I hate to be the one to bring this up but is old news now.
The Randall shop is limiting orders to five options. This evidently includes knives that have been on order for months (years?).
My question is: will this be permanant or is it a temporary stop-gap effort to catch up?

Tom,

This is designed to be a way to catch up a little, and will hopefully be short lived.

Also, don't tell anyone, but this is a "dealer" restriction and at this time does not reflect on the individual orders.

---DW---

By no means am I complaining. . .

Isn't this the 3rd or 4th measure taken by the shop in the last couple of years to reduce the wait time? It also seems that the wait time has only increased over the last year or so. Is there any way to know when these measures will begin to have an affect and we see the wait time move in the other direction for a change?

Did I accidentally touch a nerve with my question?

Thanks Ron,

That is one of the best responses to the "BACKLOG" issue I have read.

I have sold only one of my Randalls. I sold it back to the collector I bought it from (and you know who you are).
Although I have been collecting Randall Made Knives for a short time, my interest have changed or matured. I have several knives on order. The knives I ordered lately reflect my changing preferences.
I will sell some of my earlier purchases to pay for the knives that will be delivered soon. I am not sure if the "ebay Randall re-sellers" are helping or hurting what I will be able to get for my knives. This week I saw two almost identical #1's sell for $100 difference.

BoBlade,

Even though what you say sounds logical, we've run into a same/different problem...

Instead of 10 people ordering 10 knives per month, we now have 100+ individuals placing an order for one knife every 3rd month! So the wait time is not so much a RMK problem if you will, but a collectors problem because the orders ARE NOT slowing down even with a 58 month backlog!

The 5 option limit to the dealers is meant to hopefully get back on our shipping schedule as the orders are taking excessive time to fill and we keep losing ground with our shipping. As of yet, (this is the first month that the restrictions are taking place for all dealers), we've yet to see this (catching up) take place. But we keep hoping against hope that we can, you can not imagine the determination that the shop is trying to undertake to make this happen. It gets REAL frustrating for us also to not be able to get these knives to their new owners on time!

Please bear with us during these times as we endeavor to improve on the tardiness of the orders. As far as the backlog goes however, as long as the orders keep coming in, we continue to book them! The only suggestion would be to freeze the orders and NOBODY wants that, 5 yr wait or not!!

---DW---

DW,

Thanks for the clarification. I knew there were many new Randall collectors by the new names active on e-bay, but I had no idea it was this many. Double edge sword (or should I say Model 2). Hang in there. You and the guy's efforts are appreciated by all.

Best,

Ron

With such a huge backlog and no end in sight would it be feasible for RMK to expand their facility and hire more suitable craftsmen while maintaining their quality? Or if this is out of the question how about RMK running double shifts at least until they catch up with orders? In spite of an almost 5 year wait there is still an obvious demand for their product. Even with the 1 knife per household every three months and the five option dealer restrictions this backlog would be unacceptable in any other business. The fact that customers accept this waiting period speaks volumes about the demand for RMK knives and I'm one of those who truly love and appreciate them. It just seems to me that there might be another avenue or two to explore, from a business standpoint, to alleviate this backlog without imposing some Draconian measure such as an order freeze.

On the other hand, I may not know what the hell I'm talking about.

Brad