Custom anything equals massive depreciation
Nov 15, 2009 1:27:28 GMT
Post by Kilted Cossack on Nov 15, 2009 1:27:28 GMT
Ladies and Gents:
I almost posted this in a response to a knife Skallagrim has for sale, but decided to move it here. (I hate responding to "for sale" posts if I'm not buying, or at least interested in buying, the item for sale.)
Sometimes people get ready to sell a custom-made X (and X can represent just about anything), and then they make a terrible, terrible mistake: they assume they're going to get something close to what they paid for their custom X.
Like the man says, don't ask me how I know.
Now, this is not a knock against custom X's. I'm actually quite fond of them, but they can be a white elephant. The story of the white elephant, as I heard it at least, was that in India white elephants were sacred, or at least special. They were valuable, but because of their sacred/special status. They had to be taken care of, they couldn't be worked, or worked as hard. So giving someone a white elephant was kind of a double-edged sword (ahem, ahem).
I haven't done this with swords (yet), but I've thought about it. I've done it with kilts, and with revolvers. Did you know that the Colt Official Police frame is just perfect for the .41 Special revolver round? The .41 Special doesn't really exist in factory form---it's a .41 Magnum trimmed back, and operated at lower pressure levels. That means you can use a smaller frame size for the .41 Special than you can for the .41 Magnum, plus there's not really a true .41 Magnum frame size, and .41 Magnums are generally made on .44 Magnum frames, but that's neither here nor there.
I've got a custom .41 Special revolver, built by Milt Morrison of QPR on a Colt Trooper frame. As conversions go, this one was actually relatively simple. Bore out the charge holes in the cylinder, use a new .41 barrel blank, mount the front sight, and reblue it. The Trooper was basically a Python without the barrel rib or underlug, and the insane machining that would have had to take place to make a new barrel to match that profile was obviated.
Now, this relatively simple custom work ran me about eight hundred dollars, plus shipping, on top of the price of a early 1960s Trooper. It is elegant, it is balanced, the double action trigger is like a Bach overture or a Shakespeare soliloquy, and if I had to sell it and had six months to find just the right person I might get a third of my money back. In a forced, quick sale, maybe half of that.
It is just right for me. It's my fantasy attempt to show what might have been, what should have been, what I imagine Roy Chapman Andrews strapping on his hip in Inner Mongolia. It also requires custom loaded ammunition, loaded in either rare and pricey custom cases or in trimmed back .41 Magnum brass, it doesn't fit the modern conceptualization of the revolver, and it's hard, just looking at it, to know the time and craftsmanship that went into making it the way it is.
There are other people out there who grok the idea of a medium framed .41 Special. (Hey, it's a good idea, in fact, it's a frickin' great idea, it would have changed the evolutionary direction of handgunning in America, it could even have arguably given the 1911 a run for its money in terms of popularity . . . ah, but never mind, never mind.) The thing is, those guys may already have a custom .41 Special, and if not, they're either not serious, or they're already obsessing and drooling and wasting productive hours dreaming up the exact specifications of their custom .41 Special.
And if your custom X is just a more refined version of an extant model of X . . . hoo boy. Let's say you want a really nice basket hilt in the style of 1746. You've looked at Cold Steel, and you've looked at Windlass, and you've pondered mortuary hilts and suchlike from Hanwei. No, you say, none of them get it quite right. They're all sorta-kinda, mostly right . . . but you're not happy with the rayskin wrap, or the style of the basket hilt, or the distal taper, or the blade profile, or any or all of the foregoing.
So you whistle up a nice custom blade, at ATrim or an Odin (or whatever strikes your fancy) and get in touch with Darkwood Armory and have them put together a really nice (but still reasonable) basket hilt broadsword, and if you want to sell it most people will be comparing it to those same Cold Steel, Windlass and Hanwei versions.
Now, it'll still be a heck of a sword, and a good investment---but it's the kind of investment that you hold onto forever, not the kind that you can flip for a profit in six months. You should never fool yourself that you're getting a Custom X to make money on it. You get a custom X to scratch the itch, to feed your passion, and because it's probably a better hobby than fast horses, old whiskey and young women.
But I still spend my time thinking about custom X's, ya know?
I almost posted this in a response to a knife Skallagrim has for sale, but decided to move it here. (I hate responding to "for sale" posts if I'm not buying, or at least interested in buying, the item for sale.)
Sometimes people get ready to sell a custom-made X (and X can represent just about anything), and then they make a terrible, terrible mistake: they assume they're going to get something close to what they paid for their custom X.
Like the man says, don't ask me how I know.
Now, this is not a knock against custom X's. I'm actually quite fond of them, but they can be a white elephant. The story of the white elephant, as I heard it at least, was that in India white elephants were sacred, or at least special. They were valuable, but because of their sacred/special status. They had to be taken care of, they couldn't be worked, or worked as hard. So giving someone a white elephant was kind of a double-edged sword (ahem, ahem).
I haven't done this with swords (yet), but I've thought about it. I've done it with kilts, and with revolvers. Did you know that the Colt Official Police frame is just perfect for the .41 Special revolver round? The .41 Special doesn't really exist in factory form---it's a .41 Magnum trimmed back, and operated at lower pressure levels. That means you can use a smaller frame size for the .41 Special than you can for the .41 Magnum, plus there's not really a true .41 Magnum frame size, and .41 Magnums are generally made on .44 Magnum frames, but that's neither here nor there.
I've got a custom .41 Special revolver, built by Milt Morrison of QPR on a Colt Trooper frame. As conversions go, this one was actually relatively simple. Bore out the charge holes in the cylinder, use a new .41 barrel blank, mount the front sight, and reblue it. The Trooper was basically a Python without the barrel rib or underlug, and the insane machining that would have had to take place to make a new barrel to match that profile was obviated.
Now, this relatively simple custom work ran me about eight hundred dollars, plus shipping, on top of the price of a early 1960s Trooper. It is elegant, it is balanced, the double action trigger is like a Bach overture or a Shakespeare soliloquy, and if I had to sell it and had six months to find just the right person I might get a third of my money back. In a forced, quick sale, maybe half of that.
It is just right for me. It's my fantasy attempt to show what might have been, what should have been, what I imagine Roy Chapman Andrews strapping on his hip in Inner Mongolia. It also requires custom loaded ammunition, loaded in either rare and pricey custom cases or in trimmed back .41 Magnum brass, it doesn't fit the modern conceptualization of the revolver, and it's hard, just looking at it, to know the time and craftsmanship that went into making it the way it is.
There are other people out there who grok the idea of a medium framed .41 Special. (Hey, it's a good idea, in fact, it's a frickin' great idea, it would have changed the evolutionary direction of handgunning in America, it could even have arguably given the 1911 a run for its money in terms of popularity . . . ah, but never mind, never mind.) The thing is, those guys may already have a custom .41 Special, and if not, they're either not serious, or they're already obsessing and drooling and wasting productive hours dreaming up the exact specifications of their custom .41 Special.
And if your custom X is just a more refined version of an extant model of X . . . hoo boy. Let's say you want a really nice basket hilt in the style of 1746. You've looked at Cold Steel, and you've looked at Windlass, and you've pondered mortuary hilts and suchlike from Hanwei. No, you say, none of them get it quite right. They're all sorta-kinda, mostly right . . . but you're not happy with the rayskin wrap, or the style of the basket hilt, or the distal taper, or the blade profile, or any or all of the foregoing.
So you whistle up a nice custom blade, at ATrim or an Odin (or whatever strikes your fancy) and get in touch with Darkwood Armory and have them put together a really nice (but still reasonable) basket hilt broadsword, and if you want to sell it most people will be comparing it to those same Cold Steel, Windlass and Hanwei versions.
Now, it'll still be a heck of a sword, and a good investment---but it's the kind of investment that you hold onto forever, not the kind that you can flip for a profit in six months. You should never fool yourself that you're getting a Custom X to make money on it. You get a custom X to scratch the itch, to feed your passion, and because it's probably a better hobby than fast horses, old whiskey and young women.
But I still spend my time thinking about custom X's, ya know?
;D
We all start somewhere...
