At what price point would you consider a knife to be decent?

H

Hal

Joined
Feb 26, 1999
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830
The title says it all.
How low can you go and still get a decently made knife?
$20? $30? $50? $100? More?
 
However much this was.

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Hal said:
The title says it all.
How low can you go and still get a decently made knife?
$20? $30? $50? $100? More?
Click to expand...

Decent for what?

A simple kitchen knife can be had for a couple of bucks and will probably last you a lifetime. Now if you want a sheath, or to baton, or you need for it to fold, etc., the price is going to go up. Knives served a wide range of purposes, and some of those purposes do get pricy.

n2s
 
I’ve had decent knives that I bought for less than 20$ and a few that were much more expensive that shouldn’t have left the shop. Price doesn’t always equal quality, that’s why I prefer handling before buying.
 
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Recently paid $8 for a Cold Steel Kudu, really nice knife for the money. On the flipside I've had knives that were 10 - 15x that weren't as well thought out for knife work. You always have to take these things on a knife by knife basis.
 
Folding?...fixed? Materials and who’s making the knife dictate if you’re getting a “good” knife for the $$$
 
For me it depends on the brand. I know Opinel and Mora can make a good knife (not just decent) in the $10-$15 range; not every brand can pull that off.

I've only owned one Tangram knife, but despite being the budget arm of a brand I like and trust, Kizer, I wasn't impressed with that knife for $25. Kizer's Vanguard line, in the ~$50 range, is therefore where my floor starts with their knives (and those are excellent).

I'm automatically suspicious of any modern folder from a brand I've never heard of that's priced under $50.
 
For a folder... that's actually made for work.
( I have little no need for a fixed blade)
Imo 50 to 120$ roughly.
 
to me the most important thing is for the knife to not have any play, and for the knife to have solid lockup. ive had cheap gas station knives that i was happy with because they had solid lockup and no play.

one of my favorite knives at the moment is the very cheap m-tech claw, i got it for $11 shipped and it has solid lockup and no play
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I feel it's pretty subjective. Most "normal" people are fine with the cheapest of the cheap gas station knives, and that's fine.

It's easy to conflate price with quality, which isn't right. I could pay 12 bucks for an Opinel and get awesome cutting performance and F&F, or I could spend hundreds on an Emerson and get the opposite experience.

For me, I'm generally only interested in stuff between $100 and $400, but I wouldn't disregard an interesting piece just because it's not expensive enough.
 
The ones that are solid performers like Mora, Opinel, Buck etc that are good knives, will not win any pretty awards, but they are good bang for the buck. Those are in the range of 15 to 40 dollars. Ones that are more nicely put together and still are good users for me are between 50 to 100.00. I have good experience at finding small fixed blades that are between 75.00 to 125.00, on the makers exchange. I like the small fixed blades.
 
Is a 3 dollar wal-mart knife better than anything you can make in the wild?

Yes from me. I'm going with $3.00
 
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