Did you start out buying cheap knives?

W

whitefox

Joined
Mar 3, 2011
Messages
95
Well did you?

My definition of cheap knives, would be something poorly made. Cheap steel; like the Chinese 420 stainless steel. Some fancy knife featuring a skeleton hand as the handle, or a flaming handle all for $12 bucks.

For me, at first, I thought, a knife was a knife. If it had a point and edge, that's all that mattered to me. Then I realized quality with a blade played a important role with different tasks, that may have caused the edge to go dull quicker, or the knife to break entirely.
 
My first was a Gerber Paraframe II. Tried to look around a little for a decent knife, but didn't research it that deeply. Later I got a Kershaw Shallot after seeing a friend's Leek, and I've been buying good knives since then.
 
I started out with Buck, Case, Schrade and Camillus, over 40 years ago when all were USA made. Over the years collecting moved all over the globe for me, looking towards quality.
 
I had many knives growing up as a youngster. Schrade, buck 110s. But when I started collecting I jumped right in and bought a sebenza as my first knife.
 
Yes I did, I was a poor kid. The flea market knives as a kid were just cool, to me at the time.
I got a Buck folder or two as gifts as a boy.
I got into knives more while in the culinary industry, as I got more of a feel for the steel.
Then it was some hunting and outdoors knives, nothing too special, but $100-$200 range. I think of Beckers and Ontario's as affordable, not necessarily cheap.
I just got a set of Old Hickory knives, a few months ago. They are good user knives, an Ontario Machete is a good tool.
 





The butter fly knife and switch blade that I got in a tourist shop in Ensenada. (Pieces of crap)
 
my first non-SAK knife was an overpriced S&W. it came as dull as a butter knife, but to this day, it still locks up tighter than several custom knives I've owned.
 
misterjuiceman said:
my first non-SAK knife was an overpriced S&W. it came as dull as a butter knife, but to this day, it still locks up tighter than several custom knives I've owned.
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some of the s&w knives are pretty decent for the money. their search & rescue series are not bad either.
 
Yeah I made that mistake. When I was a kid I used most all my extra money buy Frist Cutlery crap. I guess I was under the impression, if I could buy 1 for $20 or a box of a dozen for $20 then I had to be crazy not to buy the dozen because I got 12 times the product for the money. Granted I did used to sell all the extras for like $5 each so I made money on it but they were still nameless steel that in my standards of today just plain sucked. Looking back they were prolly the best for a school kid since I used totheow them, use them as screwdrivers an everything else I would never do today.


I used to really brag about my collection having over 200 knives. When I look at it today it consisted of maybe 6 quality knives from Gerber, Buck, The good days of Old Timer and Schrade when it was an American company and even the occasional Case or Kershaw.
 
whitefox said:
some of the s&w knives are pretty decent for the money. their search & rescue series are not bad either.
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I paid $44 for my little one. you'd be surprised how many custom knives have the blade tang engage too close to the back of the lockbar, so that when you move the tip of the blade, the lock slips a little (but doesn't disengage still). it's my understanding that the tang should engage the lockbar as far away from the stop pin as possible, to keep this from happening. anyway, S&W did that right on this little guy, but plenty of highly-sought-after custom knives I've handled have this problem.
 
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Not really...The first one I bought for myself was a Kershaw Cyclone, which was nearly 100$ in inflated Canadian prices. I guess that's cheap by some peoples' standards, but I still rarely spend more than that on a knife.
 
The first knife I picked up was a Buck 110 knockoff I got at Home Hardware (think ghetto Home Depot). Still have it to this day.
 
My definition of a cheap knife is an inexpensive knife , it can be of poor quality or high quality. A knife made of expensive materials does not necessarily make it a quality knife.
 
yep. i had plenty of no name who knows from where knives growing up, and would go throw about all of the smith and wesson special ops knives at a nearby store. i can still remember when i had to debate for several days on if i really should spend thirty dollars on one knife.
 
Still have my first self-purchased " real" knife I bought in the early 70's. A G-96 copy of a Buck 110. I used that knife all the time for decades and never needed anything else......till I got the "sickness" :D
 
Pretty much avoided it.
Think my first was a Queen.
Over time a couple of SAKS, a Leatheman.
I really can't stand poor quality in anything, so rather than "hope" something that felt cheap might work, I just avoided it all together since I couldn't afford anything of better quality.

Thank goodness Cutlery Corner wasn't on TV back then or I probably would have been sucked in.
 
My first was a plastic large Buck and smaller Buck my ex-step-dad bought me at Sam's Club. Being a Buck it was still great quality and I loved that knife. Years later I bought a CRKT Mirage Titanium off ebay and soon got into BladeForums. I get the sickness and it goes away for a little while but it always returns. Newest toy is an Emerson Commander. I'm gonna call it my poor man's Strider. I sleep with this one:) Bogey man is in for a rude awakening!
 
First knife was a leatherman folder. I think a 301 with part serrated. just the knife no screwdriver etc. Carried it through highschool and part of college. Got a CRKT M16 titanium that was my first "More Expensive knife." Then I got My ZT's and have stuck in the 100-250 price range with a single tighe custom folder as a graduation present and an umnumzaan because I thought it was cool.
 
I started off buying a crap load of overpriced S&W. Thought they were amazing knives when i first started collecting. Wasted a whole lot of money on them...
 
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