Determining value: When does a knife cost too much?

Really enjoying this thread. I am a user and not a collector. I won't buy a knife that I am reluctant to use. I also don't use knives for work. Given those facts and my current financial situation, I don't see me spending more than a hundred usd on a knife.
 
Bottomline, If your afraid the knife your actually using on chores or activites might get damaged or
abused, you paid too much for it.

Would I throw a $200 Spydico, Benchmade or GEC slip joint pocket knife in my pants pocket with my keys and loose change or tool box. Me, NO.

Would Jeff Bezos do that, well, yes....would he care? no ....He could buy a dozen every second of the day

So, its relative to what you place a value on. You can find a great made knife that will serve you well for $50-75 bucks 90 percent of the time from kershaw, crkt, cold steel, buck, so on. Spending more that that is marketing hype.....sv30, 390, sv35, composite blades, d2, Damascus, ....ego, asthetics, scale material, usa made or china, it never stops....on and on and on...

like...man, oh my god, my $60 blade is only 420 hc or aus 8, and I have to sharpen it maybe once a month, (so much work!!,) and will people laugh at me who own sv30 or sv35 knives and think I am too poor to buy one, or maybe feel sorry for me, ......, using such a stone age inferior tool....


just my opinion
 
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That is actually a difficult question. I guess it comes down to how much I like the knife and is it worth the price to me. If it is too expensive for me to use then it is too expensive for me to own.
 
zippo123 said:
Bottomline, If your afraid the knife your actually using on chores or activites might get damaged or
abused, you paid too much for it.

Would I throw a $200 Spydico, Benchmade or GEC slip joint pocket knife in my pants pocket with my keys and loose change or tool box. Me, NO.

Would Jeff Bezos do that, well, yes....would he care? no ....He could buy a dozen every second of the day

So, its relative to what you place a value on. You can find a great made knife that will serve you well for $50-75 bucks 90 percent of the time from kershaw, crkt, cold steel, buck, so on. Spending more that that is marketing hype.....sv30, 390, sv35, composite blades, d2, Damascus, ....ego, asthetics, scale material, usa made or china, it never stops....on and on and on...

like...man, oh my god, my $60 blade is only 420 hc or aus 8, and I have to sharpen it maybe once a month, (so much work!!,) and will people laugh at me who own sv30 or sv35 knives and think I am too poor to buy one, or maybe feel sorry for me, ......, using such a stone age inferior tool....


just my opinion
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I think what Zippo said is about right, if you are afraid to use it, it cost too much for you personally. I don't agree with the part about $75 plus knives being marketing hype though. The more you spend the more you start getting into diminishing returns just like everything else, that doesn't mean that it is merely marketing hype.

At the end of the day, I think people are just too worried about cosmetic damage, a few scratches on your knife are just proof that you actually use your knife. I would be a little bit embarrassed if I show someone a knife that I have had for a long time and they thought it was brand new.
 
I'm primarily a collector. I love variety.
I work in the medical field. The only thing I can get away with is a small $10 Gerber for boxes/plastic straps.
This is my current 3 week rotation. This is a good representation of my typical knife purchasing, price range.
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How do you define diminishing returns? For some it’s about utility. For others it is a question of social oneupmanship. If you are a collector, you are driven by the same urges that drive good science; you want to understand and preserve something for future evaluation. Everyone is driven by different values, and whatever recommendations you hear should be tempered by that.


N2s
 
panicandrew said:
I suppose it's just like anything else, right? You can buy a $20 set of cutlery at Walmart and be fine for years. But you can head to even Bed Bath & Beyond and find $500 cutlery sets, and if you want to look a bit further you'll find there's a community much like BladeForums but for gosh darn butter knives and spoons. In some ways it might even be a sign of wealth, not a sign for others, a hidden sign for myself. Something to reward myself for. I got a nice fat 20% raise at work a couple of months ago, bought a Sebenza. I got a nice referral bonus of a few thousand at work around Christmas, that turned into a Hinderer.

There are some things I skimp on, some things I go crazy with. Knives are becoming the latter for me, especially because it's something I actually can carry and "enjoy" daily. Even though I'm an office worker, having my meticulously crafted carry knife on me to.. touch.. and caress.. and enjoy.. is the reason why I can justify a few $500 knives. But I'm also the type who spends $1000 on an office chair though, and wont buy a $400 mattress or anything. If you use it daily, it's probably worth the investment. We can spend $20k on a daily driver car that we spend a total of 2-3 hours in a week, why not spend a few hundred bucks on something you carry on your person?
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Hey I actually collect butter knives as well as "Real Knives" Don't you go talking bad about the mystic order of the butterknife collectors temple. You know there's actually a big difference between a cheaply made butter knife to a well made one. This might sound silly but it's true. I have some modern cheaply made butter knives and they are untempered stamped out stainless that take sets when you bend them. I also have some very well made old sheffield made butter knives and other vintage ones that have distil taper blade geometry, and have a very good spring temper to them and can flex 90 degrees and return to true.
Butter knife quality exists!
 
I got into knives heavy about 1.5 yrs ago and have realized I need to get the hell out of this hobby asap. Maybe come back in few years. In that time I went from a $50 Kershaw to multiple CRK and Hinderers. Forums like this sure didnt help either...It was fun while it lasted but no more knives for quite a while. I'm content with what I have and will enjoy them for many years to come.
 
It boils down to:
It's too expensive when I no longer want to purchase it after I see the price tag.

But the complicated answer is based on a lot of variables that include form, function, durability, reputation, pride of ownership, etc. Knives are more than just tools, to me, so a lot goes in to whether or not I will purchase a knife at all. If I want the knife, I will eventually get one regardless.
 
not2sharp said:
How do you define diminishing returns? For some it’s about utility. For others it is a question of social oneupmanship. If you are a collector, you are driven by the same urges that drive good science; you want to understand and preserve something for future evaluation. Everyone is driven by different values, and whatever recommendations you hear should be tempered by that.


N2s
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Steel for example. Every knife needs steel with a certain degree of edge retention, toughness, sharpen ability, and corrosion resistance. At least these are the main characteristics that are usually discussed around here. We all have a certain expectation for each of these aspects. D2 (or AUS8, 8cr, etc) probably has an acceptable level of each for 99 percent of us to be able to live with it. If the price was equal, we would all choose the knife that never gets dull, never breaks, and doesn't rust (though some want patina). The price isn't equal, so we choose a steel that fits our budget with the highest level of performance. More likely we choose a knife that meets our criteria and the steel is just part of the equation. D2 (or AUS8, 8cr, etc) is just the point where most people are willing to pay for an acceptable level of performance. I'm going to make the assumption that no one would be happy with pot metal and most of us aren't willing to pay thousands of dollars for the best "super steel". So in this case, even though you might not be obsessed with steel performance you have a certain level of expectations, beyond which you will run into diminishing returns for your money. I think we could have the same discussion about ergonomics, blade geometry, pivots, fit and finish, even style and collectability.

I do think a lot of people in the hobby are driven by things other than pure utility, but all of us expect a certain level of quality of material and craftsmanship. This is an example of where diminishing returns come into effect, and yes it is completely based on each individual's tastes and preferences.
 
When does a knife cost too much?
...when you bought it on a whim, and wish you hadn't.
I usually do something stupid like this, when browsing late hrs, and I'm brain-dead.
 
Okay SD, I get it - maybe we're looking for "scenarios" where a knife costs too much. I can think up a few of those:

When you buy it for $100, and shortly after see it on sale for $60.

When you're out hunting or hiking, and you drop it down a 100' cliff into the river.

When you gift it to another person, who carelessly gets it lost/stolen/confiscated.

Speaking from experience, all these situations are survivable, and might make a funny story after the indignation wears off. But I've also seen people in the unenviable position where they have no knife and need to cut something. That can present some real difficulties. Like my grandpa told me, "Boy, a fella who doesn't carry a pocketknife will spend half his life runnin' back and forth to the kitchen drawer."

Parker







 
One of my favourite “play knives” - go and chop shyte for giggles and the like is probably @800US worth (over $1k Aus) and I have zero qualms swinging it around and hitting stuff. If for no other reason (making me grin a bit) it is worth every cent it cost me. As I said before - “value” is very difficult to define.
 
not2sharp said:
When it comes to knives; the qualitative evaluation should revolve around those factors that are relevant to the user. A knife may clearly be objectively better in every way and yet provide less utility to the user than a far more humble knife. Issues like, how comfortable does it feel in the user’s hand, how comfortably it carry, how easily it sharpens, how acceptable is it in the environment it is intended to be used, or how easily it can be replaced if lost; can far outweigh the asking price or the metallurgy.

If your thing involves opening sacks of concrete mix or cutting carpet, then perhaps that disposable utility razor is far better than the $2k-3k custom folder. Knives don’t really optimize at an ideal point, which is why we have such a rich variety of them.


n2s
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Yes having the right tool for the job is always a factor.
 
Well like nutnfancy would say it depends on the philosophy of use as well I guess. Some pieces I buy are for collecting or display and others for carrying outside and using. Depending on how rare or appealing to me they are I am willing to spend some money on pieces that are for collection/display. For example I paid 200 dollars for an antique Spanish dagger that I have now on display on my living room and I think that was a very fair price for what it is. Some people might be horrified I'm willing to spend(or in their view waste) that kind of money on something "useless" that will just adorn my living room but to each their own. I find value on that piece and that is what matters in the end. As far as knives that I intend to carry outside and actually use I'd never spend that kind of money. Hell, my spending limit for that kind of knife might be $50. For this reason: I've lost pocket knives before. Imagine spending $400 on a CRK just to realize one day that one day it's missing from your pocket. Either you dropped it or left it somewhere and it got taken. Regardless, you just lost your $400. Some people might make enough to just go "oh well I'll buy me a couple more tomorrow". Great for you. I cannot afford to suddenly waste and replenish $400 worth of a knife. Now, is a CRK worth $400? Well that is what producing a quality knife in America that will be tied to the Chris Reeves name and produce a profit might cost. Would I pay that much? No way.
 
I'll push back on the "a knife is too expensive when I'm afraid to use it" theory just because some people are too afraid to use it. It's a divergence between buying quality approach and a collector's approach. I've gone through this experience with sunglasses, cars, whatever. Can you buy a $10 knife, a $10 pair of sunglasses, or a $1,000 car and get by? Yes... for a while. Most likely within a year, it'll break, you'll lose it, ultimately you just didn't care much about it because it was a junker. I broke or lost five pairs of $10 sunglasses in one year in my late teens. So maybe you upgrade to a $100 knife, a $100 pair of sunglasses, or a $10,000 car. Absolutely fine options, and you'll probably value/maintain it better than your junker. It should last a longer time. You could have picked an option half that cost, or an option double that cost, and the difference in price should equal the difference in quality/function. It will depend on what you can afford, but ultimately you should be using whatever option you chose. I don't buy a $20,000 car and then walk everywhere so it can sit in a "safe" garage. That said, if you value/maintain your tools properly, you're not prying with a knife, leaving your sunglasses near a puppy, or driving with the oil light on.

Does that mean someone buying a $500 knife, a $500 pair of sunglasses, or a $50,000 car is Jeff Bezos? No. They're just buying higher quality tools, so long as they're willing to use them. The difference is owning more than one and starting a collection. If you're collecting things, items turn from tools to investments. You may need to be able to sell X in order to buy Y. At that point, you can't really afford for the items to be tools, and that has nothing inherent to do with the value of the item. A $500 knife is an easy buy if it's your only one and lasts 50 years properly valued and maintained. A knife costs too much when it doesn't offer superior quality/function to cheaper options, pure and simple.
 
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