to rick m. you just made my day. i'm a total newbie here, (but am 60 and have had an interest in knives and a knife collection more than 50 of those years) and have been glued to this site for the last 3 weeks. i had never met anyone with an interest in knives like i do, so it is so fantastic to have this forum. anyway, i just bought the 2 knives you mentioned: spyderco military BG-42 plain edge and CR shadow iv. it was difficult to choose and i got advice from this site, but in reality, i think there are a lot of good knives out there. so keep collecting, cheers everybody, rolando