I was at a large flea market yesterday and saw a knapper working on a biface outside of his booth.  I asked him some questions and eventually asked him if I could buy some of the larger flakes that he was taking off.  He laughed and said that I could take as many as I like because he was just going the throw them out anyway.  ?!?!?!? 

This was a windfall for me, because I don't have any good flint in my area, its ether been river rolled to the size of a golf ball, was crushed until it was the size of a golf ball by the glaciers, or is shot through with fossils and/or fault lines.  I have never worked good chert, and was confused as to why this fellow was throwing away perfectly useable flakes.  He was going to make a large knife out of the biface, which would have made him a good profit, but if he used the flakes to whip off a few Cahokia points, or even a few generic "bird" points, he would have wasted less and gotten more money for that one piece of chert. 

I don't know a lot about flint knapping, but this seemed to be very... uneconomic?  Is this common practice among professional knappers?  Is it more efficient to make big points and knives that bring in the big bucks, even though they take longer to make than the little ones?

are the flakes small an or curved? im no knaper but i know that somtimes when your working down a large spall the flakes that come off have a curve to them. not good for arrows or darts but it would make a nice knife. and i sure wouldnt throw them away like that guy

eoraptor, it's like this. when i first started, i saved every tiny peice of stone no matter how irregular it was. the stuff was like gold to me and i couldn't stand to waste it. i would spend hours turning a one inch long curved flake into a half inch long bird point! but, as the years went by and my skill increased, i found that i lost interest in making those tiny peices. it was the bigger stuff that was more impressive and more difficult that held my interest. it's true, arrowheads and other small points are easier to make, but they take nearly as long as the bigger stuff. so, it's more a matter of the knappers time than it is about material. besides, once you're in it for any length of time you tend to make contacts and it's much easier to come by stone than it is for a novice. i still make small points, they sell really well, but i'm at the stage now where i can purposely knock off six or seven uniform flakes for that express purpose and don't need to comb through my debitage. if i saved all the bits and flakes from my knapping i'd have room for nothing else in my shop!

Maybe he was just being a nice guy trying to help you get started. You might have been the only person to stop and talk to him (with interest to make it yourself)

mounting them one leather/rawhide will make it sell at a higher rate as necklaces