We will now interrupt the regularly scheduled programming for this Good Old Blaze micro podcast. In my recent interview with uh David Nemerson, I'd been thinking a lot more about uh what he mentioned about like this the symbiosis between collectors and makers, and I I kind of wanted to expound on that a little bit more because even though we covered, and I think um you might get the point uh at a high level, um, I kind of want to go into like what sales look like uh looks like and what investment looks like for the maker, and how uh makers and collectors and users um or customers kind of all play a role in in how at the end of the day a a custom maker or a handmade knife maker uh actually gets you know paid and you know makes makes some type of living or reputation for themselves. Okay. So the uh let's talk first about the sales process itself for a maker. So uh typically you have two different avenues that a maker will go down for sales, they'll either keep books, which are you know individual uh names and what it is that they want, or no books, and it's uh you know, they make what they want. And within those top uh two uh categories, so when when a maker keeps books, typically if they're a full custom maker, uh you get to pick everything out. So uh, you know, maybe maybe they're making a blade custom for you based off of a design, or maybe they're doing a rendition of something, or maybe one of their models, uh, and you get to choose everything. So in in their books, they'll have every bit of the specification for how they build that, and then when they get done with it, um, you know, you pay for it. Sometimes uh they'll ask for a deposit, sometimes they won't. It just depends. And then uh other makers will do like they they make what they want. So it's it's their their patterns or uh designs that they really like, or something like that. And uh, you know, whenever it's time for you to come up on their books, uh then they'll usually ask for money, or if they're done with it, they'll ask for money. So there's a lot there's a lot of different ways to accept money uh for things, but on the no book side, you have uh a categories or uh inside of that category, you have uh subcategories like first come, first serve, uh lotos and raffles, it's typically a and then you have like show stock. All right. So the idea is um each sales avenue that you go down, um, it has its own like marketing and sales pitfalls. All right. So when you're uh doing books, you you rely very, very heavily on the person that's going to be on your books and that's occupying a spot and also contributing towards what you think your lead times are going to be, um, actually paying up whenever it comes time uh for their knife to be ready. All right. Um some makers will make the thing and then uh and then if a customer does not buy that thing or doesn't want to to buy it because they're like, okay, well I'm broke now. Uh sorry, I wasn't a year ago, uh, then they'll try to sell it off. Well, then they could lose money on that. Maybe nobody wants you know the particular configuration that this customer was asking for. Um you could also have people who just genuinely uh you know want to get on your books and think they'll have the uh the money, but then you know they don't, and then they want to skip further on the line or whatever. Well, I mean, they'll then they go directly back to the very uh back of your books and start from there. So I mean, if you have you know one, three, five-year books, then uh they lose their opportunity. Um I don't know. Uh books are books I feel uh have a little bit of pressure associated with them too, because um if you're if you want to do something interesting, if you want to do something that is outside of the vein of your books, then you kind of gotta uh be clear about that up pretty upfront with your customers. That's you know, I I you know I take orders that are interest interesting to me. I make stuff that's interesting to me. I also keep books, and this is my uh this is all things factored in. So I want to be able to make other knives on the side in addition with filling my books, and so this is what my lead time is for you know, all things considering with with you know with with whatever you have on your books. Right. I hope that makes sense. With no books, um, you don't have that same kind of pressure, but you have to be able to make a knife, and then you have to be able to sell that knife, and it becomes a lot more difficult when you do no books in some ways, because um whether it's first come, first serve, lotto, or raffle, like whatever these sales um mechanisms are that you're using, um, a hundred percent of what you make um is invested up front by you, and you circulate the thing that you've made in the market and hope that somebody picks it up. Um I ultimately like this model more because there's less pressure to build things that maybe maybe I want to build one or two of, but you know, I've I've had situations where I've made one of something and a lot of people like it, and they're like, okay, hey, can I get on your books or whatever? And then I'm making like, I don't know, like 20 burden trouts. And at some point in time, even though I I don't mind making anything that I make, um, 20 of the same thing can really just be a pain. I don't know. Um when you're when you don't keep books, uh, first come, first serve is is the best if you know customers are looking for your knife, they see it and they can they can grab it, they don't have to wait, right? A lotto's uh iffy, right? Because you have to have a few people who want to buy your knife. And so lotto's uh just let me explain that. A lotto is you have so many people who um who might say that they want to buy it, and it's uh it's whatever your strike price is. So like let's just say I'm selling something for $900, and maybe there's four or five people that are like, okay, I'm in for this lotto, and then whoever wins the lotto pays the price for the knife. Um with raffles, um, you you're basically selling seats. So if it's $900, it's separated out between so so many seats or so many spots, and and you know, individuals buy those up until uh the $900 have been met or the total spots have been met. Um sometimes there's like open lotos uh too. I'm kind of going back to the lotto thing where uh you can uh uh set like there's there's there's bidding, um, so it's more of like an auction than it is a real lotto, uh, but it's an open end where you know anybody can jack up the price and has to pay for that allegedly. Um I've seen some where you know the the uh the top end bid, they they won that uh thinking that they might have been uh outbid, and then they're like, oh sorry, I don't have the money right now. So each one of these comes with a certain amount of risk to the maker. Um and then you know, if if anybody drops out of things, you got to go back through and do a bunch of paperwork and figure out you know who was the last person to respond, who's entitled to the next spot, and it just takes a long time. Um so with each one of these, I think it's kind of um I don't yeah, pick your poison, right? Whether it's books or whether it's no books, uh, there's there's pitfalls to each. What it uh when talking about kind of the symbiosis of maker to um to collector or user, um, I think it's important to understand that a a given knife uh costs something to make. And the most expensive component of that is typically the maker's time. Now uh materials for a standard knife, if you can keep it within $100, well, each knife you know costs at least $100. But let's talk about some of these like fads that are that are you know pop around where uh people want Westinghouse uh Macar like Ivory or they want uh stainless Damascus like Damasteel or something. Well, uh something that you have to be aware of is that Damasteel's um current price is somewhere between 11 and 18 dollars per inch of material. So, you know, maybe you can get a few blades out of a few inches, depends on how wide and long it is, but you know, you're talking you know, thirty thirty plus bucks for the blade itself. Then you have um, you know, if you're doing pocket knives, you might have springs or you might have other mechanisms that you have to take into account. Uh, all that adds up. You know, sometimes uh, you know, Ivorite can go for you know four or five hundred dollars per scale set, and you might only get one knife out of it. So uh you think about that, so instantaneously uh uh add another five hundred dollars onto that. Um in it's very difficult for a maker to produce a certain types of work when they don't have books and they don't have anybody who wants that, unless they're even a very high, highly demanded uh maker uh to put you know four hundred dollars worth of scale material on it, uh another seven hundred dollars in Damascus or whatever, and and all the time that it takes to make sure that you don't screw up those precious materials is a lot of money. Um and so any way that you look at it, when you get a blade from a from a handmade or custom maker, uh you are you are almost never paying for what that what that knife actually costs to make from a time perspective. Because like other other professionals might get $200 or $250 an hour, um, but uh rarely will a knife maker even break $25 an hour, which is not not an incredible amount when you think about it. Um they might have you know 15, 20, you know, 50 hours in a very basic thing, uh up to hundreds or or thousands of hours, depending on if they're doing something in the in the art knife or very sophisticated um um realm of things. And so you gotta you gotta remember um e whatever you're paying for knives is not enough. And I don't mean that in a condescending way, I mean it in the sense that a maker is almost never charging that much for their time. Uh it's cost of material plus a little bit of time, usually. Um, and that's that's kind of where where the market kind of caps out at. Um so when a collector is willing to say that they will buy whatever a maker makes, or they have a particular preference on things, like maybe they like stag, sandbar stag, rad stag, whatever. Maybe they like uh jigbone uh certain types of maccard or whatever, and they like a specific pattern. Um, anytime a uh a customer, potential customer says, Hey, I like these things, and whatever you make, I'm like I love the way that you do things, uh, you know, just give me whatever whatever it is. Um I'll I'll be waiting. Uh, it's a lot easier to make the thing. Because if I have you know two, three, four hundred dollars on something or more, right? There's I mean, there's lots of makers on the upper end of things that spend tens of thousands of dollars on material, so I'm not really complaining, but uh think about it uh from from my tier of the kind of knives that I make, um, which is you know typically the 300 to like uh $2,000 range. Um in in a situation like that, I might have you know $400 in it, but if they're willing to buy it from me and I know that there's that um that there's that business waiting, I will usually try to push the envelope a little bit more and make something that maybe doesn't feel so safe to me. Like maybe I'll put certain embellishments on it, or maybe I'll do certain things that just to me push my R um more. And I I like that relationship because I I can be free with things, but at the same time I also know that um there's a higher likelihood that I'll get paid for it um for the for that the material investment and everything. Um and and as a if you're listening to this and you're a collector um or you're a user of knives, um, I I think it's important just to remember that you are vitally important to makers and and keeping their craft alive. And I've seen over the years lots of makers wash out because they've gotten into um going full-time thinking that the market was gonna sustain them and then it kind of dries up. Um and uh there you know, there's only so much innovation you can do in an area. Um but if somebody rides a fad uh thinking that their knives will always be um purchased from people and then it dries up, well then they have they have to go back to reality. Um and you know, I I see a lot of slip joint makers now. Uh there's kind of been a paradigm shift with with slip joints and pocket knives where everybody's like, well, everybody loves pocket knives because they fit in the pocket, so let's make pocket knives. And the problem is is as the economy tightens up, um, there's lots of really, really, really good and uh longevity driven makers out there that are producing phenomenal work for not that much money, and it's really difficult to break into the pocket knife market. Um, it gets even worse when you think about the fact that there's only so much money to go around and and there's several niche like um you know meta niches uh involved with pocket knives, especially slip joints. So it's it's one of those things where it the more reassurance that we makers have that we can make something and sell it, um, the more that we exp can expand into um uh I don't know, more sophisticated uh forms of art, like more like tighter tolerances and embellishments and materials and things like that. Where if you have to make an economy knife and you have to get it out as quickly as possible because you can't, you know, you can't sell it for four or five hundred dollars, you have to sell it for three twenty-five. Um, you know, that that amount of money makes a bunch of difference and then you have to make things in a semi-production manner and just try to get them out and sell 'em as quickly as you can in order to make ends meet. And that's difficult. Uh, because there's um if you're a handmade knife maker, uh semi-production and production work is difficult because it's a completely different mode of thinking when you're making things, you're not really making to an incredibly um high art standard. You're uh you know, you're you're building users and you want it to meet a certain uh specification on quality and everything, but there might be some flaws. Um and those are a lot easier to catch and spend you know an additional 10 hours massaging out scratches and getting symmetry correct and all those things, you know, whatever is the last you know, 5% of a knife, um, it's easier to invest in that when you know you're you're getting paid um uh you know extra to do all that work. But if you're not then you know 10, 15, 20 hours, that might be you know two or three more fixed blades or you know, another slip joint or something like that that you can get double the money for. So you kind of got to think, you know, the economy of it. Um if it is a business and if you're doing it for more than just a hobby that you dump a bunch of money in and hopefully it's you know hopefully it supports you in the in the back end, those are things that we think about a lot. So um collectors, vitally important. I mean, I I I can't I can't stress that enough. Um, it is very, very important to also give feedback to makers and let them know um um you know if they are valued and and um encourage them because it it's very easy sometimes to get caught in the weeds of making things, and sometimes a a little bit of feedback that's not from makers, um but it's from the customer base is is highly um motivational in order just to keep things going. So I hope that helps and gives you some ideas. And uh again, if you have any questions or want to know more about these avenues, you're more than welcome to let me know. Thanks.