Brass Flipper Billet Box – Throwback Thursday
In 2013 and 2015, Billet Box Vapor crafted and sold the Brass Flipper Billet Box. In 2013, there were only 25 made and in 2015 they made 26. My research turned up a little discrepancy in how many were made in 2013. Doug Dino, on ECF, said there were 25 today and that he was keeping one. On the announcement of the 2015 models, he said that they made 27 in 2013. Based on the conflicting posts, I’m not sure what the final numbers were, but I’d sure love to stumble upon the missing one if it’s out there!
Todd’s Reviews auctioned off one of the 2013 models for charity for Alzheimer’s Society. I am not sure what the final bid was, but I found a post that said that it was at $4,000 with 4 days left. I will update this when I find out what it went for.
In 2013, BBV made Brass Flipper Billet Box and this post on ECF explains why they wanted to make these. Doug Dino doesn’t seem to care that flipper was making a buck buying his boxes and turning a profit, what he didn’t like is how so many want a Billet Box but can’t get one because flippers beat them to the punch on the drops. In fact, they used to keep a list of known flippers and would cancel orders from them. Their idea was that offering something like this would help prevent flippers from buying the regular Billet Boxes with them buying these instead.
From what I can find, the 2013 version of the Brass Flipper only cost $500.
Here’s a video of the 2013 Brass Flipper Billet Box
The 2015 version, the Brass Flipper Billet Box was made from a 4-pound chunk of 464 Naval Brass. All 26 were sold out in 10 seconds at $750 each. According to BBV, the cost to produce them was barely covered by the price they were sold for. ECF Member, Pprchasen, was one of the 26 that were able to score one of these.
Why did Billet Box Vapor make a high priced brass version of the Billet Box in 2015?
First off, the flipper is NOT a consumer product, it is more an exotic subspecies of unicorn. It is not practical nor affordable in the slightest to make. The flipper is our billet box machined from a 4 lb block of 464 Naval Brass. We did a run of 27 of these back in 2013 as a response to people buying our regular boxes for no other reason then to flip them. We hoped that introducing a rare type of box would lessen the desirability of our regular product. That first run showed us just how labor-intensive these really were to build and we had no intentions of doing it again, but lots of people kept asking… we recently caved. Despite the price tag, these are a wash for us, the raw stock is astronomically expensive, they take 2 times the machine time to cut, and over 20 times the hand work to fit and finish… to be blunt, they suck and we hate them. This run is one smaller than the first, there are only 26.
In a blog post on May 9th, 2015, they listed the pros and cons of the Brass Flipper. Let’s only take a look at the cons, which far outweighed the pros:
- It is raw brass, only coated with a layer of wax before getting wrapped up.
- It will age and patina just as any other material containing copper.
- It costs way too much to exist.
- It is a shiny fingerprint magnet.
- It will scratch easily.
- It is not a good dancer, it’s ok… but not great.
- It is more malleable than aluminum and less resilient to drop impact.
- It is heavy, over 13 ounces without batteries, and 15 ounces all set up.
It is really cool looking back at the past of Billet Box. I enjoy reading the posts on ECF about the cost of the Billet Box. Today, people are ripping the guts out and customizing the finish with cerakote, replacing the boards with Dicodes chips, and customizing the look. Back in the early days, most Billet Box fanatics were customizing the way the thing worked!
Who thinks it’s about time for a modern day Brass Flipper model from Billet Box?
