The whole "grail" concept is totally alien to me. There's never just ONE knife I want for my collection to be complete, and there likely never will be.
Fair enough! For me, to call a knife a 'grail' would mean the knife has to be one you want above nearly all others, for one reason or another. It doesn't mean an end to the collection, although I know these two won't be leaving. I'll sell all my other knives before I let these two go, with the exception of my Delica 4 and 940.
I understand Grail knives well. I had one I spent nearly 20 years trying to get. I finally did and I can see flaws in it I didn't know existed before. It sits mostly. Heck, the old knife's ergonomics are not up to what I'm now used to. On the other hand I wouldn't trade it for any other knife in the world just because it teased me for so long. I've kept my grails mostly achievable since then. Sal G. has actually made more than one of my new grails ( mule teams, as well as the Cruwear millie) plus helped me locate an old fixed blade to buy that I wanted since it was first imported but I couldn't afford it then.
I'm not sure whether I want to carry and use the Amphibian yet, actually! I think it'd be a shame if it just sat in a box, but on the other hand... discontinued, near mint condition lol. I'll probably get over it and carry it anyway!
I owe that guy more favors than I can count. Thank you Sal! Grails or not though I sure can't stop getting all excited with most every new release anyway. Sprint runs and new steels anyway. There was a time I had to search high and low, even import knives to try new steels. Now eventually Spyderco gets around to many or even most of of the best steels.
It's sure made things easy as well as giving me knives in the styles and cost that allow me to actually use these new steels.
That's actually one of the main reasons I picked up a Caly 3 CF; first experience with ZDP-189, totally blown away by it. I love Spyderco for their variety.
BTW, most grails are due to the steels in the knife. I'm as bad a steel junky as anyone I know though I don't do excellent tests like Jim does. I just figure out what I like about the new steels and what I don't and let it go at that. Sounds selfish but in reality there are others that make much better testers and teachers and communicators than I do. About the best I do for the community is occasionally lend a blade to someone for testing.
Joe
I agree, it's always interesting to know how the latest and greatest preform, but I bought my two grails because of the design, F/F, as well as how well they feel in hand... I was lucky enough to handle each before purchase. I have several knives in 154 CM and VG-10 already.
School in more important than getting your latest knife urge fulfilled.
Which is why I made sure I'd have more than enough before buying them. Also why a Jim hasn't found it's way into my pocket just yet.
I've been looking forward to attending for years.
