Why would I spend $300 on just a knife?

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alaskanativeson

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Since the local Walmart has a perfectly serviceable knife for $15.00, why would I spend the kind of money it takes to get these?

PB130025.jpg

Obviously the one on top is the least expensive and the most used, but I believe I still paid close to $300 for it. Why?
 
Well the answer starts with sunglasses back when I was 13 or so. There was a really great sporting goods store just down the road a little ways from me callled Sport Chalet. The main guy who worked there was a real outdoors enthusiast, always willing to share his expertise and advice.

Like many young hipsters in the late 70s, I was never without a pair of I Ski sunglasses to enhance my cool. They cost $4.99 at his store, I remember well because I went through a LOT of them. One day I was looking at the Ray Bans he had in a case on the counter and asked why anyone would pay $49 for a pair of sunglasses. He asked how many pairs of "I Ski" or "Foster Grant" sunglasses I had bought from him, I had to honestly answer I had no idea, it was far too many.

He explained that was why, because sometimes it was better to spend more money to buy quality that would last than it was to buy something cheap that died young. He pulled out a pair of small Aviator Ray Bans and explained that he had bought them at a base while he was in Vietnam, that he wore them the whole time he flew chopper in that war, and that he still had them. Knowing everything (as most 13 year olds do) I explained that I couldn't afford to do that because my glasses got lost or broken too often. He went on to explain that if I spent more money on something quality, I might be inclined to be less careless and take care of my equipment.

While I didn't follow his advice for a little while, after another 4 or 5 pairs I bit the bullet and ponied up over 2 months worth of newspaper tips to buy a pair of Ray Bans. To finish that tale, I was still wearing that same pair of Ray Bays over 10 years later when I got married. I've since moved on to a pair of Maui Jims when I'm driving and a pair of Costa Del Mars when I'm riding the motorcycle, but the principle holds.

I found this principle to be especially true of knives. While I dearly love my Randall knives for their beauty and quality, my Busse knives are their equal in quality of construction (and I would even argue the INFI is a better steel than Randall uses) and my Busse Active Duty gets carried most every day to complement my Benchmade Griptilian (since my Sebenza is still in the hands of a friend I loaned it to.)
 
That's not to say I don't appreciate the quality of my Moras:

PB130026.jpg

But if I'm depending on a knife to take EVERYTHING I can deal it and still function like a champ, my Busses get the call. I know it'll take it.
 
Agreed, my Moras are quality. My Bucks have been quality. My Gerbers have been quality. However, none of them are in the league of the quality of my Busses. Or my Randalls, Or the two VERY beautiful knives Valkman made for me.
 
I don't think you have to spend $300 to get quality!
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No one said you did. But with expensive knives you get what you pay for. I have several that cost $400 or more and they are very special to me.
 
Why buy a Mercedes when you can always find a used Yugo. You want to buy an inexpensive knife, then have at it, just don't yap at those who want quality over quantity unless you are just trying to start a flame. I have a A.G.Russell lock back on my belt right now, it is 10 times any other lock back I've ever seen..:banghead:
 
As compelling as the OP's salesman story is (shocker punchline: salesman wants you to buy the priciest item), there's obviously diminishing returns to how much money you fork over for a knife. In my opinion, if you like the design, the steel is something decent (and properly tempered), and it's put together right, it doesn't really matter what it cost. It will still get the job done.

There's also something to be said for a knife being cheap enough you don't mind truly abusing it. I'd never pull out a $300 knife to pry at something sketchy, I'd go get a screwdriver like I'm supposed to.

I get why people buy expensive knives. Knives are basically man jewelery.
 
My most expensive knife is a Case Bose collaboration Backpocket @$79, my most expensive is a Case Trapper I had the Spey blade removed from @ $45 + $65 to customize. My most expensive fixed blade is a Wheeler 3 finger which will be surpassed by a Sam1911 3 finger to my specs when he gets to it. the key is "to my specs".
 
Time & Experience

I have more than a few knives. Actually, I have more than several.

Among the many knives I have, there are certainly a bunch of inexpensive ones.

Some of the inexpensive ones even get used, and some of those get used a lot.

However, as I've become accustomed to quality, I've found that a few percentage points of improvement can double the price of a knife, for the simple reason that things like better fit & finish take more actual manual labor and personal attention.

A modest amount of cash will buy decent quality production knives, and a little more cash will add upgraded steels and handle materials. And a little more cash will get a knife that's had a little more attention to fit and finish.

And by the time you get a knife that's been completely hand fitted, smoothed and joined and polished and tuned and lovingly hand sharpened, so that even the subtle burrs and ledges and gaps are gone, you have several hours of someone's time tied up in the knife, and those hours come at a price.

Production lines and automation make it possible to push out respectable quality in affordable quantities. Economies of scale and all that.

Near perfection may only represent a few percentage points of quality, but a $50 design can quickly become $150 worth of knife with just a few upgrades. Use of scarce materials in handles. Use of a steel that's only a little harder, only a little tougher. A couple of hours of personal attention by an experienced craftsman to a single knife.

Sometimes there are "intangibles" that make a knife worth more to a limited cross section of buyers. I own a Paul Presto. $150 retail. It's not "orders of magnitude" better than my Gerber Silver Knight at $40, but the intangibles made it worth the purchase.

I may never own a Sebenza, but odds are that I will someday plunk down $200 or more for a Buck/Mayo TNT. Some of it is quality. That knife makes me smile just to hold it. Action is butter-smooth. Some of it is intangibles.

I am much more inclined to consider knives in the $100 range today than I was three or four years ago.


My story of "why is quality worth it" dates back to the days when I used cheap stick pens (BIC and the like). Couldn't hang onto a darned pen. Then one day I started carrying a Parker and, while I couldn't keep a fifty cent pen, I had no trouble hanging onto a $5 or $10 pen. My pens have continued to go up in price over the years. Now, all I carry are Fisher Space Pens, and pens made specifically for that refill (like the Embassy Pen from County Comm). Every pen I own cost $25 or more. Some as much as $90. I haven't lost a pen or had one "walk off" in decades. And these don't break.

Funny how that works.

I spend a little more for stuff, I seem to take better care of stuff, and I'm happier with the way it performs.


That's my mileage.

Mileage can vary.

 
If it is truly and honestly handmade I can understand the price. Considering that making a simple puukko knife, for example, takes about eight hours of work and depending on the model 10-20€ (14-30 dollars) worth of materials it is a minor miracle you can get them for 100€ (140 dollars), or sometimes even less. That means some professional knife makers volunteer to produce high art at slave wages. If you want to make 10€ an hour in Funland you have to bill 25€+the cursed VAT (23%) for every hour of work... and 10€/hour would leave you 50% underpaid considering the average income, which is about 3200€/month.

So, why would I pay 300 dollars, or over 200 euros for a knife? I would pay because I prefer knives not made by slaves or robots. Also, I want to support the knife making culture and tradition in my country and abroad.
 
@ ArfinGreebly:

Funny you mentioned the pens you did. What pen do I carry? A stainless/24K Parker, but it has a Fisher Space Pen refill inside of it. Having lived on the coast of the Bering Sea I came to appreciate a pen that would still write outside when it was 30 below zero. However, my Christmas cards are filled out with a Parker Duofold fountain pen, the same model used to sign the surrender treaty with Japan at the end of WWII abourd the USS Missouri.
 
Why buy a Mercedes when you can always find a used Yugo
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Eh, I buy cheap knives, sunglasses, and ink pens so I can afford to drive a Mercedes. Heck, I think the check I wrote to pay for the car was even done with a free pen from some politician's election bid...LOL.
 
for some folks, the pride of ownership or level of quality is worth what it costs. for others, it ain't. That's why they sell so many knives at so many different price points.
is my Bob Dozier folding hunter 10x better than a Buck 110? no, but I never regretted the purchase. I have a few knives over $300 and a bunch of em worth a lot less. I like em all.
 
While knives are not my thing I guess after thinking about it I can understand. I would perfer to have a Les Baer or Wilson Combat then an entry level 1911 that does just about the same thing.
 
zhyla said:
As compelling as the OP's salesman story is (shocker punchline: salesman wants you to buy the priciest item), there's obviously diminishing returns to how much money you fork over for a knife. In my opinion, if you like the design, the steel is something decent (and properly tempered), and it's put together right, it doesn't really matter what it cost. It will still get the job done.

There's also something to be said for a knife being cheap enough you don't mind truly abusing it. I'd never pull out a $300 knife to pry at something sketchy, I'd go get a screwdriver like I'm supposed to.

I get why people buy expensive knives. Knives are basically man jewelery.
Click to expand...

I can agree with that. Man jewelery or bragging rights along with a 10,000 dollar shotgun that won't kill the game any better than a tried and true 870 Remy. It's not a choice of either a Mercedes or Yugo, but the Honda's and Fords in between. With the poor frequency of repair records in Consumer's Mercedes is not a great example of value for the money.

I used to collect custom knives in my younger days. I had a nice little Randall collection. I ended up shipping them all down to Russell's to be sold off. JUst were not worth it. When a 10 dollar Frosts mora with a carbon blade outcut my Randall trout and ird knife, it was handwriting on the wall I couldn't ignore. Being young and dumb, the Randall on my hip was sheer knife snobbery, nothing more. In the twenty years I used custom knives, they never did anything that a lower cost knife couldn't do. In fact, looking back, I think I was overly careful with those knives because they were so expensive. When a car got broken into and the sterio stolen, I grieved more for the Randall 15 that was under the car seat than the car window and high end sound machine that got nicked. :eek:

After I sold off my collection, I never looked back. In fact, I had more fun with my knives after, if only for the reason that I could use them to the full extent, and push the envelope a little. If it got broken or lost, I could replace it at the next sports store or big box store I passed. For the last several years I've been having a gas using Opinels, Case sodbusters, mora's, and 12 inch Ontario machete's to hack, dig, pry, and even cut with. Stuff I never would do with a 300 hundred dollar knife. Haven't broke one yet, although for some reason the number 1 mora with the laminated blade seems to bend more easiely than the regular carbon steel one.:confused:

I'm glad I finally got old enough and comfortable with who I am, that I don't feel the need for bling. I'm happy with what works.

Carl.
 
While I have knives (one actually) that cost up to $700.00, and quite a few that cost up to 3~$400.00, I can say that the quality bandwidth between those, and a knife I can get for under $100.00 or slightly more, is dwindling.

There are so many companies using manufacturing processes that make the 300 dollar knife cost 100 or less that the difference in cost there is usually down to not much.

It is more like the difference between my 1968 Colt Python, and a 1980 S&W model 19, both great guns, both excellent shooters and both ALMOST as sweet (after a trigger job on the Smith) as each other, but that Python has something no Smith I have ever felt has. That is hard to quantify as is the difference between a 300 dollar knife and a 100 dollar one.
 
I don't doubt that some people like to brag about the knives they own. They like to show off and will tell anyone who listens how much they spent. But it's wrong to assume that everyone who has an expensive knife falls into this group.

Let's take this knife for example. It's a Blackjack 125, one of my favorite knives.

blackjack125.jpg


As you can see it comes with a stag handle. That alone probably adds $40 to the cost of the knife. It also comes with a quality leather sheath. Another $30, but money I'm happy to spend because too often fixed blades come with crappy sheaths. A crappy sheath is near useless for the most part, but more importantly can be very dangerous. The biggest part of its cost comes from the fact that this knife is made here in America, by people who earn a good wage. I have no problem with that.

I've tried to get away from "the cheaper the better" mentality. I have a few cheap knives, and they serve me well. But I treasure my nicer knives. They give me pleasure in a way that the cheaper knives don't, and IMO they do work better though I admit the cheaper knives work just fine. And at least they are a durable good. A well-made knife, like a well-made gun, will last your lifetime and then some. It's well worth the cost considering that people spend more than that on their annual Starbuck's bill or on cell phones that need replacing every few years.
 
i need to know what a $300.00 knife does that a $60.00 knife doesnt.
 
I own at LEAST 500 knives but for daily use, I'm sold on the Opinel brand for both inexpensive AND edge holding qualities.
I just touched up my daily carry #10 to arm shaving ability.
The carbon steel versions are great as in ease of sharpning and edge holding ease.
 
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