Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Flintknapping => Topic started by: Tracker0721 on August 18, 2015, 11:35:14 pm
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So is there such a thing? People who make a living only off busting and selling rock? I've seen some that definitely should be but I was knapping yesterday at my dads and he asked how much I could sell an arrowhead for. So I looked online and wow. There's some pricey points! Just normal hunting points were 20 bucks a head! Is this a real thing talented knappers can do? I'm no where near selling points, just giving em off to friends, but I found a new goal and it's to make points someone would pay a grand for. And then use it to hunt deer for myself >:D
If any of you do(Jackcrafty seems like he could, watched quite a few of his videos. Plus a lot of you on here) could you please say what it's like? How it goes? Fun level? And of course, hardest order recieved.
Dylan
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I know a guy that makes and sells knives. He says its a hobby, sometimes bringing in $3000 a month. Sweet hobby!
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Yes, there is such a thing as professional knappers. Most are retired but there are some younger guys who are making a living at it. Of course, it helps to diversify into other areas like making/selling flintknapping tools and collecting/selling flint, for example.
Some knappers can make $1000+ for a single piece but these are usually very large pieces and/or made from exotic materials that are expensive to begin with. But you can probably count these guys on one hand. It's a very specialized niche.
There are also people making fakes and selling them for good money on the black market or to uneducated buyers. I won't get into this aspect other than to say that professional counterfeiters have been around from the very beginnings of modern flintknapping. At least since the 40's or 50's.
Some professional knappers can be found making "the rounds" at knap-ins across the country. I've met a couple but I haven't asked what they average per month. It can't be that much. I think most of the money to be made is through online stores. From what I've seen in sales, I would guess that $3000 per month is on the high end.
As for me, I could be knapping full time and selling everything I make but the hourly rate would be something like $10 at best. You gotta remember there's a lot of expense in getting good stone, lots of breakages, shipping time/labor, store maintenance, email time, and tool costs. I could make more than $10 per hour if I concentrated on large, thin, translucent reproductions of real artifacts but some of these would probably pass thorough several hands and eventually end up in collections as "real". That thought really bugs me and makes me sick to my stomach. So I tend to back off from reproductions... and the "big" money.
If I had to describe making a living as a knapper in simple terms, I would say it's a lot like trying to make a living at gambling. There's a lot of specialized knowledge needed, a lot of competition for the money, and a lot of temptation/opportunity to go to the dark side.
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'jack' summed it up quite nicely. I've known a few knappers over the years that have/do it full time. One is not living a life of luxury by any means, another retired early and is not dependent on the income. The latter has 'quit' a time or two but is back knapping again.
Another factor to consider; if you take something you enjoy and make a living out of it, that something can become like a chore and zap the fun out of it. It doesn't have to be that way but you have to keep it fresh or you'll burn out.
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Patrick, You are friends with him on Facebook, although I'm sure that doesn't help you. We are BOTH friends with him on facebook. ;)
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Patrick, You are friends with him on Facebook, although I'm sure that doesn't help you. We are BOTH friends with him on facebook. ;)
Is this a riddle?
Zuma
I keep my knapping quite poor and plenty of copper on the points
so I will never be tempted to make high dollar fakes. :embarassed:
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I guess you could call me a "professional" I get paid to nap I, Er Knap at work. I am a Park Ranger/Indian Cultural Demonstrator. I do know folks that do a lot of knapping from abo to FOG. Mostly they are hobbiests but they do occassionally sell some things. THey are not really interested in money they just like to create beauty.
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Patrick, You are friends with him on Facebook, although I'm sure that doesn't help you. We are BOTH friends with him on facebook. ;)
Is this a riddle?
Zuma
I keep my knapping quite poor and plenty of copper on the points
so I will never be tempted to make high dollar fakes. :embarassed:
I didn't want to drop names. He and I share perhaps 3 mutual friends. I'm sure he knows who I am talking about.
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Oh, riddle solved. I didn't see the winky guy in your post. :-X
Thanks Jo
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Hmmmm... I haven't spent much time on facebook for the last year or so. :-[
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I have also noticed that. And I can't blame you. My phone died yesterday, it has been very peaceful!
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YosemiteBen, what park do you work at?
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I have seen posts I which the knapper complained that after knapping a few of the same type it became a burden to keep at it to fill the order. I have occasionally knapped a dozen hunting points making the dimensions and weight the same, and that always became difficult to finish. One arrowhead hunter wanted me to make him a set of about forty to imbed in his fireplace above the mantle. I don't think I will ever be interested in such a chore.
WA
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The matched sets of 6 is what I saw and was thinking must be boring after a while. Anytime I grab a rock I start bobbing till I see a point and then go for it. Don't know if any of my points look the same. I know the everyday knapper could get some money for it by making a knife or set of points for a hunter. Was curious if anyone woke up, knapped their 8 hours then went home. Seemed like a cool idea but I'd hate for such a fun hobby to become work. Especially if it was only making 10 bucks an hour! I'd go to Seattle and flip burgers at mcdonalds for 15 bucks an hour then knap on the side! Haha though sometimes the thought of thought of knapping for a real living, in the woods where that blade is gonna cut up the deer you killed with one of the points you made, that would be fun. Real primitive living rather then worrying about an 8-10 hour day to make green paper that on a global scale isn't worth nearly what you put in for it. Whoops! Rant. My bad.
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Going out and getting the green paper is actually easier than hunting/gathering on a consistent basis. That's why farming was invented. Many of us, myself included, would like to hunt-fish-camp-knap every day but it's unrealistic, especially when you have to raise children and keep your significant other happy. Our ancestors had a really harsh life.
I agree with the boredom that sets in when making matched sets. But you get into the groove after a while and instinctively make the same size without much effort. The hard part comes when you try to make a point that's not 1" wide and not perfectly triangular.
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There was a guy some yrs. back on ebay went by the name "Kwaint" if I remember right, and that fellow made bank from what I seen. I never contacted him/her, and then they just left ebay, as far as I know. Looked as though most of his work was FOG.
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I am by no means a professional knappers but here are some ways I have produced income related to knapping.
1. I am an artist and educator and include primitive skills in my continuing education plan. This allows me to research and work on projects while I am getting paid.
2. Production work related to large orders of points. We are talking hundreds but as stated will yield 10 to 20 an hour.
Working with museums to produce educational pieces and to present primitive skills.
3. Museums write grants for large projects and once you enter that world things start to change.
I am currently working on a project with two to three revenue streams.
remember if you do large projects related to knapping you need to set your deadline very far in the distance. If you are doing a hundred plus points there will be issues in completing the task. The following are some of those issues:
Weather ...if you knapping outside or need to get rock from creeks that are always up.
Your hands and back need time to recover.
what if you cut yourself or smash a finger.
What if you knock a box of points off the table and loose two months of work.
And the list goes on.
I am currently waiting for a finger to heal so I can continue a project.
I do all of the above for fun and likely if added all up I don't really make anything. The cost of materials and heat treating and time consumes profits quickly. A 4000 dollar project can leave you with little return other than a sense of accomplishment.
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Thanks for that post John. Very enlightening. :)
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I had a good friend named Philip Churchill, who I collaborated with from 2011 until his death in 2014. I was so backlogged on Danish dagger orders that he could hardly keep up.
The reason for this is because very few people in the world are able to make Danish daggers. Also, he took one of the technologies that I was studying, and adapted it for use in creating the stitching in the handles. Apparently, the technology that I was studying works quite well on raw chert. By the end, he told me that he could do pretty much the same thing in raw chert that he could do with a pressure flaker, on heat treated chert.
Actually, Philip's real interest was in seeing some things resolved, that he felt were going unrecognized. The only reason that he did not carry out more experiments is because he was swamped with Danish dagger orders, from international buyers. Obviously, his work was a specialty niche.
My guess is that within the next ten years or so we will see some resurgence of fakes on the market. Currently, the best replicators, and forgers, are using copper percussion. As Philip told me years ago, they do this because they get a more accurate flake scar then they get with antler percussion. But, it is a no-brainer that copper percussion is not a culturally identifiable flintknapping method. So, the only logical conclusion is that Native American flintknapping has never been will understood, as was stated by Holmes, in the early 1900's
What is eventually going to happen is that the flintknapping community will one day learn of authentic flaking practices. And, then the newer forgeries will become apple for apple matches of ancient points. That is not currently happening, in many cases, partly because of the heavy reliance upon thermal alteration, and partly because of the wrong flaking methods that are being used. But, once the flintknapping community becomes aware of authentic flaking technologies, then both hurdles will be cleared, and the newer line of forgeries will be much more convincing than the past copper percussion forgeries. (By the way, many collectors will not touch certain alleged paleo points, if the material was heat treated. Straightaway, it is seen as a sign of forgery, since modern knappers are not able to make convincing copies from the same materials, when in a raw state.)
The odd thing about forgeries, is that it might be a two edged sword, depending on how one looks at it. If a person is interested in seeing history being studied, and understood, then a black market full of artifacts could be sign that important sites are getting looted. But, if the black market becomes filled with indistinguishable forgeries, and people realize that not all of the points could possibly be real, then the entire black market would come into question. And, that would stifle demand for points that might not be real. And, if the demand decreases, then there would naturally be less commercial looting of sites.
That being said, a certain percentage of people who are into artifact collecting are probably motivated by profit, just as a forger is motivated by profit. In that light, the purchase of an artifact becomes an "investment". And, the demand for such investments could spur looting. So, when a collector discovers that he purchased a fake point, he might not be unhappy because the point is not real. He might be unhappy because he realized that it was a bad investment that he might lose money on. In other words, the bottom line may not be the moral component. Rather, it might be the dollar - which once again is the same thing that could drive highly destructive looting.
On the other hand, forgery is a matter of outright fraud. But, who is being defrauded? Only a person who is willing to shell out money for an artifact that could have come from cultural destruction. To give an example, suppose there is a cave with 15,000 year old lithics, sitting at the bottom, along with ivory artifacts. And, everything is in pristine condition, since it is a dry cave site. Then, what would happen if a couple of point hunters dug up the cave, and removed the artifacts? Maybe, the most important evidence ever found in the Americas would be removed. And, everyone's history would be lost, while the diggers might pocket a few hundred dollars, or less.
Anyway, at some point down the road, there will probably be newer lines of forgeries, that are real apples for apples matches, to ancient stuff. It won't be made via copper percussion. And, it won't be made with the antler billet flaking method, devised in England around 1930. Instead, it will involve authentic technologies. And, the end products will fool the daylights out of collectors, until the entire market comes into question.
So, at some point down the road, I think that we will see a resurgence of fakes, and more money changing hands, once the flintknapping community makes progress with real technologies that were used by ancient people. I am not saying that I advocate this. It simply looks like the inevitable outcome of eventual progress, within the flintknapping community. Obviously, if collectors reached a point where they stopped buying points, or paying large sums for points, this would all dry up. And, that would make the looting of sites less profitable.
The issue is a two edged sword.