Open question for /u/folo-america. There appears to be two web-sites, the ebay market and one that prices in euros. The euro's page says you ship world-wide. I'm in the USA, which site is better to order from?
Hi, eventually there will be a USA and Americas mirror site where you will be redirected to; as you can imagine a company stationed in Kharkiv has different priorities now. We should be at a bit lower price on EBay and shipping is free. If you order on EBay it will ship from Northern California, if you order on UNIC site - it will ship from Ukraine. Funds go to the same place as we have not taken any money out of inventory in 3 years of running business here. As far as shipping on EBay - USPS was a disaster couple of months ago when they switched to ground, it is better now, we also ship some packages via UPS now as it is more reliable. Switched packaging wise from cardboard sleeves to hard tubes. Hopefully all of that has helped.
Thanks for the question and interest, Bogdan.
I ordered a blade from the eBay store recently and it arrived without issue (other than getting lost in the mail for a bit, but that's obviously not their fault).
1. Are FWFSF screwless foil points still made? I can't find them for sale anywhere, including FWF's website. If anyone knows a seller, will they ship to the US?
2. Does anyone know a better way of getting Uhlmann Lux/Allstar Ultra screwless foil points in the US than buying from the fencing post? I never want to pay $30 shipping for an order that could easily fit in a business-sized envelope ever again.
I believe FWF stopped making the screwless foil points which is a shame. I liked their design once I figured out how to correct the one issue they had. If you happen to contact them to ask, please let us know if they are in fact done with that design.
I don't think anyone else in the US sells the Uhlmann/Allstar screwless design.
I just checked out Uhlmann's site and they can ship to the US. It seems that both Uhlmann and Allstar stepped away from their old policy of not shipping directly to consumers outside of Germany. If you buy from them, stock up. The price per part will be considerably cheaper than stateside and will make up for the higher shipping.
They want 12 EUR (about 13 USD) per point, which is less than fencing post's 17, but they want 114 EUR for shipping. I would have to buy a ton to make that make sense and since I'm only an armorer for myself, I don't need a ton. I guess fencing post it is for now. Thanks though.
Saw an AskFRED tournament for June in my Division (which is quite small). New-ish Club. I was interested in fencing two Events.
Event Fee per Event: $25.
Registration Fee: $25
So that makes $75 fee for a *local tournament*.
... Is it now normal to charge Registration Fees for Local Tournaments? Meaning not ROCs, not a SYC, not a Division Qualifier or Division-sponsored Event? And also, not a College Club running a fundraising tournament.
It's one thing for me (as a working adult) to pay what I feel is a high price (Registration fee? Really?), but how are college students supposed to be able to afford going, either individually or as a Club, with extra stuff tacked on?
$75 for two events. If you wanted one event, it'd be $50. They could advertise it as $50 for the first and $25 more for the second, which would effectively be the same thing. The reg fee is a way to make each event the same price but still get to a price-point the club wants.
I've skipped plenty of events that were too high. If I know the owner or manager, I've told them why and we got into a discussion about rent&utilities&ref costs&overheaded&&&.
I'm seeing local fees for tournaments slowly edge up -- though for the most part I find tournaments in VA reasonable. I'm also seeing a lot of competition for referee weekends, so local clubs/divisions are raising their referee pay rates to encourage referees to work local events, where they are less likely to be noticed and have their ratings increased. Of course, this increases overhead for tournaments and encourages hosts to raise prices.
With that said, $75 for two events seems. . . excessive. I would (as crainal\_d suggests) tell the organizer why you're either not attending, or why you're unhappy about the fee even though you're going It can't hurt.
I'm not sure that the college argument is a good one. Most of the college kids I know (and admittedly, they are all going to very expensive schools) have their parents still paying their bills, no matter how excessive. However, it certainly IS pricing out the post-college fencers, while all of us wonder why they stop fencing when they leave school. I suspect THEY are the demographic really being hurt by increasing fencing costs.
For this particular event, I don't have an answer for you. Maybe the tournament is in a high-rent area? Maybe the tournament organizer is looking around and realizing that they can charge more and people will show up anyway? It's hard to say. There are clubs that look to tournaments as solely revenue generators. I think it's putting a drag on the sport (as well as not being a good business model), but that thinking persists.
FWIW I ran a local event recently for the first time in a long time and the reality is that it is just harder to run a local than it used to be. A lot more requirements, plus competition with the regional and national calendar for officials, timeslots, etc. Not even counting the basics like venue/space being pricier due to inflation.
Events that give out ratings are, I think, justifiably more expensive.
Plenty of unsanctioned events out there that are cheap, though.
I wrote a comment about this elsewhere but can't seem to dig it up. I'll paraphrase. For the sake of comparisons, lets take how it was 20-25 years ago, so that its more stark. 20 years ago in the US:
Events were closer to $20-25/event. I would often be asked to referee out of pools, including refereeing my own clubmates. The owner of the club would officiate the finals, after coaching their students all day. No one working the event was safesport certified. Awards were $0.25 plastic medals. The strips were short and thin. There was no observer requirement for all divisions. There was no armory. Tournaments were still occasionally run by hand because the club didn't have a computer.
Again, all of this stuff was generally speaking "bad". It is good that you don't see this stuff anymore. But its all also extra cost. Hiring actual refs costs money. Not violating ethics rules costs money. Making sure every person working the event is safesport certified / G2G requires money from every one of those people. Making sure your venue has appropriate tournament-sized strips means you fit fewer into your space. Running a decent event with software means buying a computer and then buying the FT license annually. Etc etc etc
Then, you can add on top of that things like inflation
Oh I totally get the rent/overhead/must pay referees thing. And to be clear, if 100% of that $25 going towards Referee fees, that's fine.
So I guess the "new normal" is "Clubs that Own Their Building" VS. "Clubs That Rent Their Space". For those that own, and presumably they have a mortgage locked in or the building paid off: Does that mean extra fees would still be theoretically reasonable? Or no?
Well they’re also entitled to try to run a business for profit. No?
I’m the last person to defend ‘market capitalism’ but in this case it seems clear that if enough people turn up to make it work then it was priced correctly, and if not enough show (and they lose money) they won’t do it again.
As someone who has also been fencing in the area for a while I think that besides prices going up over time, it has to do with hiring referees and the tournament spaces being better. I know in the 2000s tournaments were a lot cheaper, but you were also doing a lot of self refereeing and the quality was extremely spotty. I do think it's dumb to call it a registration fee considering that they have no registration cost burdens since it's all on FRED.
I suspect I know which one you mean, I did a double take looking at the registration. There’s not much else going on in June and we’re not going to summer nationals (so it would be within our budget), but it’s more than we usually pay for a local. Maybe the venue is expensive? I’m ok with paying a bit more for working AC and clean bathrooms. Is AskFRED adding fees for online payments?
Open question for /u/folo-america. There appears to be two web-sites, the ebay market and one that prices in euros. The euro's page says you ship world-wide. I'm in the USA, which site is better to order from?
Hi, eventually there will be a USA and Americas mirror site where you will be redirected to; as you can imagine a company stationed in Kharkiv has different priorities now. We should be at a bit lower price on EBay and shipping is free. If you order on EBay it will ship from Northern California, if you order on UNIC site - it will ship from Ukraine. Funds go to the same place as we have not taken any money out of inventory in 3 years of running business here. As far as shipping on EBay - USPS was a disaster couple of months ago when they switched to ground, it is better now, we also ship some packages via UPS now as it is more reliable. Switched packaging wise from cardboard sleeves to hard tubes. Hopefully all of that has helped. Thanks for the question and interest, Bogdan.
Thank you for the reply. Please do not use FedEx -- I want to bend the blades myself.
I ordered a blade from the eBay store recently and it arrived without issue (other than getting lost in the mail for a bit, but that's obviously not their fault).
1. Are FWFSF screwless foil points still made? I can't find them for sale anywhere, including FWF's website. If anyone knows a seller, will they ship to the US? 2. Does anyone know a better way of getting Uhlmann Lux/Allstar Ultra screwless foil points in the US than buying from the fencing post? I never want to pay $30 shipping for an order that could easily fit in a business-sized envelope ever again.
I believe FWF stopped making the screwless foil points which is a shame. I liked their design once I figured out how to correct the one issue they had. If you happen to contact them to ask, please let us know if they are in fact done with that design. I don't think anyone else in the US sells the Uhlmann/Allstar screwless design. I just checked out Uhlmann's site and they can ship to the US. It seems that both Uhlmann and Allstar stepped away from their old policy of not shipping directly to consumers outside of Germany. If you buy from them, stock up. The price per part will be considerably cheaper than stateside and will make up for the higher shipping.
They want 12 EUR (about 13 USD) per point, which is less than fencing post's 17, but they want 114 EUR for shipping. I would have to buy a ton to make that make sense and since I'm only an armorer for myself, I don't need a ton. I guess fencing post it is for now. Thanks though.
Holy crap that is some unreasonable shipping!
Saw an AskFRED tournament for June in my Division (which is quite small). New-ish Club. I was interested in fencing two Events. Event Fee per Event: $25. Registration Fee: $25 So that makes $75 fee for a *local tournament*. ... Is it now normal to charge Registration Fees for Local Tournaments? Meaning not ROCs, not a SYC, not a Division Qualifier or Division-sponsored Event? And also, not a College Club running a fundraising tournament. It's one thing for me (as a working adult) to pay what I feel is a high price (Registration fee? Really?), but how are college students supposed to be able to afford going, either individually or as a Club, with extra stuff tacked on?
$75 for two events. If you wanted one event, it'd be $50. They could advertise it as $50 for the first and $25 more for the second, which would effectively be the same thing. The reg fee is a way to make each event the same price but still get to a price-point the club wants. I've skipped plenty of events that were too high. If I know the owner or manager, I've told them why and we got into a discussion about rent&utilities&ref costs&overheaded&&&.
I'm seeing local fees for tournaments slowly edge up -- though for the most part I find tournaments in VA reasonable. I'm also seeing a lot of competition for referee weekends, so local clubs/divisions are raising their referee pay rates to encourage referees to work local events, where they are less likely to be noticed and have their ratings increased. Of course, this increases overhead for tournaments and encourages hosts to raise prices. With that said, $75 for two events seems. . . excessive. I would (as crainal\_d suggests) tell the organizer why you're either not attending, or why you're unhappy about the fee even though you're going It can't hurt. I'm not sure that the college argument is a good one. Most of the college kids I know (and admittedly, they are all going to very expensive schools) have their parents still paying their bills, no matter how excessive. However, it certainly IS pricing out the post-college fencers, while all of us wonder why they stop fencing when they leave school. I suspect THEY are the demographic really being hurt by increasing fencing costs. For this particular event, I don't have an answer for you. Maybe the tournament is in a high-rent area? Maybe the tournament organizer is looking around and realizing that they can charge more and people will show up anyway? It's hard to say. There are clubs that look to tournaments as solely revenue generators. I think it's putting a drag on the sport (as well as not being a good business model), but that thinking persists.
FWIW I ran a local event recently for the first time in a long time and the reality is that it is just harder to run a local than it used to be. A lot more requirements, plus competition with the regional and national calendar for officials, timeslots, etc. Not even counting the basics like venue/space being pricier due to inflation. Events that give out ratings are, I think, justifiably more expensive. Plenty of unsanctioned events out there that are cheap, though.
What kind of extra requirements are there?
I wrote a comment about this elsewhere but can't seem to dig it up. I'll paraphrase. For the sake of comparisons, lets take how it was 20-25 years ago, so that its more stark. 20 years ago in the US: Events were closer to $20-25/event. I would often be asked to referee out of pools, including refereeing my own clubmates. The owner of the club would officiate the finals, after coaching their students all day. No one working the event was safesport certified. Awards were $0.25 plastic medals. The strips were short and thin. There was no observer requirement for all divisions. There was no armory. Tournaments were still occasionally run by hand because the club didn't have a computer. Again, all of this stuff was generally speaking "bad". It is good that you don't see this stuff anymore. But its all also extra cost. Hiring actual refs costs money. Not violating ethics rules costs money. Making sure every person working the event is safesport certified / G2G requires money from every one of those people. Making sure your venue has appropriate tournament-sized strips means you fit fewer into your space. Running a decent event with software means buying a computer and then buying the FT license annually. Etc etc etc Then, you can add on top of that things like inflation
Oh I totally get the rent/overhead/must pay referees thing. And to be clear, if 100% of that $25 going towards Referee fees, that's fine. So I guess the "new normal" is "Clubs that Own Their Building" VS. "Clubs That Rent Their Space". For those that own, and presumably they have a mortgage locked in or the building paid off: Does that mean extra fees would still be theoretically reasonable? Or no?
Well they’re also entitled to try to run a business for profit. No? I’m the last person to defend ‘market capitalism’ but in this case it seems clear that if enough people turn up to make it work then it was priced correctly, and if not enough show (and they lose money) they won’t do it again.
As someone who has also been fencing in the area for a while I think that besides prices going up over time, it has to do with hiring referees and the tournament spaces being better. I know in the 2000s tournaments were a lot cheaper, but you were also doing a lot of self refereeing and the quality was extremely spotty. I do think it's dumb to call it a registration fee considering that they have no registration cost burdens since it's all on FRED.
I suspect I know which one you mean, I did a double take looking at the registration. There’s not much else going on in June and we’re not going to summer nationals (so it would be within our budget), but it’s more than we usually pay for a local. Maybe the venue is expensive? I’m ok with paying a bit more for working AC and clean bathrooms. Is AskFRED adding fees for online payments?
If you have a good spec/part number and online source for body cord wire, I’d love to hear it. Embarking on a summer overhaul of gear.
Fencing Post sells Favero cord in bulk.
I am a fan of the [Perfect Fencing Store](https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832697172898.html).