How does this proxy thing work ? I would whant to buy some Busse and kin blades ,older models ,but i would like to buy them at factory prices ,and the only place to buy them is at knife shows . I can't go to US for that so please explain to me how this thing goes goes .

Vlad: Good to hear from you again. Probably YOUR best way is to do this:

Contact Renee at Scrapyard and ask her how you could go about setting up an account, sort of. What would happen is you would give scrapyard your real name and address, your forum name and your credit card information. They when they verify that they have received that, just put out a request here for a proxy and be sure and tell them you have given all your information to scrapyard. All your proxy would then need to do is have your real and forum name and pick the knife or knives you want and tell give them to the scrapyard person behind the counter and tell them who it is for and that you have set up payment and shipping instructions already.

JIM: If you read this perhaps you can explain it better than I can. I have never done the proxy thing and am only trying to remember what I have read.

Randy, sounds good to me.

Thank you Randy ! But if I contact Renne this proxy will work for Busse or Swamprat ?

I do not think so. BUT you can ask her to help you. All she can say is YES or NO. And Even if it is no she I am sure can and will tell you how to do it with Busse combat and Swamprat as well.

Good Luck in your quest. Stay safe and as we say "watch your 6", meaning always watch your back. Someone else always is and THEY are not the good guys. Cops all over the world make enemies, keep an eye on yours.

Vlad, in your original post you said the only way to get knives at factory pricing is at shows. Scrapyard just had the Scrapivore and still has the scrapizshi I believe available on their website, now you probably knew this and they were not something you wanted. The point is all of the Busse Group
have knives available direct from time to time. You just have to keep watching and if it's something you want you can deal with them. A few weeks back I bought a couple of knives direct from Swamp Rat. Right now at The Busse Comany Store, SAR 6's are available. The only thing is sometimes you have to act fast if it's something you want.

I have also had a couple of proxies act for me at shows and the payment and shipment was done through Busse Combat, because the tables at the shows are run by them even though they may have all three brand of knives. So I set up my payment info with Busse and my proxy picked out what I wanted and gave it to a Busse person at the show then Busse billed my credit card and shipped to me. Kind of confusing I know.

I just saw Vlad that you were mainly interested in "older models" , they are very hit and miss at the shows but yes if something comes up you would need a proxy set up.

Hi Randy and Vlad; that's it in a nutshell, although I tell folks to set up an account with Busse Combat because they're the ones who run the show booths. Y'ou'll have to give them your name, shipping address, email, phone, and your payment info -- they need to know how to contact you, how to process payment for your stuff, and where to send it.

Once they have that information in their computer system, someone who's willing to shop for you can just hand the knives you want (and that are available) to one of the crew along with your contact information. The crew-person will write up an invoice using your contact information, and put it in a box (that they'll take back to the shop once the show's over) along with your knives.

When they return, the office people will charge your credit card -- the charge will be the cost of the knives, plus sales tax for the state where the show was, plus shipping. I'm just warning you that even at show prices, after you add in tax and international shipping and any VAT or import duties that your own country might impose, knives can still cost more than you might think.

Then Amy and the crew from Busse send the knives to you. With Busse handling the transaction, it should be easier to find a proxy though, because their job becomes as easy as picking the knives up from the table and handing them over with contact info -- then they're done.

The other way of proxying is that the buyer fronts the money to buy what someone else wants. Then they estimate how much shipping and insurance will be and they get the total amount from the person they're proxying for. When the buyer receives reimbursement (and it clears the bank), they box up the knives, take them to the post office (or other shipper), and fill out customs forms to send the package (if international).

This process requires a lot more trust and a lot more time. I've proxied that way in the past, and it's just not worth the extra hassle and worry that everything will fall into place. I don't do that kind of proxy anymore -- not even if the person isn't international (unless there's a good reason that it needs to be done that way and I know the person I'm proxying for quite well). Letting the crew handle billing and shipping is absolutely the way to go; I was fortunate that nothing went wrong when I handled the details, but if anything did, the shop has experience dealing with shippers and resources to set things right that I don't.

Thank you Jim , I understeand now how it goes , the first way is the best , is easy for the proxy and this way i could find a proxy easy .
I know that I can buy from the Busse group sites but if I whant an older model i have to hunt it on BF , a lot of waiting and big prices . I hunted a few months for a Dumpster Mutt , the knife is worth the trouble ,is unbeliveble but the price was big ,and with the 25% cut from salary ....

I hear you; economic times have been tough for a lot of people here and around the world. I've been very fortunate myself, although am less secure about my future than I'd like -- many people have been cut from where I work. I'm a programmer in our Integrated Technology department, we have less than half the number of employees that we used to, and some of the people in other areas think that the company could save money by eliminating my department and contracting with outside companies to provide the services we do.

I know that wouldn't work, because with the exception of one vendor, I don't know of any outside software development contractor that has provided a working program in the originally estimated time or on budget to our company. In addition to problems with the vendors themselves, the people who want programs sabotage their own projects, not intentionally, but because they don't start out with a clear vision of what they want, so they keep changing the requirements throughout the entire development cycle. Software development is, in its simplest terms, process automation, but the people who who request a program often want to implement a new process and have only a vague idea of what they want. Pinning them down to specifics is very difficult, and often comes down to having to define the process details, writing an implementation, presenting it, and having them say, "I know that's what we said, but we didn't think it would work this way. Change this, redo that, make it look different, and add a bunch of reporting options." And so it goes through several cycles, with them complaining that they thought it would be done by now, even when we're still on-track with the original project schedule.

Internal developers are familiar enough with our company's existing programs/systems that we can anticipate and avoid a lot of the problems -- external contractors aren't. We're also focused on a single customer company, while contractors are frequently trying to service several company clients, resulting in many different (temporary worker) sub-contractors being assigned to a project -- the loss of continuity causes a lot of problems with software components not working correctly with one another. I could continue to describe problems, but it doesn't really matter. If they decide to eliminate IT and go with contractors, I would be out of work -- it doesn't matter to me that they'd eventually realize it was a mistake, and that it would cost them a lot more to recover, because I'd be gone by then.

I did say they had success with one contractor; he ran his own company and did the work himself. They convinced him to take a full-time position; he's my boss, and is a fantastic and talented programmer. I'd say that he's the main reason that the IT department continues to function with so many fewer people. He is a workaholic with an amazing skill set -- He's doing the work that used to take 3 DBAs, an email administrator, 3 network people, and 3 programming supervisors (two of those supervisors reported to the other one). In addition, he accomplishes more programing/coding than any of the remaining programmers, including myself -- it's not unusual for him to still be working from home at 2AM. Granted, some of the roles were eliminated by distributing tasks to the remaining developers -- I do my own database work instead of working through a DBA, and while my primary role is that of a programmer, I also administer a few remaining HP-UX servers and assist in maintaining a new Ubuntu Web server. We've all has to step up, but he's done a super job of consolidating and coordinating -- he's the best boss I've ever had, and while they say "nobody's indispensable", I don't think they could replace him with less than three people.

I've gone far, far afield from my original intent of agreeing that we're in some very uncertain economic times, and saying that I've been very lucky so far. I could say that I've made some of my own luck by being willing and able to adapt to changes, but I've seen a lot of folks who I knew were working hard (and had been with the company for decades) catch the ax. I see stories about how things are in Western Europe, but really haven't heard anything about how things are in Eastern Europe. I'm sorry to hear that you took a 25% salary cut -- that's gotta hurt, but you're still working, so things could be worse. I hope things improve for you, as well as for for all the other Scrap Yard members who have taken pay cuts, are under-employed, or are unemployed right now. I've been lucky this time around, but looked for work for most of a year before deciding to retrain and get my degree. I was fortunate to have some savings and low debts, which made made going to university an option, but I know that things can feel pretty desperate.

Jim. I know the above was ment for Vlad,but I of course read it. I ALWAYS look forward to your posts. They are informative when you are asked for some opinion or help on something. They are well written and just provide a whole lot of good useful information.

I for one thank you for your posts and always know that it will be a good one and that I will learn something. For instance I now know you help to maintain an ubuntu Web server! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> haha. Just had to do that. Sleep depravation makes me goofy. On second though I guess MOST things make me goofy!

Oh and thank you for standing up and verifying what I said to Vlad about Proxy. I KNEW you could answer the question.

I didn't intend it to be quite so long-winded, but it was a bit of a rant, wasn't it? I meant to be sympathetic with folks having hard economic times, and got caught up in saying that a companies make hurtful decisions that seem seem doomed to fail in achieving their goals. My experience is that the best you can do is be flexible, and try to stay valuable enough that you don't become a target.

I'd been thinking a lot about how fortunate I've been lately; my job has changed significantly in the past couple years and my boss has done a lot help me stay relevant. If I'd tried to remain "the Java guy", while my company made the strategic decision to move in a different direction, I'd have been long gone by now.