A short (I promise) retrospective…

Joined
Nov 3, 2010
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I realized today that I’ve been in the hobby now for nearly 13 years and a member of this forum for a bit more than 12. Thinking back on my first pivotal purchase, a Delica 4, and noting the state of the hobby then vs. now, we really have come so far. Pretty much anything you could want in a knife exists somewhere. Hell, Spyderco sprints around that time were flat ground s30v iterations of the Manix 2. Now they’re making a Salt series Native in MAGNACUT.

Titanium framelocks were the most desirable pieces in the game and the two major players were CRK and Strider (no flaming please), and Hinderer was either on the cusp of greatness or barely heard of at that point. Now you have Demko introducing new locks every two years and his production models are flying off of shelves. Titanium framelocks are made in droves by every major company.

My time in the hobby is short compared to many, but the evolution over that short time has been just incredible.
 
Yeah......My first knives I bought as a kid, ( yes I bought pocket knives when I was twelve years old from the hardware store). They were either slip joint or fixed blade. Pretty much all the same styles. Carbon steel that would rust in a hard beat.
Most guys white collar or blue had one in their pocket.
 
The past decade definitely saw explosive growth and development of the knife industry.

I still remember when I first got into knives, checking for updates once in a year was more than enough. Stuff like S30V, SG2, and ZDP-189 were still the dominating top-of-the-line stuff.

It's amazing how innovation and competition can transform a "simple" tool that's been used for centuries...
 
It's amazing how innovation and competition can transform a "simple" tool that's been used for centuries...

Marketing at its finest (or worst).

Take something that is hundreds (thousands?) of years old, and add a catch phrase to it and some people think it's the best thing since sliced bread. Think "bushcraft" for example. Gawd, I DESPISE that term. It's a knife. If you want to use it in the woods, then ANY knife is a bushcraft knife.
 
Thinking back on my first pivotal purchase, a Delica 4, and noting the state of the hobby then vs. now, we really have come so far.

I bought my first Delica 4 last year
and use it constantly
with fun and pleasure
(I'm anti Spyd)
 
Marketing at its finest (or worst).

Take something that is hundreds (thousands?) of years old, and add a catch phrase to it and some people think it's the best thing since sliced bread. Think "bushcraft" for example. Gawd, I DESPISE that term. It's a knife. If you want to use it in the woods, then ANY knife is a bushcraft knife.

I admit there is some marketing bullshit involved, but:

One cannot deny that a Bark River 3V or a Malanika 4V does wood tasks much, much better than a Ka-Bar 1217.
One cannot deny that a ParaMilitary 2 s110v performs much, much better as an EDC cutting tool than an Opinel.
One cannot deny that a Bugout M390 carries much, much better than a Buck 112.

Take Delta 3V and CPM-MagnaCut for examples, such performance in any blade steel were unimaginable just a few years back.

I'm grateful for the progress we saw in the past decade. I truly am.
 
I still remember when I first got into knives, checking for updates once in a year was more than enough. Stuff like S30V, SG2, and ZDP-189 were still the dominating top-of-the-line stuff.
When I first got into knives, the best knives were obsidian. Then they came out with bronze. So much has changed since I was a kid.
 
When I joined here (December 2009) , 154CM was very common in folders that I was interested in and S30V was considered a super steel. I got a Knifeworks exclusive BM 707 Sequel in S30V and I was obsessed with it.

Feels like it was just yesterday. I must be getting old.
 
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