I guarantee I'll miss something, but here's my attempt at a short summary of how the companies are doing business right now. In the past, there have been several other methods of ordering, but this is the current state of things, as far as I know it.....

Scrap Yard:

Knives are generally offered on the company store, shop.scrapyardknives.com. You place your order for purchase, and then the knives are made, and ship in several weeks after they finish accepting orders.

Occasionally, some small quantities are offered in "ganzaa"s on the Busse board at Bladeforums. Knives can also be bought at shows - Indy, Knob Creek, Blade, Blade West, and a few others.


Swamp Rat:

Knives seem to be primarily sold through preorders recently. Eric puts up a post on the Swamp Rat forums, both at Bladeforums and the Swamp Rat website, and you email him to place your preorder. Once the knives are ready to ship, you get an email letting you know that you can now go to the Swamp Rat website and purchase your knife through the Swamp Rat Company Store. Orders that are placed on this store without having a preorder get canceled.

They also show up in ganzaas and knife/gun shows.



Busse:

Two main outlets for "normal" retail purchases here - first is the Busse website at Bussecombat.com. Orders placed here are generally made AFTER the order is placed, so there is a wait time before shipping. Some other knives are released at the Busse Company Store, at bussecompanystore.com. These are available for immediate purchase and ship very quickly. They aren't made to order.

In addition to that, there are the Ganzaaaaaas and knife shows. Ganzaas are a madhouse, where Jerry will post teasers and pictures, then eventually a list of pricing and specs. During some pre-determined time window, Jerry will post a "GO GO GO" thread for the current Ganzaaa, and everyone rushes to place orders for very limited offerings by emailing him. The order emails are received AFTER the "go go go" post determines who gets to buy what. These are full of games and sneaky tactics by the Busse Hogs who want the best steel for themselves, trying to trick people into sending their emails too early or too late.


I hope that covers most of it. It's not exactly easy to figure out on your own <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />