- Joined
- Oct 3, 1998
- Messages
- 3,264
Would you buy a knife with a "past"?
In today's Los Angeles Times, I happened to see an "advice to the superstitious" column where their Feng Shui maven said that one should not buy a really nice house from an estate sale, when the estate sale was occasioned by the gruesome murder-suicide of the couple who had owned the place, because no amount of ceremonial cleansing would remove the negative energy from the place.
First I found the column annoying, thinking that it is irresponsible to publicly encourage superstition and irrational fear, thus hurting the innocent next of kin who need to sell that house to somebody or take an big economic loss.
Then I thought:
What if I was at an estate sale, and there was a nice set of Wustoff-Trident kitchen knives, or a nice traditional "wee pen knife," for a very attractive price, but the seller said that one of the knives had been the weapon in the act of domestic violence that led to the estate sale?
I had to admit that I might hesitate to buy and use a knife that I knew had a violent history.
On the other hand, if it was a (in)famous act of violence, the provenance might give the object more value. If you dug up a Roman dagger and some brittle old documents that showed that you had the very dagger that Brutus had used to stab Caesar, it would be worth a fortune.
Any thoughts?
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
In today's Los Angeles Times, I happened to see an "advice to the superstitious" column where their Feng Shui maven said that one should not buy a really nice house from an estate sale, when the estate sale was occasioned by the gruesome murder-suicide of the couple who had owned the place, because no amount of ceremonial cleansing would remove the negative energy from the place.
First I found the column annoying, thinking that it is irresponsible to publicly encourage superstition and irrational fear, thus hurting the innocent next of kin who need to sell that house to somebody or take an big economic loss.
Then I thought:
What if I was at an estate sale, and there was a nice set of Wustoff-Trident kitchen knives, or a nice traditional "wee pen knife," for a very attractive price, but the seller said that one of the knives had been the weapon in the act of domestic violence that led to the estate sale?
I had to admit that I might hesitate to buy and use a knife that I knew had a violent history.
On the other hand, if it was a (in)famous act of violence, the provenance might give the object more value. If you dug up a Roman dagger and some brittle old documents that showed that you had the very dagger that Brutus had used to stab Caesar, it would be worth a fortune.
Any thoughts?
------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com