Collecting Custom Bowies

T

tjtucker

Joined
Dec 29, 2006
Messages
62
I been bitten by the knife bug. I have been collecting guns for the last seven years. During my collecting of pistols I have found you should buy quality and name makers first. The thing I notice is if you by quality first if you go sell
you can get your most of your purchase price back. If you were me, limited to 2500.00 and like Bowie style where would you start?

TJ
 
I would deffinetly check out Don Fogg and also many members here can make you a custom bowie with materials of your choice for much less than what you are offering. Take a trip over to the shop talk forum. :thumbup:
 
tjtucker said:
During my collecting of pistols I have found you should buy quality and name makers first. The thing I notice is if you by quality first if you go sell you can get your most of your purchase price back.
TJ
Click to expand...

The above is very true of custom knives as well. Your taste will change, so you want to buy knives that you can sell easily as you adjust your collection.

You have found the right place to benefit form the experience and knowledge of many top makers and collectors. You can view past threads showing photos of many maker's knives and to get ideas and opinions on the correct way to start a collection.

Many collectors and makers have links to sites highlighting their collections.

When you have questions, just ask the group or send a private messages or emails.

Welcome to this forum and to custom knife collecting.
 
You could begin your search on the exchange forum here. There are three or four bowies for sale there as we speak.

Welcome to the forums!


- Joe
 
First thing I would do is not rush to spend that $2,500. Hang around for a while and see some of the diversity of offerings under the bowie banner. That money could buy you one knife, or 3, 4 even 5. Wise purchases can be made at every price point. Unwise ones as well.

As you have mentioned resale, keep in mind that the higher you go in price bracket, the smaller and smaller your group of potential buyers are when it comes to resale. There are a whole lot more poeple out there with $500 to spend on one knife than there are with $2,500 to spend. Particularly on an impulse purchase.

Welcome to the forums. You'll find a whole lot of bowie talk here.

Roger

Here are a few gratuitous bowie pics from you:

orig.jpg


orig.jpg
 
Thanks to all who responded. I must say this form is a lot faster than the others I belong to. Roger P thanks for the photos I like the first Bowie and I also like the one with the ivory handle. Roger it looks like you know what your doing on the Bowies. How do you establish value and worth? I'm good to go on pistols but lost on Bowies. Do you all know good makers in or around North Texas? I looked at some of the Bowies in the for sale forum but I wouldn't know a good deal from a bad deal other than some are sold and some are still for sale. Is it better to go with MS makers vs other. I know in the pistol ring you are better off with the known makers Wilson, Baer, Yost, NightHawk or Brown. Thanks again for your help.

TJ
 
Definitely take some time and check out the work of as many makers as possible before spending that kind of cash.

With $2500.00 to spend, I would be looking first at Jerry Fisk, Harvey Dean, Larry Fuegen and Tim Hanock. There are dozens of others, but one of those four would be likely to get my money.
 
Tj, here's the link for Lin Rhea's web site.
He comes to mind, as he an up and comer in the custom knife field, offers a lot of bowie for the money and he also has a very informative website for someone just starting out.

http://www.rheaknives.com/
 
The above mentioned guys, plus i would add Don Hanson to the list. He makes some SERIOUS bowies.:thumbup:
 
Get to Reno at the end of January, look at some knives, spread you cash around a few initially so that you learn how to judge fit and finish, what style and materials you like.

Buy direct from a collectible maker at a show and you should be able to turn it around without loss (or very little) quite quickly.

Dealers like Les Robertson can steer you in the right direct also.

You could do worse than buying one from Nifrands collection on the for sale forum.

JS and MS are a good indication of a certain level of competence ..... but as with most things some are better and more collectable than others, there are also a few JS's (and non ABS guys) making MS quality.

Makers I look at regularly in no particular order: Fisk, Newton, Dean, Hancock, Cashen, Andrews, Dunn, Fogg, Hanson, Neely, Potier,Connor, Zowada, Williams, Farr, Sfreddo, Rhea, Knight, McIntyre, Butler, Gatlin, Wheeler, White ..... there are others such as Fitch, Ferry, Christiansen, Winkler and many more with ardent fans .............. you get the picture!

In the end the money and choice is yours, but before laying it down follow the advice of the forumites ... research and shows!

Stephen
 
RogerP,
Those pics are some fine knives. Got me drooling over the the ones in the damascus pic. WOW!

Peter
 
tj - Stephen is spot on. The educational value of going to a show and seeing and handling a wide range of bowies at a wide range of price points is truly immesurable. You will find most makers more than willing to answer any questions you might have about their knives. Going to shows will also give you some immediate insight on range of pricing. As for value and worth -well, a few factors will impact my assessment of value:

1) Quality - until you know what to look for in a quality knife you can't really hope to make any meaningful evaluation of its value;

2) Materials - damascus and mammoth ivory will command a significant premium over carbon steel and maple.

3) Design / construction / execution - subjective aesthetic preferences aside, there are some designs that are a bit more difficult to execite than others - elements which signify that a higher level of skill was required to make that given piece.

4) Market position - a very important and often overlooked factor is a given maker's market position relative to other makers producing that type of knife. Dan Farr and Jerry Fisk can both produce and excellent bowie knife and you would be fortunate indeed to own a knife by either maker. But they do not occupy the same market position, as is reflected in their pricing.

5) Supply and demand. - This is pretty basic and applies to any collectable - the greater the demand relative to supply, the better your chance of securing your initial investment or realising a return on resale.

6) Price - when you have an idea of the above factors, you are better able to look at the price as something other than an arbitrary number.

As for buying "name" makers, it is generally true that for any given type of knife - bowies included - there are some top names that will always be a safer bet in terms of resale. But far more important than learning a few of those names is learing what you like and why. You will be surprised at the diversity of design, material and execution within the "bowie" group alone. (Heck - want to make someone's head explode? Just ask them to define what a "bowie" knife is!).

There have been a couple "Who makes the best bowie" threads in the past. These usually descend into something more like "Who is your favorite maker" and ultimately into "Who's your buddy". At the end, it seems every maker who has even made a bowie gets listed. These are still useful, however, as some names get repeated with great frequency. You might want to take note of those.

$2,500 for one knife (if one knife is what you are after) should buy you something pretty special. But there is a lot of ground to cover before you can make a purchase that will be special to you, as well as a sound investment.

Roger
 
First thing: when I started and had enough money: 1965 Bill Moran, Loveless were affordable.You should never buy a knife from a maker,even if he is the best, that is very in demand.He can and may afford to ask high prices but then your budget will vastly disappear .Look for the very good "beginners", they take their time and must still proof a lot .I bought Aad van Rijswijk now the prices are several thousand$=too much for me.I buy now Alex Salsi who won the Sicac price of the Paris Knife Show,his price is now OK.But in several publications his knives were shown so the prices begin to warm up.I like in the US Bagwell.But for me all my bowies must be "battle ready" not just show and fancy and certainly not put in a vault/My knives are my only investment that are able to cut me in my fingers.
 
$2,500 in the hands of a beginner collector can be the start of a very nice collection or the making of a very expensive mistake. Like for everything you collect, the difficulty is not to steer away from bad makers but to not overpay for good ones, and select something you're going to love for a long time. I would recommend going to the Reno ABS show and browse the offering from some of the top smiths in the nation.
 
Hi TJ,

Boy are we glad to see you into custom knives. I think, for you, having collected high-end guns, $2500 IS a relatively smaller figure for top-quality. The men in here are giving your some very long-learned advice. Much as you would give me if I was to wish to collect guns.

I am confident once you get your hands on a piece or two, you are going to want more. Start out with room to grow... :thumbup:

RogerP said:
There have been a couple "Who makes the best bowie" threads in the past. These usually descend into something more like "Who is your favorite maker" and ultimately into "Who's your buddy". At the end, it seems every maker who has even made a bowie gets listed.
Click to expand...
Ohhhh boy, is this ever human nature and the nature of our forums. Great synopsis, Roger!

Coop
 
tjtucker,

I'm also fairly new to this forum. I've been carefully learning over the last few months, essentially taking the advice you've seen here (from knowledgeable forumites and makers who take the time to post and e-mail).

It's been good. Have only bought ONE custom knife -- and it is a hunter rather than a bowie -- but it's one I would not have known about before. A real beauty, and for only $1.1K!

I live in DC and am ridiculously stressed out and busy, so have not been able to go to a major knife show. I do plan on doing this in 2007, however.

Slow and steady definitely wins this race. The more I learn, the more my tastes and interests evolve. Sometime this year, I will definitely commission a custom bowie ... no doubt from one of the makers listed above. When it finally arrives, I'll be able to enjoy it with confidence.

Amazing how much you can profit from just a few months of research.

Hang in there!
 
TJ,

You have asked a very complex question.

The first step is that you must define the parameters of your collection, if you don't, you run the risk of becoming "an accumulator" not a collector. This is a VERY important distinction.

"What do you enjoy?", is the most important question.

"Why do you enjoy it?", is a close second.

We also have to be honest about what we are actually discussing here. NOBODY NEEDS a $500 knife for everyday life, much less a $1,000 or $5,000 one. We are involved in a craft that has evolved into an art form. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I simply cannot tell you which knife to buy, anymore than I can tell you which painting to buy and put in your living room.

I can only tell you what I would do. The final decision is, of course, solely up to you. I would suggest that you spend some time at Bladegallery.com looking at the archives of current and sold pieces from all the different makers. start thinking about what appeals to your eye and why. Make a list of names and visit their websites. Use their names in the search function on this website and bring up past threads related to their work and read them.

FWIW, I would buy three forged carbon Bowies (9.5"-10.5") in the $800-$900 price range from three different established ABS JSs (Journeyman Smiths), who have an excellent chance of obtaining their Master Smith stamps within the next year.

I would seriously consider: Jason Knight, John White, Shawn McIntyre. All three have excellent technical skills, great eyes for form, and the dedication to be long term players in the forged custom knife market. There is also a realistic chance of actually buying one of their knives when the doors open at the Blade Show, or having an ordered knife delivered to you within a year.

I could have said Russ Andrews and Dan Farr, or Don Hanson III, but the first two are virtually unobtainable and the third is way over our budget. So I am not going to torture you by even suggesting them.
 
Randy Morgan has been collecting knives since the time of Noah, and lately he has been selling off some of his stuff. He has exquisite taste, is VERY knowledgeble, and you cant go wrong buying the stuff he is selling.
Consider the fact that he has already done your homework for you........knows who to buy and the right prices to pay.

He has a Tom Ferry for sale right now that I would love to have!!!:)
 
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