$229.00 at Wholesale Hunter.
I think there are better, more utilitarian "fighting" folders than the Black Sable for up to $100 less than even the internet price.
From what I can see never having held one, my dings of the BS are:
The whole piece looks like it would be too slippery in the hand for my tastes.
Too much mirror polishing=easy scratching and a need for babying if it will be an EDC.
Its a lockback, my second favorite locking system as long as it is not on a tactical knife. Lockbacks are more diifcult to swing open to a positive snick because the locking bar creates a lot of friction on the blade unless it is really broken in or loose from the get go. Lockbacks can also be compressed into failure easier than some other designs.
The thumb studs are pretty to look at but appear to be too small to really be effective during an adrenaline dump. Thy look like they are stepped from the blade surface into some small thumb surface which affords less purchase for grip in exchange for not looking plain.
The blade is so curved as to be a total pain to sharpen compared with a more convential blade design.
Laminated blade. I have nothing against laminated steel. That said, sometimes lamination is used to get the best out of a mix of good steels and sometimes it is used to hype a sandwhich of ordinary steels, or worse, a middling steel encased in some other steel no one would pay much for were it the only steel. It is always difficult to tell with Cold Steel which reason they are using laminates for since they are usually evasive (through omission or proprietary naming like "Carbon V") to figure out which approach they are taking. One would hope that "San Mai III" is something special at that price, but I have my doubts.
So, if it is intended to be oooohhhed and aaaahed over, that is one thing. As an EDC it seems to have some serious shortcomings.
