Dead Flipper Part 2
So I have what many call a Dead Flipper on the way from the same honey hole that I have found some other great deals from. I have been thinking about its rarity and how they never pop up for sale. I wrote about these back in April before I knew much about them. I found the information in some archives and ran with it. Some recent events and the fact that I found one has led me to dig even deeper, in fact, I am starting to wonder if the “Dead Flipper” was the inspiration behind Friendly Flipper, the Billet Box accessory company.
The Dead Flipper was announced by BBV in April of 2016. As you can see by the picture above, the dolphin has the X in place of the eye. When I was doing some research into the Friendly Flipper “Flipper Box”, I noticed the date and striking similarities in the 2 boxes. I never noticed this before. The photo on the right is the Friendly Flipper version with no eye. The Dead Flipper came out in April 2016 and the Friendly Flipper version in April 2017? I am not sure of this but I found the 1st photo posted on the Friendly Flipper Facebook page around that time. Without any verification, it makes me wonder if this was what got it all started for Friendly Flipper.
I don’t know Edy of Friendly Flipper at all, but at some point, I’d like to chat with him and possibly post an interview.
Billet Box Vapor and Flippers (and Dead Flipper)
I wasn’t around in the early days of Billet Box, but in my research, I found that BBV used to take exception to flippers. They released 2 batches of brass flipper boxes in the Rev3 era and then the Dead Flipper.
When BBV announced the Dead Flipper in 2016, they explained why…. Keep in mind, to my knowledge, Friendly Flipper The Company, was not around at this point.
We know this super quick, one minute sell out crap is super frustrating and utter BS, but “Flipper” seems to have officially become a genuine career choice nowadays. We have these “Supreme Hyper Investment Target Strategists” posting “their” boxes up for sale on Facebook and the like for upwards of 5k, MINUTES after they take away the chance from a very disappointed someone(s) who super wanted our box for what we intended,,, to be used, loved, enjoyed, cuddle and sucked on. If you’ve been watching us for a while, you’ll know we do absolutely everything in our power to prevent flipping, but we are a huge target as we kind of kick ass at what we do… history has taught us that our best bet has been to attack the flip price… aka: we offer something unique or not yet released, at just UNDER the average flip price to minimize a flippers potential profit on our regular stock, thus keeping the fairly priced models in stock longer, and the ones that are willing to buy it regardless of price getting something a little special for less than FLiP price… So that is going to start happening here real quick…
Billet Box Vapor
On April 24th, 2016, the Dead Flippers were put up on the site. The regular models sold out in minutes, but the $997.97 BlackFlip and FawkesFlip didn’t sell out right away. When users on ECF that morning were wondering why BBV was selling $1k models, one of the very active members named Raqball had this to say…
I believe the intent is to damage the flippers ability to sell. If flippers want $1,000 (or more) for a stock rev 4 then why buy from them when for the same money you can get direct from BB and it’s even a limited run / version..
On that same day, Billet Box Vapor confirmed that plan on their Facebook page.
We have a tactic in place for flippers, sooooo, just don’t try… we are going to take control of the flip price ourselves… our stats tell that 9% of our Rev 4 sales to date were bought with no other intention other than to be flipped… We have 9% of our batch set aside for the anti flip effort… in which we simply engrave a dead dolphin on the box, give it a button we don’t have in production yet and sell it for less than the lowest recorded flip price (1000 bucks). As flipping decreases, and flip price drops, we will lower the percentage and the price until this isn’t a problem anymore.. Flippers stop profiting, batches stay up longer for the folks that are willing to wait until they they pop up in our shop at a list price, and for the few out there that are willing to snag one no matter the cost without F5ing, you at least get something a bit special and direct from us (it’s common knowledge that 100% of all flippers fart on the devices before they send to the people they hosed…).
According to this post, the $997.97 price would go down in time. That makes sense because the woman I bought the Dead Flipper that i have on the way said she paid around $600 direct from BBV in 2016. When I 1st researched this back in April of this year, I remember finding one for sale in the archives for $604.33. That might be when mine was sold.
On the day that the Dead Flipper models were on the site, the Fawkes and Rat had the following description…
READ THIS: Feel Free to Flip! Bottom line, some people have more money than others… that’s fine… but we are tired of people buying our reasonably priced stock trying to make a quick buck… we’ll do it ourselves, add a button that isn’t in production yet and throw in an engraved dead freaking dolphin… is it worth it? Not to alot of people… but at the end of the day, this price is just you not having to play the F5 game for something we work really hard on and that is very desirable at the moment…
On May 31st, 2016, more Dead Flipper boxes were posted, and here are the $604.33 prices. This image was taken from an archive and some of the images are dead, obviously. The description on this date was a little different than the 1st description…
READ THIS AGAIN: Flip off….. Soooo, some people have more money than others… that’s fine… but we are tired of people buying our reasonably priced stock trying to make a quick buck… we’ll do it ourselves, add a button that isn’t in production yet and throw in an engraved dead freaking dolphin… is it worth it? NOPE!!!… Not to a lot of people… the dead dolphin is not special, the new buttons will be in production soon… the bottom line, this price is just you not having to play the F5 game for something we work really hard on and that is very desirable at the moment… as this offering is entirely to help limit flipping, there are ABSOLUTELY NO REFUNDS or Returns on this Box. These Dead Dolphin boxes are made based on a percentage of boxes reported flipped, (that number is down a few percent from launch), and priced on a sliding scale to LOWER the ability of flippers to profit. We do not like doing this… but it’s working…
I searched more on ECF and the Billet Box Vapor archives and could not find any other drops. That is not to say there weren’t more, but I am not finding any. Those that were around back then might remember though.
The bottom line is that BBV used to care about people flipping their products. I am glad they did because it produced an awesome unicorn item for those lucky enough to have one and I am about to be one of those lucky people!
I will post photos of my Dead Flipper when it arrives. It’s supposed to be here by Monday, but I am going to guess that it should be here earlier. The “featured” photo for this post is from the seller of the one I have on the way!
