Discontinued For 2018 - OFFICIAL List

[SG89]

To be honest i can't really understand the lamentation of models to be discontinued? Simply get one now, or two and move on :)
The ones i lament the most are really old and disco'd donkeys age ago, but the newer ones are still avaliable pretty easily.

my thoughts as well.

[ABX2011]

To be honest i can't really understand the lamentation of models to be discontinued? Simply get one now, or two and move on :)
The ones i lament the most are really old and disco'd donkeys age ago, but the newer ones are still avaliable pretty easily.

Agree completely.
I think some of the angst comes from people who don't have the cash currently and are worried that supply will be gone when they are ready to buy.

[Larry_Mott]

Agree completely.
I think some of the angst comes from people who don't have the cash currently and are worried that supply will be gone when they are ready to buy.

Well that's a valid reason i guess, but lately i have started to put interesting models on hold waiting for the discount before discontinuing.
The Vrango is a good example. I liked it already a year ago but thought it a wee bit too dear back then. Now was the perfect time to snatch one :)

[curlyhairedboy]

To be honest i can't really understand the lamentation of models to be discontinued? Simply get one now, or two and move on :)
The ones i lament the most are really old and disco'd donkeys age ago, but the newer ones are still avaliable pretty easily.

Agree completely.
I think some of the angst comes from people who don't have the cash currently and are worried that supply will be gone when they are ready to buy.

yeah, I think it's the timing that causes the angst. Folks know that there will be a dip in prices, and then a massive hike on the secondary. It's less of a concern for less expensive models, but for stuff like the bowie and southard, if you're not ready to drop a few hundred within a month or so, you might miss out on that pricing forever.

I know I did some liquidation of my collection to free up funds for another Southard. I don't regret it, but I might have done so much more gradually if I knew they'd be going at the end of next year vs the end of this year.

[abbazaba]

Let's pray for a another slimmer Slysz Bowie.I'm sure it's going to be as apreciated as his near extinct brother is :spyder:

Bring on the Slysz Rat!

[bearfacedkiller]

Yeah, the angst is just from funds. It is a lot of great deals all at once and many of us are juggling a lot of different stuff. I have a new home I am doing a lot of improvements on, a family, Christmas coming up and lots of other hobbies all competing for funds. I would love to pick up a Myrtle, Vrango and another Temp2 but I also want to build bee hives for next spring and put in an electric fence before winter hits here. I am gonna pick up a Slysz if it gets a good discount but other than that I am just gonna have to prioritize and watch a few slip by. C'est la vie.

[elena86]

Let's pray for a another slimmer Slysz Bowie.I'm sure it's going to be as apreciated as his near extinct brother is :spyder:

Bring on the Slysz Rat!

https://youtu.be/CihhYwCMouQ

[carrot]

Let's pray for a another slimmer Slysz Bowie.I'm sure it's going to be as apreciated as his near extinct brother is :spyder:

I think I'd really enjoy that if there were a Slysz Bowie that was about half height of the current one. It would look great too!

[phaust]

They will also need to push over new high end flagship, I understand the decision:I guess the bowie sells well but they cannot have new model that are very similar in the destination market, it will kill The new product.

Happy to see new models. But now my expecations went up!

If it sold well, they wouldn't be getting rid of it.

Many of Spyderco's high end/expensive stuff is getting discontinued quickly. I don't think they do well as a company in sales on the higher end. That part of the market isn't huge anyway (just knife nuts with cash to spare), and there is a lot of competition. Beyond that, even among people who love Spyderco, there is more and more rumbling about how prices on everything have crept up.

[bearfacedkiller]

The Slysz is an appealing knife and I have held one and there is no denying how nice it is but the price is high and it is undoubtedly a knife just for knife nuts. I assume that sales have dropped. It is out of reach for many people. A lot of the knives cut this year have been some of Spydero's most expensive.

[archangel]

I already pre-alerted the wifey that another purchase may become inevitable :eek: if the price drops below 200€ (~$230)… and then I‘d only be able to afford it by selling my Chaparral. Right now, the best price I see is around 270€ (~$312) plus tax & duties…

[Flipping Addict]

Yeah, the angst is just from funds. It is a lot of great deals all at once and many of us are juggling a lot of different stuff. I have a new home I am doing a lot of improvements on, a family, Christmas coming up and lots of other hobbies all competing for funds. I would love to pick up a Myrtle, Vrango and another Temp2 but I also want to build bee hives for next spring and put in an electric fence before winter hits here. I am gonna pick up a Slysz if it gets a good discount but other than that I am just gonna have to prioritize and watch a few slip by. C'est la vie.

This is me. Would love to get a couple of these but too much hitting at once. Just need to realize I sadly will not own them and move on.

[bh49]

To be honest i can't really understand the lamentation of models to be discontinued? Simply get one now, or two and move on :)
The ones i lament the most are really old and disco'd donkeys age ago, but the newer ones are still avaliable pretty easily.

Agree completely.
I think some of the angst comes from people who don't have the cash currently and are worried that supply will be gone when they are ready to buy.

Fairly simple. I have my favorite knives. And I believe that all of them are great knives. In the past I always had back-ups as well. So when Spyderco discontinued any of my favorite model, I am all set, but I feel sorry for people who will not be able to experience great knives, unless they will pay $$$.

[Bile Bob]

The slysz Bowie being discontinued has hit me pretty hard. Not a fan of this decision

I thought sales determined which knives are discontinued?

[dplafoll]

The Slysz is an appealing knife and I have held one and there is no denying how nice it is but the price is high and it is undoubtedly a knife just for knife nuts. I assume that sales have dropped. It is out of reach for many people. A lot of the knives cut this year have been some of Spydero's most expensive.

I'm not disagreeing because I don't have data to do so. However, I think it's important to consider production capacity as well as sales here. Maybe if the capacity was there, some of these are still selling well enough, even while expensive, to justify keeping them. But, it seems like there are, and will be, a bunch of new models out of Taichung, and they might be axing some of these older ones to make room when they might not otherwise.

For trivia's sake:
So far this year, from Taichung: EuroEdge, Sustain, Lil' Valloton, Mule 25 ("Taiwan" on Ramzar's thread, not sure), Chaparral Raffir Noble, Lil' Nilakka, Dog Tag Gen 4, Sliverax, One-Eyed Jack, Hundred Pacer. We know the FRN Chaparral is already in QC @ Golden, and unlikely to not be in mass production in general. We're still waiting on the Hanan, Darn Dao, Squarehead FRNs in terms of lower-number models, and then we have to consider the Caribbean (4 models) and the Rhino, both of which will be made in larger numbers. Several of those models may not need too much capacity, but some of them certainly do, and it's also not been too long since the Sage 5, SpydieChef, Magnitude, and Rubicon 2 came out, not to mention the Mantras and Advocate which are coming back as far as we know. And that's also leaving out the other models still in production that still sell (e.g. Sage 1, Techno, Chaparral CF, etc).

I have no doubt that a lot of the disco'd models were too expensive to generate the sales needed to keep around. The OEM made the initial order or orders, and they weren't going to do any more anyways. But I also wouldn't be surprised that some of them were reaching the end of a production run, or were nearing a new production run, and they decided to cut the knife instead based as much or more on production capacity needs rather than just raw sales. If memory serves, the Bowie was recently on back-order, and that Kristi (I think) said somewhere they were about to make more of them. That sounds like they were selling well enough to make another batch, but then it's discontinued right after that. Maybe it's too expensive to generate enough sales, but maybe too they want to free up the production capacity that the knife ties up.

Sorry for the wall of text; I hope I made some sense with what I'm trying to say.

[bearfacedkiller]

For sure, I am sure it is a combination of factors in many cases and capacity is likely one of them. There is no way for us to know what the capacity of that plant is or how close to max it is. Some of the models that have been released recently sure do seem labor intensive and intricate. Also, we can only speculate what they have in the pipeline. Exciting times!!!!

As far as being surprised that knives that knife afi's like get discontinued I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that after a couple of years the GB1 is still available from dealers. I sure thought everybody liked that knife and that has sort of made it clear to me that knife afi's are not all that representative of the market as a whole and that we may not influence as much as we think we do. A part of me thinks a lot of the knives on the list this year were knives for knife nuts sort of like the GB1.

One thing that continues to surprise me is how well Spyderco does at analyzing the market. While they do have their flops that go out on closeout for cheap and others that seem to sit around forever it is also impressive they they can produce the large number of models and large number of variations that they do without seeming to saturate the market. They appear to understand that part quite well. No other company seems to make the variety that they do! Amazing! In order to keep the variety coming you are gonna have to cull some models. Out with the old and in with the new!

[sal]

Hi FX Sniper,

Welcome to our forum.

Interesting discussion and I for one am pleased and impressed that our "family of ELU's" Takes an interest in the "internal workings" of the company.

sal

[SC_PATRIOT]

Got my South fork today. Many places are already sold out. Never can go wrong with a S90v fixed blade!

[zhyla]

For sure, I am sure it is a combination of factors in many cases and capacity is likely one of them.

I work for a company that does large scale production of consumer goods. We will often produce all of the units for a new model in a single run, sometimes all of it being completed before the product is launched. There’s a lot about optimizing your product output that isn’t apparent on the outside.

I can’t imagine it makes sense to make more than a single run of the high end knives. Make 10k or whatever you expect to sell over a few years, let knife people buy them until they’re gone. In the mean time spin up the next piece for collectors.

[Bile Bob]

As far as being surprised that knives that knife afi's like get discontinued I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that after a couple of years the GB1 is still available from dealers. I sure thought everybody liked that knife and that has sort of made it clear to me that knife afi's are not all that representative of the market as a whole and that we may not influence as much as we think we do. A part of me thinks a lot of the knives on the list this year were knives for knife nuts sort of like the GB1.

I think the same same thing about this one: