Silent Partner more valuable than gold?

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COT

climber

Door Number 3

Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 21, 2018 - 09:00pm PT

https://www.climbing.com/news/rock-exotica-silent-partner-sells-for-1400-on-ebay/

"Update: Rock Exotica founder Rock Thompson provided his thoughts in an email to Climbing, which are published in full below.

Yes, the Silent Partner situation is pretty interesting. I wish I had squirreled away a couple dozen of them… But no, I just have one.

In the earlier days of Rock Exotica I worked on products that were interesting to me without much regard to the financial side of things. Rent was cheap, employee bonuses might be a six-pack, there was always time for climbing and life was simple. Those were very fun times and the Silent Partner was a great product.

The company grew and that growth is a two-sided coin. It’s gratifying, but there are also hefty machine payments, expensive rent, employee health care and other benefits, etc. Many of our other products expanded beyond climbing and technical rescue into all kinds of other markets, such as arborism, rope access, stage rigging, linemen work, and more. We make big quantities of those products and they are what pay the bills, whereas the Silent Partner sales were down to around 100 a year. Although we realized we were not making any money with it, we kept it in production for some years anyway just because we liked it and we liked the climbers who used it. But in the end it was a necessary financial decision to discontinue it.

I’m sure there are people and small companies seeing the continuing demand for the Silent Partner who are wondering if they could make something like it. Who knows? Maybe this could happen. As for us, we’ve toyed with the idea of making a special, one-time batch. But although a few people want it very much and there’s no real substitute for it, the "few" is probably not enough to justify it.

And then there’s what I’d really like to do. For a long time I’ve had in my SolidWorks files a design for a new solo device. I’d really like to make it. It would take a lot of time and the only way to justify it would be to find some other uses for the underlying mechanism. So far, I haven’t quite been able to. But, you never know…

—Rock Thompson"

ecdh

climber

the east

Sep 21, 2018 - 11:39pm PT

f*#k! i only recently sold both a SP and a soloist together for $250...

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Sep 22, 2018 - 04:07am PT

I wonder if that bidder will actually pay the $1400.
The bidder has just 1 prior feedback,
and he made a series of very high bids 2 days in advance.
Then a second bidder shilled the bids up from $325 to $1400 about
1 hour before the auction ended.
It could easily be a prank, with these 2 bidders actually being the same person....

ECF

Big Wall climber

Ridgway CO

Sep 22, 2018 - 05:12am PT

I don’t think Mr Thompson understands the degree to which climbing is expanding. The market gets bigger every day.
I thought Mark Blanchard invented the silent partner, but I remember all sorts of stuff they tell me is wrong today...

Cool item, but too heavy for me. I just run a clove on a steel biner and feed it myself. When I have to pay out slack for busting a move, it’s incentive to stick it...lol

Jon Beck

Trad climber

Oceanside

Sep 22, 2018 - 06:35am PT

Although climbing has grown roped soloing is a small niche of that market. Doubling .1 percent is only .2 percent. There is also plenty of other gear to rope solo with further reducing demand. The ebay market is a great example of irrational exuberance. Bidders get caught up in the bidding and pay way to much.

kaholatingtong

Trad climber

The fake McCoy from nevernever land.

Sep 22, 2018 - 08:59am PT

Open offer : I will gladly sell mine for 1,400.

JLP

Social climber

The internet

Sep 22, 2018 - 09:15am PT

Agree it's a bulky POS that most people will use a couple times if at all then lose track of in the back of the closet.

However, it performs a somewhat useful task. At the very least, a LOT of people short fix and the Pakistani Death Loop used quite frequently is a direct consequence of a lack of a decent safety device for the task.

It seems it could have been made a lot smaller and lighter with some work. The patent certainly must be up. I'd buy one from a better vendor. Update it for the lighter ropes people are using, cut the size and weight in half, etc...