about a Spyderco Custom Shop?" Has it been six months already? The answer was "No" the last fifty times this was asked. I don't expect it to change this time.

[ZrowsN1s]

Anyone know off hand what something like that costs? For a run of pm2's say 1200 pieces? $100 a piece,$12,000? Am I in the ball park? more or less?

Your math needs work. 1200 pieces times 100.00 dollars comes to $120,000.00

Lulz thanks, I did forget to carry a zero there. :D But what about the $100 buck a unit?

[holeshot]

In other words, once again, "How about a Spyderco Custom Shop?" Has it been six months already? The answer was "No" the last fifty times this was asked. I don't expect it to change this time.[/quote]
Hope springs eternal, just ask JAZZ :)

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Anyone know off hand what something like that costs? For a run of pm2's say 1200 pieces? $100 a piece,$12,000? Am I in the ball park? more or less?

You're probably in the ball-park considering some recent sprints went for $150-170.

Good to see you again tvenuto! I was wondering how you've been. Glad to see you back and posting my friend :)

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Then let's take the OP's question and run with it. Say someone with a lot of money to spend on this wanted to commission Sal and the folks at Spyderco in Golden to reproduce, say, an entire run of Spyderfly Balisong knives, nearly exact duplicates to the original (I am just using these as an example), or, an entire run of Workers, with VG10 blades and FRN handles. If the person had the money and contracted with Spyderco to pay for it all in full, they would make them?

[jabba359]

Would I be free to sell them? I would maybe finance a 600 sprint run, but i'm not a dealer. Surely Spyderco has no shortage of dealer requested sprints, but who knows.

There have been various non-dealers to commission runs, several from forums (EDC, Edge Matters) as well as a radio station (KBPI), so I imagine that if someone is willing to put up the money, Spyderco would be willing to talk to you about it. In fact, the C35 Q lineup was designed to specifically cater to custom orders, though that was some time ago.

This is guesswork on my part, but with Golden models, your order minimum would probably be in the 400-600 unit range (the KBPI Manix 2 and pink Manix 2 exclusives were 500 piece runs), while Japan tends to require 1200 units. I'm not sure if production numbers were released for sprints on the Taiwan models such as the red weave CF, blue weave CF Domino or the BBS M390 Domino, so it's hard to guess what they'll do as a minimum. The Italian-made Edge Matters Forum Pingo was a run of only 300, so small runs are possible.

But what about the $100 buck a unit?

That's really going to depend on materials cost. While Spyderco doesn't tell us what dealer cost is, I suspect it's approximately 50% of MSRP, possibly a little less. So with S30V/G-10 running a MSRP of $210, you're probably looking at $100-105 per unit with a simply a color change. If you're looking for a Damasteel blade with fluted titanium handles, then you'd be looking at $200-300+ a unit.

[aquaman67]

I think there's a number that would make it happen. It might be a really big number. But there's a number.

[ZrowsN1s]

So if I buy 600 pm2 at $100 a piece and sell them at $150, I will need to to sell 2/3rds of them before I break even. Leaving me with 30,000 in profit if I sell all of them (Before expenses like shipping, storage, website, paypal ect). Not to mention the time you will send putting 600 boxes in the mail... Seems like a hard business to get into. If they'd make a batch of 50 for 5 grand maybe.

[Doc Dan]

Just curious if this is possible. What I would want, is an existing knife with some different materials. So no change in tooling or machine programming.

Why don't you simply write Sal Glesser a letter explaining what you have in mind and ask him?

[yablanowitz]

Just curious if this is possible. What I would want, is an existing knife with some different materials. So no change in tooling or machine programming.

Why don't you simply write Sal Glesser a letter explaining what you have in mind and ask him?

This. If you include a cashier's check for $30,000 to convince him you're not wasting his time, I bet he'd get back to you.

[Leadsled]

As one of the managers in Zuffenhausen once told me, "Alles für Geld".

[ZrowsN1s]

Just curious if this is possible. What I would want, is an existing knife with some different materials. So no change in tooling or machine programming.

Why don't you simply write Sal Glesser a letter explaining what you have in mind and ask him?

I thought this was more of a thought experiment/hypothetical sort of question. More than a, I'm serious enough to drop $30,000 into this idea sort of question. Hence the not wasting Sals or Spyderco's time with email questions about it. But ya if he's that serious, just ask the good folks at Spyderco for a quote.