Are average knife buyers just not informed? Does quality matter to the average buyer

J_Curd said:
Some people buy Craftsman, while others buy Snap-On...the same Craftsman buyer might drink fine wine, while the Snap-On buyer might drink cheap light beer.

I dont think there is a type-cast for peoples spending habits that encompass how they spend all of their money.
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Some people buy tools stamped "MADE IN CHINA." All these latter people might drink Schaefer Light. :D
 
GoodGuy said:
Quality matters to every buyer/user/collector/admirer. Individuals judge quality in relative terms and from their various perspectives. I don't think it's a "phenomenon" but, rather, a norm. When one throws emotion into the mix of variables we use to judge quality, all bets are off.

Shoot... the best dog I ever had was a "mutt" of questionable intelligence, stinky, and would likely place last in any sanctioned dog show. Still.... she was the best.
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I agree, but I fall into the category of I buy everything thats the best I can afford. I research about the watch I buy, the car, the scope on my gun and the gun as well. I probably overanalyze but I rarley am disappointed because I make informed purchases. Why should it be any diff with knives? Its true I have a passion for them but even when I buy gifts for other people I want to buy something that I would be proud to own and pride myself in buying the best quality I can afford.

I guess its just a characteristic that some people have. I know I have it. My dad raised me to buy the best that I could afford, and if you cant afford it and you can wait..save and then buy it, dont settle for less. Now I have way more SAKS and bucks and other knives that are way below my range so no I dont buy all top knives, I buy what I want. But I do believe in buying quality, while some people dont and wont care. I mean why buy 1 that will last years and years when you can buy 200 at a 1/4 of the price that will last 6 months?
 
Not sure what one can tell by what one wears, drivers ect.The book The Millionaire Nextdoor kind of showed us this right ? The average millionaire drove a Buick, bought his suit at JC Pennys and drank Bud in a can.

Fact is i have 3 millinaires in my family and know two others and this holds true for 4 out of 5 of them.

Also things like watches and pens, well a bic writes,and it always writes so it does its job. A timex keeps better time than many 5 -10 k watches so it out performs them. A cheap knife may not cut, may not stay sharp its lock may fail, they generally don't perform at all.

Me I buy things that do its job. A Bic writes just fine and if i saw a need to strap a clock to my body I'd pick something like Timex, knife wise i tend mostly not to go below Spyderco.

Afford is a tricky word. I have savings goals, I will retire in my early 50's(47 now) a millionaire. I have the cash for my kids college
etc. I would not spend $500 on a knife, I would say "I can't afford it". Some guy with a grand to his name may get a "windfall" of say $500 and say "great now I can afford a $500 knife!!!
 
BOK said:
To non knife knuts cheap is all that matters.

I worked part time at a knife store for a few years and every second customer was like this:

"Hi I'm looking for a knife that never needs to be sharpened that I can do anything with and won't rust and I only want to spend 10-15 dollars max"

It was really annoying. I'm actually back to help out part time for this Christmas and wow...I am now remembering just how much retail sucks.
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i wish they made one of those. when you find one, tell me about it.
 
bigbcustom said:
I see crumby knives being carried and used by people every day, even my friends. They invariably say something like "I wouldn't spend more than twenty bucks on a knife...I've had this one for years and it only cost me ten...it works fine." I try to educate, some people figure it out and come around, and others look at me like I said my knives are better because they are made by space aliens. I think we knife knuts are a minority among the knife buying public, and by and large most people are happy with the "crap" that none of us would touch with a ten foot pole. Hell, my brother considers himself a knife knut (he has more than 200 knives), and none of them cost him more than fifty dollars (and that was a sword). I was wondering what others thought about this phenomonon? Am I wrong? I could go on and on, but enough of my ramblings let's hear what you guys think.
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The next time someone says their $10 knife works fine make them a proposition (assuming you both are talking about a locking folder). If their knife fails the test, they pay for the other person and their significant other dinner at an eating establishment of their choosing.

The test: Using a fillet glove, hold your knife out in a self defense position as if being attacted by someone (the other person in a mock battle) holding a stick, club, baton, pvc pipe or similar weapon. The other person gets one whack on the spine of the other persons knife.

The cheapy knife owner will probably respond that it is not for self-defense (most likely) or that no one would ever attack them.

For those who know that you shouldn't attack the weapon: Tell that to your attacker. I had a person attack me with a knife and I responded in self-defense with my knife. The person then attacked my knife (which was a grave mistake) and had to go to the hospital as a result of attacking my knife.
 
Lone hunter makes some good points but I think he is confusing squandering money you don't have with buying as much quality as you can afford. I will never be a millionaire, but I own a nice house in a quality neighborhood, I drive a 5 year old Subaru WRX (paid for) that out performs most cars around, and today I am wearing a BM 710 with an ATS-34 blade. All good quality items, not custom but good quality. It would be stupid for me to finance a Ferrari that I could not afford. But I also don't feel that it's smart to buy cheap crap just so I can have a nice bank account. A brand new Buick would not give me any pleasure as it's about as much fun to drive as dancing with a fat lady. Not that the Buick is a POS, it just doesn't fit my requirements. Either does a KIA or a Ferrari. Buy the best you can afford and you will not spend that much more over the long haul then if you cheaped out on everything.
 
A cheap knife that cuts things is still perfectly functional. I enjoy nice knives and good steels . . but I think we're all a little dillusional about this hobby. For someone who only uses a knife in the kitchen, to open boxes and to cut tags off clothing . . why would it make sense for them to buy a sebenza? An inexpensive chef knife and a swiss army knife serve their needs perfectly.

Last year my wife and I bought mountain bikes just to go on fun little rides and to cruise around in our neighborhood. We spent about $175 per bike on sale and they're actually pretty good. They don't need constant adjustment, they're a lot lighter than my last mountain bike from 20 years ago, and they work just fine.

My brother used to be into hard core mountain biking. He once told me that he was thinking of buying $300 cranks . . because they would save him 8 grams. For my wife and I to spend that kind of money for that kind of performance doesn't make any sense.

So I don't think it's a question of being uninformed . . . it's more about people not really needing the level of quality and performance that we demand. They don't need it so they don't care.
 
Lone Hunter said:
Not sure what one can tell by what one wears, drivers ect.The book The Millionaire Nextdoor kind of showed us this right ? The average millionaire drove a Buick, bought his suit at JC Pennys and drank Bud in a can.

Fact is i have 3 millinaires in my family and know two others and this holds true for 4 out of 5 of them.

Also things like watches and pens, well a bic writes,and it always writes so it does its job. A timex keeps better time than many 5 -10 k watches so it out performs them. A cheap knife may not cut, may not stay sharp its lock may fail, they generally don't perform at all.

Me I buy things that do its job. A Bic writes just fine and if i saw a need to strap a clock to my body I'd pick something like Timex, knife wise i tend mostly not to go below Spyderco.

Afford is a tricky word. I have savings goals, I will retire in my early 50's(47 now) a millionaire. I have the cash for my kids college
etc. I would not spend $500 on a knife, I would say "I can't afford it". Some guy with a grand to his name may get a "windfall" of say $500 and say "great now I can afford a $500 knife!!!
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You make a good point, especially about the pens and watches. I can afford a 10K watch, but I dont buy one. So I know where you are coming from I still wear a Seiko, and I too buy many of my suits at Pennys or Mens Wearhouse. I dont drink Bud I am a miller guy. So I know exactly where you are coming from. But with some things, if you did a little research, one would find they are happier with there purchases overall. Yes a bic writes and works well for a lighter, but I still use a Calibri lighter and a Hinderer pen. Everyones diff and its tough to see why the other side buys what it buys.

I actually hope to become more money minded like yourself, as I have no kids and I only mildly invest. So as I am not a father and am not married I have a diff mindset that will no doubt change when I have kids. My father helped pay for my college and bought me my first car. I hope to be able to do that for my kids. You make a very good point.
 
bigbcustom said:
Maybe I am obsessive/compulsive, but I do research on darn near everything I spend money or time on. Cars, clothes, food, guns, kitchen ware, ad nauseum. It would seem to me that any prudent person/consumer would do the same. Knives and guns are special cases/passions for me so maybe I notice the lack of care in these areas more than others. Of course my behavior must be off the wall sometimes....you should see the look on the doctor's face when I go in with my own preliminary diagnosis with supporting research/treatment options and ask what he thinks. I know when to listen to a professional, and I do (most of the time anyway), but it gets me some strange reactions.
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You sir have just described me to a T.
 
There are some things that I buy purely on price- the cheaper the better. I just don't see the value in getting the highest quality paper clips. And if some clip-nuts (lol, he said "clip nuts") try to convince me otherwise, I may not be so open minded.

I have knife nuts.
 
All these replies, and nobody hit on my opinion - Out of the one million people carrying a knife in America right now, only 100,000 of us know how to actually sharpen one. Imagine paying a c-note for a knife then only using it until it got too dull to use. Your average person will be more than happy to keep buying a 20 dollar knife twice a year rather than have to try to learn to keep it sharp. Go into your local hardware store and see if you even see a decent sharpening system, it's mostly old bench stones and such. I am the go-to guy for sharpening, and have been for years, nobody that I know that actually carries a knife cares enough to learn.
 
Jim N brings up a very good point, IMO. And, in fact, I actually debated before spending "real money" on a knife for precisely that reason. I finally decided buying cheap knives because I was too lazy to learn how to sharpen was just plain silly--if for no other reason than thowing out an otherwise good knife, even if it's a cheap one, because it was dull was not unlike buying a new car because the old one's ashtrays were full.
 
if you have the money to invest in a nice knife, usually you will invest in a nice sharpener. But thats my opinion.

when I say nice, I mean affective. being a knife nut usually evolves into self sharpening. I didnt know anything about it but I asked and learned and many rounded blades later I shave hair.
 
i'm poor as dirt, and i drink bud in a can! the main thing i consider is quality at a good price. i'm a buck guy myself, inexpensive, yet top notch knives.
 
EDCeeker said:
Doctors, in particular, seem discomfited by well-informed patients. I wonder why that is?
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Here in Australia it's 4 patients an hour--and all we want is for the doctor to listen to an amateur, when they will still HAVE to make a professional diagnosis, prognosis, treatment plan, and then tell us the real story? Even if it is the same as what we thought it was.
Now who could object to that? (sarcasm off)
Greg
 
I used to be that average guy. I wondered why people bought expensive knives. Thought that they were dumb.

Then as I grew older, something changed in me. I noticed things. I watched more carefully. I researched more thoroughly. I guess when I grew up and had to spend my own money on things is when the change started to happen.

Then I discovered that you really get what you pay for. There are differences in quality.

Then again, some people just don't hold value in what we, as a community, see as valuable and important, even though they are discerning folks.
 
Let's be honest, folks. Most people don't really use knives anymore. I know it's stupid, but they don't. And the few that do use one once in a while can get by on a cheap knife that we turn our noses up at. Why on earth should someone who doesn't know the difference between 440A and ZDP 189 spend fifty bucks on a knife to open a couple of envelopes a day?

I'm sure that somewhere on the net, other people are discussing how stupid it is to not buy top end stereo equipment, or how anyone who doesn't wear tailor made suits is a fool, or any number of other things I don't care about. After all, I am a knife knut. This is my passion (well, one of them). Because of that, I actually use my knives hard enough to evaluate the benefits of better steel. I know that a knife can be worth $200 to me. I can tell the difference between a cheap knife and an inexpensive knife. And I realize that the vast majority of the population care as much about knives as I care about clothes :D
 
yablanowitz said:
Let's be honest, folks. Most people don't really use knives anymore. I know it's stupid, but they don't. And the few that do use one once in a while can get by on a cheap knife that we turn our noses up at. Why on earth should someone who doesn't know the difference between 440A and ZDP 189 spend fifty bucks on a knife to open a couple of envelopes a day?

I'm sure that somewhere on the net, other people are discussing how stupid it is to not buy top end stereo equipment, or how anyone who doesn't wear tailor made suits is a fool, or any number of other things I don't care about. After all, I am a knife knut. This is my passion (well, one of them). Because of that, I actually use my knives hard enough to evaluate the benefits of better steel. I know that a knife can be worth $200 to me. I can tell the difference between a cheap knife and an inexpensive knife. And I realize that the vast majority of the population care as much about knives as I care about clothes :D
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Most folks are not the ones I worry about....its outdoorsmen, hikers, hunters etc. That dont know what a good knife is but run around with a cheapo touting it as fantastic and dont know how to sharpen it. If your going to be into the outdoors or anything that you use a knife regularly for, you owe it to yourself to have good knives. That doesnt mean super steels but even buck 420C is good stuff comparibly.

I know most of the general public will never care, just like I wont about alot of what they do. I myself have converted many of my friends and relatives into buying "the good stuff" which may be nothing more than red box benchmades but its better than $5 pawn shop. Like alot of things if you hang around a nut long enough it starts to wear off, I am sure many of you have had this happen. Its a good thing.
 
yablanowitz said:
I'm sure that somewhere on the net, other people are discussing how stupid it is to not buy top end stereo equipment, or how anyone who doesn't wear tailor made suits is a fool, or any number of other things I don't care about.
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You're absolutely right, and sometimes I think people lose sight of that fact. There are enthusiasts of just about anything, and no one is any more "right" or "wrong" because they do or don't share that enthusiasm and interest. There are many people out there that collect flashlights (some are probably member here too). Personally, I can't see why most people would need a $200+ flashlight or a collection of them when a standard hardware store variety would work fine for my usage, and because, well, most people don't use flashlights very often. Do those high-end lights perform better, or have certain "better" qualities than the $20 models? I'm certain they do, but not enough to justify me spending 10 times as much money on one. As yablanowitz alluded to, this same concept carries over to countless other "enthusiast hobbies" as well. Not everyone has the same priorities, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
 
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