Carrying and Using Slipjoints

VCM3

Dealer / Materials Provider
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Oct 26, 2005
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Now I know,there is logical reasons,why one would carry,and use,a production slip,over a custom,and why,some,would prefer only customs.

But,I have come to a point,where,I have some production slips,that are really nice,and "hold back" on pocketing and using ,just as if it were one of my more expensive customs.

I would like to hear your reasoning,on why,you carry -use,don't carry/use,your custom or production slipjoints.Also,besides older vintage well used stuff,I'd like to see any recent pretty custom,or production slips,that have visible earmarks of pocket time/usage ,with an influence to the customs.
Thank's in advance,Let's see where this thread goes.....
Vince , BTW - Post # 23 on this thread gets a free used Case Stag mini copperlock ! That'll be Freekboi
 
I primarily don't carry anything that I think will be devalued too greatly by carrying it. As a result, I don't carry some of the knives I'd like to the most:grumpy: This is going to change soon, I'm having a small custom slip made up, that I promise that I will carry. It's the smaller Ray Cover knife like you posted with bone scales. I should have it in a few months.:thumbup:
 
The ones that I really like, I will carry. I can't hardly stand not to. Seems like a crime to me.

If I ever get my hands on a minty pre-1970 case stag trapper, you better believe I'm gonna carry it.
 
I carry every custom and factory knife I own. The only thing I do is for a few with really pretty scales, I use a W&H clip case or a little deerskin slip pouch to protect the scales. If you carry and use, you also have to sharpen and I do that too. My reason is that I love knives and half the fun is using them. Keeping them as safe queens is not as fun as using them.

I believe that, for me, collecting knives as an investment is a foolish waste of money. This is due to (a) the volatility in the market and (b) only a tiny percentage of knives every actually gain in value, used or not. If you're not investing...why not use the blade? In addition, what the market likes is often not what I like, so why buy a knife just as an investment when it doesn't trip my trigger? Knives I like that are investment grade are out of my price range...and then if I bought one, I wouldn't be able to use them because I'd "have to get my money out of them."

Using your knives, both custom and production is liberating to both you and the knives.
 
collecting knives as an investment is a foolish waste of money. This is due to (a) the volatility in the market and (b) only a tiny percentage of knives every actually gain in value, used or not.

Amen! The more you learn even a tiny bit about basic investment vehicles, the more you understand that "investing" in knives is anything but an investment. Don't kid yourself. Call it a hobby, if you will, but you can get a much better return on your dollar just by opening one of those new online savings accounts that pay 5%ish (not to mention IRA, Roth IRA, etc.).
 
I only own production knives, but I would love to own a custom or two someday. I am no collector; I use my knives. There is nothing wrong with collecting, it is just not my thing. I've owned knives before that were never used. As nice and beautiful as those safe queens are, I have derived much more enjoyment from using my daily companions than I ever did from just looking at a pretty knife.

The way I see it, if I can't afford to use a knife I can't afford to own it.
 
I couldn't buy a custom knife to sit in a case any more than I could buy a custom pipe wrench to sit in a case. The whole idea just doesn't sit right with me. In the unlikely event that I'd spend $200+ on a custom, you better believe I'd use it. And expect it to have $200+ performance, too.
 
I use every knife I own. At first I thought I'd be preserving things for their value, but soon realized I was kidding myself. I'm buying mostly new production pieces, not rare antiques. Those antiques that bring lots of money are often "used", and the buyers rave on about the patina, the "stories the knife could tell", and the provenance. Well, maybe my knives will gain some of that some day, and be worth even more because of it.

As I figure with my gun collection: Very little of what I own is going to go up (significantly) in value. If I have to sell pieces I'll be lucky to get near what I paid, and if it's less, I'll consider it "rent" and the price I paid for learning what I learned by owning the piece. And yes, each piece of my collection(s) usually teaches me something, if nothing else than how to appreciate that piece (hope that makes sense).

I'm not of the ilk that can afford $350-1000 custom knives nor $10K+ shotguns. I don't wear a $50K Rolex or drive a $50K car, for that matter. I'm not even sure I'd buy those items even if I had that kind of money, but obviously somebody does.

-- Sam
 
I'd like to add,I should've stated this,but I'm not a statesman,LOL.
I never really looked at any of these as an investment.
I actually have carried and used some real expensive custom slips,while restraining from not carrying some production slips.

I actually recently sold a slip,for half it's original $600 cost,('cause I used and carried it),while in the meantime,having knives on order w/the same maker,and recently purchasing others off him.
Am I confused,or what ?

Also,if you have a load of 'em,how the hell can you carry 'em all,or even EDC rotate.
There are some good posts so far,Thanks,
Vince
Edited in,I have intensions,upon purchasing,to use the knives. I usually carry a small custom fixed blade in my left pocket,a folder in my right,(pocket clip type,custom and or production),and either a third small folder,but most often a slip(custom and production),in my right watch pocket of my pants. Now,when I leave the house for the day,my customs are generally locked up in cases,and I don't consider them "safe queens".Some of them never do,did,or will get carried.
All my production slips are displayed most of the time in my bedroom.
Maybe I have too many knives?
Alls I know,is it gets freakin' confusing sometimes,I never really considered myself a true collector,I just like knives.
 
I have some nice production knives. I can't really afford customs. While I admire some of them, rather than save and go for a custom, I feel I get pretty good money's worth out of a good production knife.

I have a couple of SFO Queen and S&Ms that I really like the look and feel of. One being a 1 of 50 SFO. I haven't quite been able to bring myself to pocket them. Yet. I just have to sew up some pocket slips for them and I'm lazy.

Like Zip7 and Brownshoe, I get my most pleasure from using a knife that I enjoy carrying and using. As a result, what I carry EDC has do to with how the knife carries and performs for me, along with how much I just enjoy the feel and the look of the knife. If I find myself handling the knife in my pocket and/or pulling it out now and then just to enjoy, that is a part of the pleasure. I might even find myself rubbing it now and then like a worry stone, just for the calming effect. It's kind of grounding in a scattered world. This is where I find a knife's greatest worth regardless of maker, pattern, or steel. A knife has to work good for me and cut well, first and foremost, and many do. If it has all those other qualities then it gets carried frequently. And if it gets carried, it gets used, and not much special treatment.

For the past month or so my EDCs consist of two knives I've mentioned a number of times on here. My work carry in dress slacks took over my pocket right after I got it. That one is a chestnut, smooth bone, Case mini-trapper SS. The only problem to date is that I need to clean some of the gunk out of the pivots from where I've been using it to skin fruit and cut meat in my lunch. Plastic cafeteria knives don't, forgive the pun, cut it. It still looks great, but it's getting to be a bit of a pull to get it started opening. No fault of the knife, just the owner. Like I said, it gets used.

My off duty, jeans companion is a Case trapper with hand engraved bolsters, also in stainless. I hesitated at first to carry it, but it was just too good looking not to. At first I was only going to carry it as a go to town knife, hence my wife referring to it as my "Town Knife." But, long before the mini-trapper came along this one had proven itself a fine carrying knife that fit all the criteria. So, in jeans, that's been the choice for quite a while.

So, while I like CV, 1095, and D2, and I think the Queen and S&M #19s are a little trimmer, with a little more finesse that the Cases, these two Tru-sharp, recent production Cases have become the reigning EDCs by virtue of performance and pleasure of carry. I enjoy carrying and using them and have not been disappointed. That's what matters to me.

I do have some lovely stag slippies in my collection that I've tried carrying, but the stag is a bit heavy and I notice it in my pocket. I don't carry my one MOP, a Burnt Chimney because I don't want to break it when I drop it, and I've already dropped the above EDCs a few times. Others I have and enjoy in a variety of handle materials, but most of them don't pocket as I'd like, or in the case of one, the blade is long enough to worry some folks, but carries surprisingly well.

I do have a small cigar box of EDCs that I had been rotating out of, but they're getting a little lonely now. At least three of them are Case Yellow Handle CVs, peanut, soddie jr., and barehead trapper. There are canoes, jacks, a whittler or two, and others. A few in stag, others in Delrin/composition, and bone in a few varieties. Steels are a mix of stainless, 1095, and CV, with maybe a D2 in there.

I guess that was a long winded way to say that what I carry is about doing what I need it to do, while giving me pleasure in the carry and using of it. I'm sure if I were using my knives a lot heavier and harder I'd probably carry something else based on the same criteria.
 
VCM3 - a true knife knut will get some britches that have a lot of pockets!

j/k - But I do wear the carpenter pants quite a bit - with leg pockets, and I will often carry a longer knife, like a full size or larger trapper in that leg pocket and something smaller like a canoe in my right front. Tomorrow I am going into the city with the whole family, so I'm liable to have 4 or 5 on me, or at least my normal EDC plus 1 small fixed blade deanimator. If I had a CCW I would carry a walther PPK/S too.

I carry what I think I might need - if I only carry one knife, it's usually going to be a full size trapper of some sort, or if I'm going someplace fancy where I'm not likely to need a knife - maybe a canoe. I have been known to carry two knives to church, however. Fortunately I reside in an area where carrying a knife doesn't raise eyebrows, but most of the folks around here are somewhat citified and never carry one - so I get to use mine a lot.

I do use the little leather slip pouches a lot, now that I have some. Not only does it protect, but it keeps it from "slipping" right out of your pocket.
 
All my knives are users. Granted if I'm going to a duck blind it may be my Case stainless mini-trapper over one of my nicer knives but mine are all users. I can afford a custom slippy, but I don't see the point. I can appreciate a well made CSC or Queen or Boker or Case but whatever I get will be carried and used.

Now I can see myself getting a custom fixed blade, but again it would be a user, e.g. something from ML knives.
 
I carry only users also. If it is a High Dollar Collectable, it gets put in the Gun Safe! I don't have Bookoo Bucks to throw down the Toilet!
 
Knife carry, what a quandry! If I carried a different slippie every day, it would take several months to get through them all. I have way too many knives and will probably decide someday which ones to get rid of.

I have a few knives that I don't carry. I'm saving them for posterity, whoever HE is.

Seriously, I do carry some knives that I would hate to lose, but if I really like a knife, I want it with me. Especially one that looks good, cuts good and feels good in the hand.

I have no custom knives (one semi custom Chris Reeve umfaan special made). I have started exploring the older production knives. That's a good way to spend money.

I don't think of my knives as an investment; more as rent as ParaGlock said.

Now what to do with all those other knives...:rolleyes:

Dean
 
I think any knife or tool should be used at it's intended task for which it was designed for. Gun, knife, handmade bamboo fly rod, it was made to be used. Alot of times somebody has wanted to show me a treasure, and they will take this package and gently unwrap all the cloth from around it. I look at the pristine new item laying there, and ask them why they have'nt used it. To me its just a souless new item that has not devoloped any personality yet.

Like other posters have said, if you want an investment then look elsewhere. They have very good proffesionals at places like Merril-Lynch and Smith-Barney to make you some money. But if you have something really nice, and think it's some kind of treasure and keep it as a safe queen, then all you've done is make some relitive a present of a new unused whatever when you die. You've lost, because you have never had the experiance of bonding with that gun, knife, rod or whatever out where it really counts.

In the 1960's when I had some extra money before my married days, I bought a very nice knife from a guy named Bob Ogg. It was a nice big slip joint folder like an old time clasp knife, whitch is what he made. For a long time it was a drawer queen and it was kept in a soft cloth and not used. Then I got to a point in life that I realized that we have a finite life span, and its going by faster than we notice. I started to use everything I had squirled away for God knows when. Guns, knives, that special bottle of French brandy. After that I had even more pleasure from them because I HAD used them. The Ogg knife became one of my favorite knives to take to the woods as it was big enough to do alot of things, yet would fit in the side pocket of my jeans. Just like my Bertram bothers knives, the stag turned a rich mellow golden being handled and the carbon blades got a nice grey patina, and they now have a history with me. They developed memories.

I can hold the Ogg and recall slicing bacon in a west Texas camp on a cold morning, and the way it smelled in the iron pan on the fire. Or my old grey Hen and Rooster stockman trimming some protuding brush limbs in the parking spot in the Mesa Verde National Park that was keeping me from parking my truck all the way in the space, when Karen and I were on a round the country trip to all the major parks in 1997.

I say use the things and cherish the memories that they will remind you of every time you pick them up. You will reach a point in time when those memories will be very important to you. When you get to a "older" age, what will you regret? I know when I got over 50, my outlook on alot of things changed dramaticly. I suddenly realized I had a smaller amount of time left than what I had used. Why hoard things? I gave away or otherwise got rid of everthing I felt I really did not use and then used the heck out of the rest. Shot those guns that were in pristine shape, carried those old pre WW2 Bruckman pocket knives dad brought home from his "trips" over there.

Go ahead and carry and use them, because no amount of money will be able to give you the pleasures of a well seasoned piece of equiptment that has been a partner in what ever outdoor thing you're into. In time the steel will patine, the stag will yellow, the wood darken, and something called charater will happen. It will be noticable to others as well. I think it was the Japanese that believed that the sword carried by your family has some of the chi, or spirit of that ansestor that carried it before you. That a bit of that spirit stays in the blade. I'm no samuri, but I won't discount a thread of that belief. When I carry one of my family's old knives I feel a bit of something. Inanimate objects can hold a memory I think. But they have to be used to do that. To have that thing called charater. But I am sure of one thing. There's no investment profit that can replace the moment when sitting by a fishing hole, and using the old knife with the charater of decades on it, to slice a bit of cheese for a Ritz cracker that your handing to your grandson, and he askes "How long have you had that knife, Grandad?" And you tell him about the time that...

I know I've been around on this planet long enough that the list of departed family and friends is getting depressingly longer. Once in a while I get something handed to me, with the comment that "He would have wanted you to have this." Sometimes it's something the departed really carrried. A few times its been something that they had bought for some reason, but never carried. You could tell by the fact that it as still brand new. It did not feel the same.

Well known gun author Skeeter Skelton was once asked by someone in the collum he wrote for the magazine he wrote for, about how to preserve a vintage Smith and Wesson tripple lock revolver, to hand down to thier family some day. Skeeter wrote in his typical style, that he would not worry about preserving it, and he had one just like it that he shot on a regular basis. He stated that he saw no reason not to shoot the heck out of a very nice gun just to leave his relitives a nice gun when he died. They had to find thier own treasures.

In a nutshell, if that idea was good enough for Skeeter Skelton, its good enough for me. I don't have anything but users these days in any thing. If it shoots, cuts, or does what it's supposed to, it gets carried and used. Even the oldies from the cigar box. I think that grandad, dad, Andy, and even Paul, would want it that way.
 
The only time I won't carry one is if it's a pattern I collect AND that particular knife is from a very limited run.

Otherwise it's gonna ride in the pocket at somepoint!

jackknife, your hittin' a soft spot in my ol' heart quoting "Skeeter", dang I still miss him!
 
I have a few custom slipjoints but mostly productions. I have not yet been able to convince myself to carry and use the custom and nicer productions except very infrequently. My lifestyle is such that I honestly don't do much in the way hard core cutting chores so its not likely in great wear and tear would result if I did. When this topic comes up here in BFC and people state their reasons for carrying and using the customs, I always nod my head and think they make good points. By the time Vince's thread runs its course and I digest all the input, I may experience an epiphany and begin to carry and use each and every one........or not. :D
 
jackknife, your hittin' a soft spot in my ol' heart quoting "Skeeter", dang I still miss him!

He and Bill Jordan were the only gun writers who made any sense because they knew what they were talking about. With them gone, I don't bother picking up any of the gun rags anymore. :(
 
I've never seen a brinks truck follow a hurse. I don't know why people won't carry and use a fine handmade knife. People will pay $80,000 for a new auto and drive it every day. I wish every knife I made was in somebodys pocket going to work.
 
He and Bill Jordan were the only gun writers who made any sense because they knew what they were talking about. With them gone, I don't bother picking up any of the gun rags anymore. :(

Yup on both accounts! I always read Skeeter's column and any features he had in there. It was a tough one when when he passed. Felt like I'd lost something when he did.
 
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