Major Mizuno Increase

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Whatever.. I'm pumped for a honyaki.

Eventually prices will stabilize. It didn't stop people from buying Konosuke, Kato or Shigefusa.. it won't stop people from buying Mizuno. The price of everything has risen over the years.
 
I'm all for the craftsmen making the money, unfortunately my salary has not risen 50 percent in a few short years. So I will sit back and view from a far the new kono KU knives selling for 550 bucks and stamped HD blades that are selling For 400+ dollars now. Well, hope to get maybe a couple nice ones year now, far cry from the 4 or 5 a month in years past.
 
SatoShin said:
i live in Japan and sometimes have chances to see knife making cities. There are always people talking about how tonya (maybe what you call wholesaler) have fancy houses, fancy cars, fancy offices, and make lots of money, but craftsmen suffer. Many people are trying to make this more equal. In tradition, tonya had a job to take care of and support craftsmen... they deal with customers, help organize, and keep craftsmen busy with work, and craftsmen produce for them. In good times, they order a lot, and in bad times they still try to order to make sure everyone can survive together. They used to spend money to help bring young craftsmen and make sure everyone has good training. In more recent times, tonya have continued to make a lot of money, but craftsmen are not being taken care of. Only recently craftsmen are starting to ask for more. They invest in future. Some tonya are doing same, but not all. In sakai, it is easy to see. In sanjo still you can see. In seki it is hard to see. For example, in Sakai, you can see new Jikko Hamono or Konosuke workshop and president house, but also how craftsmen live. Is very different.
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Very interesting, thanks for the insight! There is obviously a lot of in-depth knowledge of the market...

I agree, a lot/batch outage together with a long overdue increase could explain it, but....

There are a couple of factors that IMHO have a bearing maybe even further than material costs as stated previously, since that factor alone can only account for a percentage of the increse...

a) The internal availability of work force of trained craftsmen available as time passes.
b) Organized workforce dynamics such as wage demands. :happymug:
c) Geographic localization of craftsman. As stated. How artisans organize and produce knives, this has evolved somewhat and is different from region to region.
d) Supply and demand. Brand recognition of brands such as Konosuke seem to increase demand, price ¨levels¨ the gap generated between limited availability and increase in aggregate demand generated by surges internally and abroad. Shigefusa or Kato are a good example of this phenomenon! :spiteful:
e) Aggregate pull when enough brands/artisans perceive an increase. The whole industry (Or at least a large part) seems to follow through. Bandwagon effect! :scratchhead:
f) Supply chain, basically how vertically integrated is it? Has to do with bargaining power and specialization.:scared4:
g) Panic purchasses of Knife-nuts! :wink: I'm willing to bet forums such as this DO have an impact, it depends on elasticity of demand at a given time wether the impact is large or small.
h) Size and internal average structure of workshops, relationship with wholesalers and change in bargaining power.

Interesting discussion! :idea2:
 
Chicagohawkie said:
I'm all for the craftsmen making the money, unfortunately my salary has not risen 50 percent in a few short years. So I will sit back and view from a far the new kono KU knives selling for 550 bucks and stamped HD blades that are selling For 400+ dollars now. Well, hope to get maybe a couple nice ones year now, far cry from the 4 or 5 a month in years past.
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I hope lots of people think the way you do. Maybe the knives I want to purchase can actually stay in stock(probably not gonna happen).
 
Chicagohawkie said:
I'm all for the craftsmen making the money, unfortunately my salary has not risen 50 percent in a few short years. So I will sit back and view from a far the new kono KU knives selling for 550 bucks and stamped HD blades that are selling For 400+ dollars now. Well, hope to get maybe a couple nice ones year now, far cry from the 4 or 5 a month in years past.
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Konosuke is good at marketing and greedy in general in my honest opinion. They know their proucts will sell and capitalize on that fact. A HD is worth $200 max unless your getting captain fancy pants saya and handle. I mean ffs you can get a honyaki with a decent polish for what they want for a standard ku blade with a **** handle.
 
I know prices have risen but I just I'm happy to pay if I know the maker gets their rightful share of the pie... for those who got them for cheaper years ago, consider yourself lucky I guess. I rather see the art and skill of knifemaking continue on.
 
This is a very interesting topic, Jon & Joe have explained this issue much better than I could. Another trend is that, many craftsmen are now taking the pricing into their own hands and trying to market their own brand rather than just working for wholesalers. The industry is changing rapidly as well.
 
@osakajoe What I was questioning was the claim that the price increase was due to an increase in steel price. I wasn't discounting the work of the maker/smith at all!
 
I know I don't understand all of it, but I'd like to. By wholesalers as opposed to direct selling knife houses, would the first category include e.g. Sakai Takayuki, Misono, Masamoto, etc. and the second include e.g. Tanaka, Takeda, Shigefusa, Watanabe, etc.? And so is Mizuno then one of the former?

I'm not asking for an exhaustive list, but the sort of thing that confuses me a little is, for example, Akifusa. Would that fall into the latter category, because they're all made and sold by Yoshikazu Ikeda ('s shop)?
 
Godslayer said:
Konosuke is good at marketing and greedy in general in my honest opinion. They know their proucts will sell and capitalize on that fact. A HD is worth $200 max unless your getting captain fancy pants saya and handle. I mean ffs you can get a honyaki with a decent polish for what they want for a standard ku blade with a **** handle.
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i am not trying to say all of this about konosuke... only to share more about how systems work in places like sakai
 
GorillaGrunt said:
I know I don't understand all of it, but I'd like to. By wholesalers as opposed to direct selling knife houses, would the first category include e.g. Sakai Takayuki, Misono, Masamoto, etc. and the second include e.g. Tanaka, Takeda, Shigefusa, Watanabe, etc.? And so is Mizuno then one of the former?

I'm not asking for an exhaustive list, but the sort of thing that confuses me a little is, for example, Akifusa. Would that fall into the latter category, because they're all made and sold by Yoshikazu Ikeda ('s shop)?
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Mizuno is more like a wholesaler than a craftsman, but there is much talking about how they seem more like a craftsman to people not from sakai. Also, I have not heard of Ikeda-san making akifusa brand. He is just blacksmith... maybe this is misunderstanding?
 
SatoShin said:
Mizuno is more like a wholesaler than a craftsman, but there is much talking about how they seem more like a craftsman to people not from sakai. Also, I have not heard of Ikeda-san making akifusa brand. He is just blacksmith... maybe this is misunderstanding?
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this IS interesting, care to elaborate further?
 
When I was approached, years ago, by Japanese wholesalers looking to have me sell Japanese knives I was shocked (yes- shocked!) to learn of the mark ups I could charge. I inquired a bit about the pricing scheme and was told more or less what I should charge and not to question this. The idea was that the product pricing should be supported (I suppose like MSRP?) and that everyone in the chain was making money. I could clearly see that if I was making say $100 on a $300 knife that the maker was making just about nothing because the wholesaler was also making something, what's left for the craftsman?

On a slightly related topic, there are some shady retailers taking advantage of US knifemakers too. No risk (to the retailer) consignment sales where the maker gives up $200+ to the retailer? Screw that! If I need $550 to barely make anything and I have to give a retailer $200 of that, I'd sink instantly. Maybe if I could pump out a volume or I needed their presence to market my goods it might make sense but for most of us that's just taking a hosing.
 
Dave Martell said:
When I was approached, years ago, by Japanese wholesalers looking to have me sell Japanese knives I was shocked (yes- shocked!) to learn of the mark ups I could charge. I inquired a bit about the pricing scheme and was told more or less what I should charge and not to question this. The idea was that the product pricing should be supported (I suppose like MSRP?) and that everyone in the chain was making money. I could clearly see that if I was making say $100 on a $300 knife that the maker was making just about nothing because the wholesaler was also making something, what's left for the craftsman?

On a slightly related topic, there are some shady retailers taking advantage of US knifemakers too. No risk (to the retailer) consignment sales where the maker gives up $200+ to the retailer? Screw that! If I need $550 to barely make anything and I have to give a retailer $200 of that, I'd sink instantly. Maybe if I could pump out a volume or I needed their presence to market my goods it might make sense but for most of us that's just taking a hosing.
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It's true, I recently started dabbling with wholesalers in japan I could commission blades for hundreds upon hundreds of dollars cheaper than off the shelf from various us merchants, i.e. I actually sent the wholesaler a link to a us vendors website and asked how much to get that exact blade but with custom specs and found out I could save over $600 usd on the knife, literally same maker, same materials(actually I wanted a slightly taller blade, so more materials). I'm positive most japanese smiths are making minimal profits even with their insane output, I know a few smiths have started selling the blades directly to the end user which I am sure helps them greatly.
 
This thread is great. It's nice to see how things work in Japan.
I wonder if western sellers who work directly with the smiths have lesser markup or share more profit with the craftsmen?
 
What is almost shocking about this thread is the way it portrays how much of a revelation retail mark-ups are for the average person.

Mark-ups in the multiples (not percentages over original price mind you, I'm talking multipliers of the original cost) are commonplace throughout all of commercial sales interactions that occur today in all major industries. Especially consumer industries.

A good example is apparel, it is a 3-10x multiplier. A t-shirt, for example, might cost $1.50 to produce and ship from Mexico. That same shirt retails for $15-20 and many Americans gladly pay it (usually because it says something inane like "Nike" or "Volcom" on it) (Speaking from experience here, I was in the industry many years ago and members of my family still are - manufacturing and sales.)

This is EXTREMELY commonplace. In fact, it is the norm. This mark-up is the very basis of capitalist society. Why do you think Karl Marx was so against it?

This is akin to corn farmers today making so little on the crop they barely make enough for their mortgage and pickup truck payments while Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland make BILLIONS a year in profit.
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Many, many people feel this is injustice. I agree (for the most part).

The past is history, but the question remains - what can we do now to ameliorate the situation?

I respect the approach of vendors like James of Knivesandstones - transparency regarding their sources, customized specs for "knuts" that specialize for a target customer and a reasonable mark-up that sustains business while being sustainable for the vendor/supplier/maker.

I have high hopes. No doubt craftsmen deserve a much larger "slice of the pie" and hopefully their status and condition improves.
 
I've always tried to be upfront with what I can, but people have a tough time wrapping their heads around the idea that craftsmen often ask us to to mention their names or anything about them, because it messes with their wholesalers who are still and will likely continue to be their major source of income
 
This has been the maker/wholesale/retailer story for hundreds of years, across most industries.

It's a full supply chain based on demand
All the way to you as a consumer
The skill set of a craftsman is not to market, a store front needs the craftsman and they all need tour dollars, there are tons of pieces to the whole supply chain.
And most everyone is out to make a buck but I'm fairly sure not one is making a killing with knives

But I guess it's good to reward good craftsman and good retailers. An equal plain field? Hardly, don't know of many these days.

I'll tell you one thing, in my line of business, outsourcing and consulting, I've not run into many retailers that actually care about craftsman the way some of our Knife retailers do, most of them on this thread... there are others out there who don't care and just want to get a little richer at your expense

My opinions.
 
SatoShin said:
Mizuno is more like a wholesaler than a craftsman, but there is much talking about how they seem more like a craftsman to people not from sakai. Also, I have not heard of Ikeda-san making akifusa brand. He is just blacksmith... maybe this is misunderstanding?
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Probably my misunderstanding. So Akifusa is the brand (and Haruyuki and Artisan) and Ikeda-san is the smith, but he does not own the brand - they are separate entities?
 
I think you're getting confused... Ikeda-san is a blacksmith that has nothing to do with the brand Akifusa or the company who owns that brand (and also happens to share the same name as the blacksmith). Different companies alltogether. He may sell knives to those guys for some of their lines, but he is not a part of the company. Does that make sense?
 
It's been said that there is major change going on in the way things are done in this arena. Perhaps there can be a way the the craftsman can unite and work together at say an etsy level where they can control their production and offer their own brands at reasonable prices without the channel effect. Wishful thinking I'm sure, but after all this is a world market that all can enter. If Kato were to offer to the public his own offerings I'm sure he'd be just as well off. After all it's what all the custom makers are doing.
 
I'm interested to see how things are going to change in the future. One thing I wonder about is how going it alone would affect the craftsman's standing in their own communities. Japan tends to be very communal and I'd imagine places like Sakai can be even more so with smiths working directly and forming relationships with other sharpeners and whole-sellers. Would trying to strike out alone blacklist a smith from the community or negatively affect their standing? Would being an established and respected member of the community make it harder or easier than a younger craftsman? For swordsmith's like Kato, do the knives and swords go through different channels and does one have much influence on the other? Just some questions I'd be curious to hear the answers to.
 
Chicagohawkie said:
It's been said that there is major change going on in the way things are done in this arena. Perhaps there can be a way the the craftsman can unite and work together at say an etsy level where they can control their production and offer their own brands at reasonable prices without the channel effect. Wishful thinking I'm sure, but after all this is a world market that all can enter. If Kato were to offer to the public his own offerings I'm sure he'd be just as well off. After all it's what all the custom makers are doing.
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While I agree with everything you said here, I would like to point what seems obvious to me. The craftsmen can do business however they choose. There is a perception that they are taken advantage of in this industry. These are smart men and women, not uneducated peasants or indentured servants with no access to the internet. I, too, am a craftsmen on a similar scale. I have three people, including myself, that are directly involved in production of product. If I was dealing with a few wholesalers, (which I do), and not the general public, this would be enough. As it is, 70% of my sales is direct to the consumer. As a result, I must employ 3 more for duties unrelated to production. These people handle marketing, sales, customer contact, shipping and receiving, etc. If my wholesalers could keep me busy, it would be a no-brainer what i would do. The wholesaler and retailer is doing more than just slapping a higher price tag on a knife and sending it along to the next guy. They are doing the marketing, sales, customer contact and support, etc, just not under the same roof. Without them, it is very likely you would have never heard of Kato. Some blacksmiths choose to deal direct with the end user like Watanabe and TF, but nobody is forcing it. I can tell you that I have purchased a Watanabe direct and a Toyama through a retailer. They were for all intents and purposes exactly the same knife. I paid more for the Wat even though JNS got a piece of the Toyama. Don't think that if the craftsmen sold direct to individuals that you could get the wholesale price. I know one of the posters on this thread did just that, but if everyone did it, it would not last long. The maker simply couldn't afford it. It takes WAY more resources in dealing with 100 different customers and packing 100 individual boxes than having 1 customer and packing 100 knives into 1 box.

Of course, i could be wrong about all of this...i just know how it works for me.
 
JBroida said:
I think you're getting confused... Ikeda-san is a blacksmith that has nothing to do with the brand Akifusa or the company who owns that brand (and also happens to share the same name as the blacksmith). Different companies alltogether. He may sell knives to those guys for some of their lines, but he is not a part of the company. Does that make sense?
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Ahhhh, so that Ikeda is a completely different Ikeda, and that Ikeda is the company, not a person?
 
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