2025 Factory Seconds Sale

[sal]

Could be the haul from more than one person? Looks like a lot for one person?

sal

[vivi]

I would guess that the pics are of the displays. We have limits on how many one can purchase. Mostly to hamper resellers.

sal

I don't think so... I think it's his haul for today:

is that a 5" police and a new chinook I see in the acrylic mock up display???

[TkoK83Spy]

Wild!!! Red Leader is a mad man!!

[MOPs_Overlord]

Unbelievable!! One day I will attend this event. Thanks for sharing all the pictures.

[WilliamMunny]

Could be the haul from more than one person? Looks like a lot for one person?

sal

Looks like he has his son with him. Awesome hobby for a father and son.

[yablanowitz]

Yep, father and son, so they could get fifty pieces, but that may be what they picked up to sort through.

[dullmaker]

Could it be that he was picking out the best of his initial picks? Great picture!

[Pokey]

That's going to take more than one red bag at the cash register.

[Red Leader]

Haha I figured those pics would generate some interest! I even sent that picture to my wife with something like ‘hey guess what we picked up’ lol


But NO unfortunately we did not come home all those, that would be insane! I’ve got kids to feed! And we NEVER buy to resell. But getting to sort out what we wanted was so much fun. The finding and the sorting was a really enjoyable process. And it gave us a really great opportunity to get some of these more special/desireable knives into the hands of some true Spydie fans.


Here is a more realistic photo after we whittled it down a LOT more, and not including those knives in the upper right hand corner…





After all is said and done, here is our final haul:



15 in total. 5 are my sons (he had been saving up for an entire year for this one day), 5 are mine and the other 5 are gifts for coworkers and family.


HARD decisions had to be made to keep it reasonable, but we were quite happy to see some of the more special ones find new homes with people who really appreciated them.


We finally made it home after a long (but great) couple of days. We’ve got a lot of unpacking to do, but I will be doing a whole writeup of our experience, including some observations and intersting stories.


An absolutely HUGE shoutout to the entire Spyderco crew, who put their heart and soul into this event to make it such a wonderful experience for all of us. Their help and generosity were completely off the charts and we are in complete gratitude, and I can say the same for some of the incredible members of this forum as well. Just wonderful people all the way around - feeling very blessed right now!

[sal]

It's really great to see what the event evolved into after more than 40 years.

Thanx much and Congrats to all involved.

sal

[toxophilus]

I purposely kept my haul small this year and almost made it out of there with just the K390 Stretch XL that I had been on the hunt for... except I couldn't leave the 15v lightweights to languish



Another highlight was the gift that Eric Glesser graciously gave us on Thursday while in line, this is a laser cut out for the blanks that are used to produce the Moran Damasteel upswept model...

[PwNAR3S]

It's really great to see what the event evolved into after more than 40 years.

Thanx much and Congrats to all involved.

sal

Thank you Sal and your amazing team for putting on this sale every year! Your team does an amazing job every year and I'm always impressed at how well they handle these days!

This year will be extremely special for me as I brought my son for the first time and not only that but the "candy man" stopped and actually gave him his first Spyderco knife!

I've been coming off and on since the the late 2000's and will continue on now with my son as he got bit by the bug!

[Red Leader]

It's really great to see what the event evolved into after more than 40 years.

Thanx much and Congrats to all involved.

sal

@sal your crew were absolutely amazing, joyously serving everywhere I saw. I’d name them but I’m sure I’d leave someone out and they were all top notch. I really saw a lot of the ‘happy thoughts’ mindset that you actively steward on display.


I’m too tired tonight for a bigger recap but I’ll post more later and I got a LOT of pictures for y’all!

[Pokey]

Shopping for a few hours and chatting with lots of people, spending an hour cleaning the gooey price stickers off of sixteen blades and dusting off the edges with the Sharpmaker, and one Band-Aid later:

[Manixguy@1994]

Fantastic event ! Congratulations to all who found knives to enjoy. MG2

[WilliamMunny]

Haha I figured those pics would generate some interest! I even sent that picture to my wife with something like ‘hey guess what we picked up’ lol


But NO unfortunately we did not come home all those, that would be insane! I’ve got kids to feed! And we NEVER buy to resell. But getting to sort out what we wanted was so much fun. The finding and the sorting was a really enjoyable process. And it gave us a really great opportunity to get some of these more special/desireable knives into the hands of some true Spydie fans.


Here is a more realistic photo after we whittled it down a LOT more, and not including those knives in the upper right hand corner…





After all is said and done, here is our final haul:



15 in total. 5 are my sons (he had been saving up for an entire year for this one day), 5 are mine and the other 5 are gifts for coworkers and family.


HARD decisions had to be made to keep it reasonable, but we were quite happy to see some of the more special ones find new homes with people who really appreciated them.


We finally made it home after a long (but great) couple of days. We’ve got a lot of unpacking to do, but I will be doing a whole writeup of our experience, including some observations and intersting stories.


An absolutely HUGE shoutout to the entire Spyderco crew, who put their heart and soul into this event to make it such a wonderful experience for all of us. Their help and generosity were completely off the charts and we are in complete gratitude, and I can say the same for some of the incredible members of this forum as well. Just wonderful people all the way around - feeling very blessed right now!

How did you narrow that down, almost like abandoning your children. Haha. Some great picks.

[Dnwrghtsr]

I have been to 5 seconds sales. I do have an issue with people grabbing multiples of the same knife then not buying any of them. If I had gone Rex121 and the Kapara exclusive would have been my top two knives. Maybe there were a plethora of both. No big deal. But it’s a pain going around to find what you want out of other people’s discard pile.

[sal]

Hi PwNAR3S,

Welcome to our forum. Glad you enjoyed the event.

sal

[WilliamMunny]

I have been to 5 seconds sales. I do have an issue with people grabbing multiples of the same knife then not buying any of them. If I had gone Rex121 and the Kapara exclusive would have been my top two knives. Maybe there were a plethora of both. No big deal. But it’s a pain going around to find what you want out of other people’s discard pile.

I haven’t been but I can see how it can be a total pain. I am guessing they take multiple to pick the best one.

I know it would suck to grave one 121 think you fine only to find a major flaw in it and now the rest gone.

I agree the S90V Kapara was a must pickup, the price on the 10V Shaman was pretty amazing too.

[Red Leader]

Haha I figured those pics would generate some interest! I even sent that picture to my wife with something like ‘hey guess what we picked up’ lol


But NO unfortunately we did not come home all those, that would be insane! I’ve got kids to feed! And we NEVER buy to resell. But getting to sort out what we wanted was so much fun. The finding and the sorting was a really enjoyable process. And it gave us a really great opportunity to get some of these more special/desireable knives into the hands of some true Spydie fans.


Here is a more realistic photo after we whittled it down a LOT more, and not including those knives in the upper right hand corner…





After all is said and done, here is our final haul:



15 in total. 5 are my sons (he had been saving up for an entire year for this one day), 5 are mine and the other 5 are gifts for coworkers and family.


HARD decisions had to be made to keep it reasonable, but we were quite happy to see some of the more special ones find new homes with people who really appreciated them.


We finally made it home after a long (but great) couple of days. We’ve got a lot of unpacking to do, but I will be doing a whole writeup of our experience, including some observations and intersting stories.


An absolutely HUGE shoutout to the entire Spyderco crew, who put their heart and soul into this event to make it such a wonderful experience for all of us. Their help and generosity were completely off the charts and we are in complete gratitude, and I can say the same for some of the incredible members of this forum as well. Just wonderful people all the way around - feeling very blessed right now!

How did you narrow that down, almost like abandoning your children. Haha. Some great picks.

It was extremely difficult. Both the Military 2 in 15V and the pink/black Yojimbo were on the ‘list’ I had, but the hardest part of the entire day was busting out the calculator before heading to the register, and then the clock is ticking and you have to get home for dinner.


I probably picked up and opened at least 100 Military 2s in 15V, maybe more. Literally, there must have been hundreds there. After a while I started wondering just why they were all there. I mean, some had rough action, and others were plenty off-centered, but some seemed absolutely stellar. At all times throughout the day, I had about 10 M2s in my basket, to sort and find one I liked best…





What gave me the willpower to release it was the fact that the one I was closing in on ended up saying to me ‘I don’t have a strong detent…’ over and over. On a knife that long, a secure blade is paramount, and I had sort of neglected that thought throughout the day.

And…if the supply was any indication, it would not surprise me at all if we still see a boatload of them next year. There were SO many.


Regarding the pink Yojimbo, there were also equal numbers of them…I mean hundreds. You’ll see in some of the other pictures I will post up, just about every single case of knives at any given time had at least 1 of each, and usually more. I saw on avg about 2-3 15V Military 2s in each case, and about 2 pink Yojimbos. I only saw 1-2 pink Yojumbos.


Nearly every single Yojimbo had a case of lock stick, and some were pretty bad. Sticky blades on some, and sticky locks on nearly all. If I had to be honest though, I bet both of those issues would probably self correct over time.

Since there were also hundreds, I figure if I still feel the same way about them next year, there will be plenty to choose from.

Others were much harder. There was a crucarta PM2 with an action to die for, it was so, so good. There were a LOT of crucartas that had great action - they stand out to me as one of the most consistent Golden models, and that seems to hold true in the Seconds dept as well. Another was that bumblebee PM2 Salt in the picture that had a better action than even my handpicked one riding in my pocket that very moment, but sanity prevailed, despite outstanding prices, regarding buying duplicate knives on a limited budget. But for $100 and $115, respectively, one could not find better blades on the planet.


Another really hard one was the Caly 3.5. Yes, we had not only one, but 2, in our cart near the end of the day. One was found by a guy next to me and just randomly asked me if I wanted it, the other was found by my son. But these were ‘open box’ I believe so the pricing for just one knife would have put quite a dent in the budget, so we had to let those go. I would have LOVED one, but all is well. I will stick probably pick one up in the future. A very elegant knife and, as some have remarked, very ‘Spyderco’.


Another one was the $74 left-handed Military I found. Actually found about 3 of them, and almost ended keeping the one with the best action, but even that one was pretty stiff and had to let it go. Nice to know that they can be found. Another was the Vallotton, which I wouldn’t think I would see there, but my son found it. Would haved loved that one too, but another open box so it was still very pricey (to me) and had moderately heavy lock stick.


I have so many pictures, for those of you that weren’t able to attend I’d really like it to feel like you were there. Hopefully some of you can make it out, which would be wonderful.

Some fun stuff ahead…






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