• The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
    Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
    Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.

  • Today marks the 24th anniversary of 9/11. I pray that this nation does not forget the loss of lives from this horrible event. Yesterday conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was murdered, and I worry about what is to come. Please love one another and your family in these trying times - Spark

Ever do a complete collection flush and restart?

I tell my wife I see no reason to have more than 10 knives, any time I get around 10 I have been selling 3 or 4 to buy one higher end knife. I have never started completely from scratch but have been down to like 3 or 4 left in my collection. Most recently I sold a Benchmade Barrage, a M4 Mini Griptilian with Wilkins grips and Native 5 to finance my first Sebenza.
 
ForeskinAvenger said:
The real question is, how much money is actually lost in a purge? I would think little to none if your whole collection was purchased used, but quite a bit of money if you bought new.
Click to expand...

Actually, for me, it's been the other way around.... The used ones I buy, I tend to use even more, and their values diminish accordingly. The majority of the new ones I buy (keeping in mind that I tend to buy multiples) stay in the safe and remain minty fresh. When it's time to sell something (to fund more knives, of course), the new ones do quite well in holding their value, and many even appreciate in value if they are no longer available new from retailers.

It's a better investment than the stock market (in my experience), and it's something I truly enjoy.
 
No, but I did recently sell off almost all of my production knives and have moved my collection in more of a mid tech/high end direction.
 
I have yet to do this myself, but I can see myself doing it someday down the road (unless I win the lottery). So far, I have really been enjoying it when others purge their collections (as the OP well knows), adding knives to my collection that I missed out on for one reason or another.
 
Sometimes I think about selling everything, keeping 2-3 pieces that I know I'll really use, pocketing the cash and calling it a day. Problem is I really enjoy buying/selling the knives in my collection. It's almost a hobby in itself.
 
Last edited:
OfficerCamp said:
Sometimes I think about selling everything, keeping 2-3 pieces that I know I'll really use, pocketing the cash and calling it a day. Problem is I really enjoy buying/selling the knives in my collection. It's almost a hobby in itself.
Click to expand...

Right? I can't tell you how many iterations my rotation has had. I've had my Cold Steel Tuff Lite since April last year... And that's the longest I've owned a pocket knife. Everything else gets sold and traded within a relatively short amount of time. The upside is that overall I haven't lost any money (some profits, some losses, always seems to balance out) and have had the opportunity to handle some very fine knives (Brian Tighe, Elishewitz, have a Will Moon coming in, and then you get into productions like the 0777M390BLK, XM-18, soon an Umnumzaan and a Kershaw TiLT). Hundreds of knives have passed through my hands, and I don't see it stopping anytime soon.

Also, I think that means I've spent something upwards of a thousand dollars in shipping at this point... Which means that I've made over a thousand dollars, pre-shipping, on my exchanges, but with shipping I have come out about even. It's a weird thing to have just realized.

Anyway, this flush and restart has been super awesome. I'm finally going to be able to handle my first Chris Reeve knife (Umnum, old pivot + LBS) and a TiLT - a knife I have wanted to check out for AGES. Sadly, the TiLT is 0.5" longer than is legal to carry in Denver, but I'll at least be able to experience the pivot action and ergonomics that are apparently so godly.

EDIT: It's probably worth mentioning that this is all with a low-end-retail kind of income. Patience is a real virtue - as is obsessively checking eBay, the exchange, the USN cove, and about ten different online retailers.
 
I came pretty close once. Divested of a bunch of Gerbers and Roselli's. I went on sort of a Roselli obsession but at the end of the day, they aren't that practical...for me. Sold off probably 80% of what I had and then restocked with ESEE, Becker, Spyderco, and Benchmade products of a wide variety.
 
There seems to be a very active buying and selling going on here at BF. I think I went to those forums maybe three times since I joined. It is something I probably need to get past as I really do have a "small pile" of knives that I have no intention of ever using, have little present interest in, and have no intention of becoming a collector.

I went through this with firearms. It starts with buying stuff you like and things get discontinued or become much more valuable and all of a sudden you realize you're a "collector" versus an accumulator. But you know you're a collector when you begin searching for the one variation of a particular model you don't own and are willing to spend a lot of money to acquire. Reality sets in and you ask yourself, what am I going to do with this sought after variation after I spend the $$$$ to get it in the condition I seek? Probably nothing.... just like all the other collectables I have. I vowed not to do this with knives and my knife buying took a huge leap forward after I joined BF.

As far as accumulation purges go, I am a fence straddler. I lack the interest to sell them but realize that I have little need for them or even desire to own many of them anymore. I mentioned that the accumulation will probably go to a landfill when I pass on, which is probably generally true, but I suspect there will be a lot of greedy relatives seeking stuff once they know I am not there to oversee this and knowing my wife has little knowledge or interest in sharp things. A $500 knife looks the same to her as a $20 knife for the most part.
 
Last edited:
Even if I put my knives for sale I could never get a fair price and or the right buyers. Living in Eurpoe has it disadvantages when 90% of the forum active knife collectors are in the US and don`t want to shop overseas.

I`d love to sell 90% of my collection and keep just the really really special ones.
 
Last edited:
22-rimfire said:
There seems to be a very active buying and selling going on here at BF. I think I went to those forums maybe three times since I joined. It is something I probably need to get past as I really do have a "small pile" of knives that I have no intention of ever using, have little present interest in, and have no intention of becoming a collector.

I went through this with firearms. It starts with buying stuff you like and things get discontinued or become much more valuable and all of a sudden you realize you're a "collector" versus an accumulator. But you know you're a collector when you begin searching for the one variation of a particular model you don't own and are willing to spend a lot of money to acquire. Reality sets in and you ask yourself, what am I going to do with this sought after variation after I spend the $$$$ to get it in the condition I seek? Probably nothing.... just like all the other collectables I have. I vowed not to do this with knives and my knife buying took a huge leap forward after I joined BF.
Click to expand...

I find myself doing that all the time - I'll discover some discontinued or rare variant of a knife, spend ages looking for it at a reasonable price, find it, buy it, and then immediately realize I'll never use it because of how valuable and rare it is. So I sell it and then buy something I'll actually use. This has happened, like, 10-12 times.
 
I have been thinking about a purge with my art collection. Many people talk about moving when they have a large firearm collection. My answer is always to buy a trailer or rent a truck. Yes, it's inconvenient. Well, consider art work and how sensitive it is to moisture and damage which would destroy the value completely.

It is not just knives. It is a mental thing about accumulating stuff you like and you become unwilling to let go of it. But eventually you will be forced to let go of these accumulations or collections.
 
I have come pretty close. There are three knives in my collection (Benchmade 942, Case pen and Case peanut) that I'll never part with because they were gifts from my parents and my son. But I have gotten rid of everything except those three. The funny thing is that I always seem to buy the same knives over and over again.
 
mdsmith said:
The funny thing is that I always seem to buy the same knives over and over again.
Click to expand...

You definitely know you are settled in your ways when you are looking at knives and you tend to pick up the same sort of designs or patterns over and over again passing over most others.
 
I've had everything in my accumulation be sold off over a month or two and replaced with knives more in line with my changing interests...


Except for one knife. My Spyderco Military(s) are here to stay!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top