General question: What makes a $900 knife so much better than a $40 knife?

newknife said:
Wrong. You can't buy direct from the unless you're in public service (check their site)$400 is for people in some sort of public service, as far as I can tell. Pretty much all the dealers have them listed from like $800-$1000. Can you show me an online source where the knife goes for $400 to the public? (that's all really beside the point, but I'm just curious)
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If you know that then don't blame Hinderer by saying they sell their knives for $1000 from the manufacturer.... it is the DEALERS that choose to mark up the prices because of low supply and high demand.

The reason for the high price of a Hinderer (to a person who is not a public servant) is not because the knife is a full custom or uses some crazy exotic unobtanium materials, but it is simply because it is very highly sought after. When you have something that everybody wants, you can jack up the prices and people will still pay for it.

A good example would be the new Scion FRS and Subaru BRZ that just came out. A guy that works at the dealership told me that when the first batch arrived, people were lining up early in the morning to BID ON ONE. The retail price of the car is around $25,000, but he said people were paying $34,000 for them.

It's a cool little car but there is no way in hell I would pay that much for it. There are people out there who wants it really bad though, bad enough to pay almost 10 grand over the sticker price just to have one.
 
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I suppose it's like anything else. I like to cook, and I pressure can as a hobby. There's no good reason for me to learn how to cook. I could just as easily shop for what I want. My time would be more efficiently spent by working an extra shift and using that money to buy what I want. When I realized that was the case I had some thinking to do. Why do I want to spend hours and hours on my day off making soup? Seriously, I can buy a can of Campbell's soup for $1.50 and simmer it in a few minutes, garnish with spices I bought at Winco for $.05, and call it lunch. I can buy a sixer of any one of hundreds of great beers for $8-12 and be in beervana. If I worked one overtime weekend swing shift, that brings home $375. This past weekend I spent 8 hours making 14 quarts of some of the best vegetable stock I've ever had with $25 worth of materials, not counting the cost of tools. I figure I've worked that sunk cost off over the last few years. $25 in materials plus $375 in time makes $400/14= $29 a quart, give or take a little.

There is NO WAY I would pay $29 for a quart of vegetable stock. No way. I had some this morning. I had a $.49 cup of Ramen noodles, and I used two cups of stock to make my noodles. That's $15 worth of stock in a $.49 cup of noodles. I'm not gonna lie, that was the best damn cup of Ramen noodles I ever had.

It's still a $15.49 cup of Ramen noodles.

It doesn't make sense. There is no logical explanation why I chose to do that. If efficiency is the name of the game then I lost.

I do, however, enjoy spending my time cooking.

I think it's weird that people spend their time watching other people play sports. They think it's weird that I cook. I use cheap knives I buy at Ross Dress for Less for cooking, sharpen them up on a Sharpmaker, and take great joy at turning out a hell of a finished product with cheap tools.

To each his own.
 
I have a $600. folder and a $20. folder. I like both and each gets pocket time.
 
One is paying for Hand fitting, tight tolerances, better materials and in the case of Customs hand made one at a time.

Can't really compare a $900 knife to a $40 knife anyway and be serious about it.
 
Another thing that is not taken into consideration most times about a true custom knife is; when you hook up with a maker you like and send him a drawing, it's not all of a sudden he makes you a knife. A good maker doesn't just build any ol' drawing and put his name on it. Several drawings and emails and questions and pictures and phone calls pass back and forth before a deal is made and material is ordered and the forge is fired up. That's time right there. What do you make in $'s/hour?
 
Bam!!
peak_oil said:
i suppose it's like anything else. I like to cook, and i pressure can as a hobby. There's no good reason for me to learn how to cook. I could just as easily shop for what i want. My time would be more efficiently spent by working an extra shift and using that money to buy what i want. When i realized that was the case i had some thinking to do. Why do i want to spend hours and hours on my day off making soup? Seriously, i can buy a can of campbell's soup for $1.50 and simmer it in a few minutes, garnish with spices i bought at winco for $.05, and call it lunch. I can buy a sixer of any one of hundreds of great beers for $8-12 and be in beervana. If i worked one overtime weekend swing shift, that brings home $375. This past weekend i spent 8 hours making 14 quarts of some of the best vegetable stock i've ever had with $25 worth of materials, not counting the cost of tools. I figure i've worked that sunk cost off over the last few years. $25 in materials plus $375 in time makes $400/14= $29 a quart, give or take a little.

There is no way i would pay $29 for a quart of vegetable stock. No way. I had some this morning. I had a $.49 cup of ramen noodles, and i used two cups of stock to make my noodles. That's $15 worth of stock in a $.49 cup of noodles. I'm not gonna lie, that was the best damn cup of ramen noodles i ever had.

It's still a $15.49 cup of ramen noodles.

It doesn't make sense. There is no logical explanation why i chose to do that. If efficiency is the name of the game then i lost.

I do, however, enjoy spending my time cooking.

I think it's weird that people spend their time watching other people play sports. They think it's weird that i cook. I use cheap knives i buy at ross dress for less for cooking, sharpen them up on a sharpmaker, and take great joy at turning out a hell of a finished product with cheap tools.

To each his own.
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Methinks some of you guys are missing the point he's making.

Busse, CRK, Emerson (Etc) = Custom?

Or even better, is Busse custom shop really custom, or is it more "cake topping"?

At the core of it I agree with his real point: that the term "custom" is being diluted by a couple of production knife makers.
A Roush mustang isn't a custom car. It IS special, but none the less it is still mass produced.

Custom is one-off, made to order by hand or maker.
 
Toxie said:
Methinks some of you guys are missing the point he's making.

Busse, CRK, Emerson (Etc) = Custom?

Or even better, is Busse custom shop really custom, or is it more "cake topping"?

At the core of it I agree with his real point: that the term "custom" is being diluted by a couple of production knife makers.
A Roush mustang isn't a custom car. It IS special, but none the less it is still mass produced.

Custom is one-off, made to order by hand or maker.
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What he said.
 
You have to understand the knife addiction. My most recent purchases are CASE Knives. My limited senior citzens budget allows me to purchase about one a month. I don't at this point own any $900 knives. However, I would gladly purchase and enjoy a $900 knife if the extra money was availalble.
 
i think another point not always evident is how large scale companies are able to offer great knives at a reasonable cost, due to being large scale companies that can utilize entire factories, dozens of workers, and earn a profit in batches of hundreds of knives sold, and thus able to offer a single one at a good price. when you analyze knife x from company y, knife x only costs 40 dollars because company y has millions a year in sales, years of solid sale history, and a reasonable expectation if they produce 3000 units of knife x, all will be sold to dealers and distributors, so they can add in the cost of making said knife across so many units. this is why limited runs and sprint runs from even large companies are always far more expensive then counterparts of almost identical materials, and if you were able to request a truly unique one of a kind knife from any company, youd be shocked at the price tag.

i agree that the secondary market mark up can be frustrating at times, but such is life.
 
There is a real construction quality difference between $40 and $200 knives. There are no $40 knives with G10 handles and S30V blades that have high quality fit and finish. You get that in a $200 knife. The quality difference is readily apparent. And when you really start using the knife, the difference becomes even more apparent in everything from the materials chosen to the performance and heat treat of the blade itself.

But beyond that... I think that above a certain price point, the difference is in very minor details that don't really matter to users and might even just be in their heads. A $900 knife boils down to market forces and "prestige pricing" as they say in Economics. You are paying for the bragging rights. Of course, people are going to defend their $900 knife. It's the same with people who buy $300 jeans. There is indeed a real quality difference between a $10 pair of jeans and a $40 pair of jeans. The denim is different, the stitching is different, even the zipper is different ($40 jeans have high-quality YKK zippers). But $300? That's prestige pricing. Of course, the guy who wears the $300 jeans will defend himself, claiming that his jeans are superior. Whatever, let him believe what he wants.

In short, yes. There is a difference... up to a certain point. Beyond that, it's tiny details... or just all in the buyer's head.
 
Honestly, most of it boils down to 3 things:
1) Supply and Demand.
Rick Hinderer and Scott Cook is a good example of this. If the demand exceeds the supply, prices will naturally go up to take advantage of that.

2) Fit and Finish.
It's the little details that will cost you. The Bradley Alias and Sebenza are both S30V and titanium, yet there's about a $200 price gap between the two of them. It won't look like much at first glance, as the only obvious sign of the tighter tolerances would be a smaller gap between blade and handle. Over time you appreciate the lack of sharp corners, the zero wiggle of the parts, and the smoothness of opening and closing. Not something that will ever show up in a YouTube review video.

3) Exotic materials.
I have a William Henry TZ12 and TMW-B12. One is ZDP-189 laminate and Titanium with sapphire inlays, the other is ZDP-189 wave damascus and mammoth bone with Spessartite inlay. The mammoth bone one is about $500 more than the other. You'll see similar price differences between a plain jane sebenza and one with a damascus blade and mammoth ivory.


But really, performance itself will more or less peak at the $200-$300 range. After that, it won't be any tougher, cut longer(super steel), or cut better. The $300-$600 range is all about low supply knives with great fit and finish(Strider being an exception). Higher than $600 and you'll basically be buying the knife for the same reason one buys a Rolex.
 
Toxie said:
Methinks some of you guys are missing the point he's making.

Busse, CRK, Emerson (Etc) = Custom?

Or even better, is Busse custom shop really custom, or is it more "cake topping"?

At the core of it I agree with his real point: that the term "custom" is being diluted by a couple of production knife makers.
A Roush mustang isn't a custom car. It IS special, but none the less it is still mass produced.

Custom is one-off, made to order by hand or maker.
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I disagree. A custom is hand made by the maker, but not necessarily a one off that is made specifically to order.

CRK, Strider, and production Hinderers can all fall into the "Mid Tech" class, I suppose, but if these same guys hand grind, hand fit, and customize the basic pattern at all, it falls into the "Custom" class. I'm not talking about a production line banging out knives that are being put together and sharpened by hand. I'm talking knives made one at a time, with close attention to detail, by and individual.

This is what I've been lead to believe over time and it makes the most sense to me.

Ankerson said:
One is paying for Hand fitting, tight tolerances, better materials and in the case of Customs hand made one at a time.

Can't really compare a $900 knife to a $40 knife anyway and be serious about it.
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This is the shortest and sweetest answer to the question.
 
Here's a quote directly from RJ Martin on another forum. I think this helps explain why a custom knife costs what it costs.

RJ Martin said:
Except for the pivot pin, screws and dowel pins:

Every part of my knives is designed and made by me, in-house:
Every blade is hand ground, heat treated, tempered, cryo treated and Rc tested in-house. The signature RJ Martin sweeping grind: Hand Ground!

Every bolster, scale, frame, liner, clip is made in-house. I make my CNC's parts on my own machine, using programs I write myself.

Every part of every knife is hand worked, in multiple ways, by me and me alone:
Blade lock-up, detent, bearing pockets-all hand work. All the things that make the knife function properly: Hand work!!

All contouring on bolsters, frames, scales by hand. All aesthetic aspects of the knife: Hand work!

I even bend my clips by hand....

All the assembly work is done by me, in-house. Then the fun begins...
Hours of hand work-Blending, finishing, refining, fitting, adjusting, etc.
until each knife is finished. Hand work!

All sharpening of blades is done by me. Hand work!

Now I am going fishing for a couple of days. My first days off all year. You kids play nice.......
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This may not explain if a $900 knife is so much better than a $40 knife, but it helps explain exactly what you're paying for.
 
in my limited experience, and functionally speaking, the price of a knife (as it goes up) is honestly falls to the law of diminishing return. However, after a certain $, it goes beyond function and becomes what many subjectively consider a work of art. With that comes pride of ownership and a small feeling of the "exclusive club" that only a small percentage of the population can see and appreciate.
 
Toxie said:
I would agree that true customs are well worth it, but production shop non customs for absurd prices I don't quite understand. For Example, I would love some big Busse knives (for using), but honestly would a 9" busse that's 3-4x the price of an ESEE Junglas be a better user? Both have the same scale material and the ESEE actually has a better warranty. Sure, the Busse is more far more collectable, and more exclusive. Does that make the knife "better"? Really up to the buyer.

More expensive doesn't *always* equal better, sometimes just more exlcusive, purdier, different features or other things. I'm sure that there are many cases of a less expensive knife being superior to a more expensive knife, after all not every product is successful in market - and being inferior is why they usually fail :).

IE: The Ford Edsel as an inferior product, and Gap clothing as a "Premium" status symbol that does not offer anything of substance over a normal quality made product.
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This is incorrect. Esee's warranty has a "within reason" clause. Busse's warranty is for the life of the knife, regardless of previous ownership, etc.
 
I never understood that world until I started racing bicycles in Europe, and toured some of the most famous watch makers. It was at that time I knew what it took to make every screw of the six or seven hundred piece watch by hand. It was truly a turning point of price point for me. I also had the opportunity to visit Bud Nealy in Pennsylvania and had that same look on my face.
 
For me the difference is my perspective toward the knife.
A production knife is a tool that is made to perform a function and meet a price point.
A handmade knife is a piece of functional art that is made to show the maker's style and skill at knife making.
With a tool I will look for the best performance at the lowest price.
With a work of art, price is not as important as how I feel about the piece.
 
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