gun shows a good place to pick up a knife?

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KansanShooter

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Today in Wichita,KS we have our biggest gun show. Is this a good place to pick up a knife? Most guns are over priced..but never really checked out the prices on knifes. I love my Kershaw blur but hoping to find a ZT. Thoughts???
 
From my experience, not really. The gun show here, the majority of the knives are the $5 chinese gas station knives that they sell for $15.

There are two places that sell ZTs and a couple more than have Benchmade. Two guys have higher end knives like CRK, Strider and MT.

All of them though are more expensive than online.

It's a good way to test drive some knives, find the one you want and then order it offline when you get home.
 
Gun show by me is mixed...lotta cheap Chinese...lotta cheap Pakistani Damascus...but there are usually a couple of tables with some quality names. Picked up my Kershaw Lahar at a gun show...discontinued and a bit tough to find, you never know what you may find.
 
Anything even remotely worth buying will be 15% above Msrp. I just stopped trying for knives when I go to gun shows.
 
EldoEsq said:
Gun show by me is mixed...lotta cheap Chinese...lotta cheap Pakistani Damascus...but there are usually a couple of tables with some quality names. Picked up my Kershaw Lahar at a gun show...discontinued and a bit tough to find, you never know what you may find.
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That's pretty much my experience. Usually prices are about $10-$15 more than I can order online, but there's no shipping, and I have it in hand. Plus, you can sometimes find older stock that's been discontinued. Sometimes there are a few tables with old slipjoints in various condition, and I can pick them up cheap to fix up.
I say go to the show if you think you'll find it entertaining even if you don't see any good deals.
 
Not the ones down here. Lots o fake microtechs and other junk. No good deals to be had. I say that about the guns and ammo too. The internet is still the best place for deals and selections.
 
Depends on the show and location I suppose. Here there are usually jewels among the junk. Just different tables. Last show I attended had vintage Camillus, Case, Queen, Imperial, a few discontinued SAKs, and different handmades. All had reasonable prices, especially before haggling. Almost every show here will have makers from the general geographic area. So I suppose it depends on your geographic location and show more than anything else.
 
Mostly junk up here as well. However a couple booths were set up with local knife makers this year. That was pretty cool. But that doesn't happen often.
 
Houston shows occasionally have the Busse family stuff there. Most of the knives are overpriced or junk, or both. It is like the guns. If you go informed and know what you are willing to pay, you can find the occasional deal. At least take your cell phone so you can check the prices online while you are there. Personally if it is something I want, I am usually willing to pay 15-20 bucks more to keep it off the CC and the wifey's radar!!!

Doc
 
I would say it definitely depends on your area. The local shop I get all my knives from is in midlothian, va and they are pretty awesome.

They go to a crazy amount of gun shows every year.. (I spend way too much time and money there...hah) but seriously, the owner is by far the most knowledgeable person I have met .. Benchmade, Spyderco, ZT, Kershaw, Helle, Fallkniven, Lionsteel, Esee, Queen, Case, and the list goes on...

Their site says they are at VA Beach convention center this weekend. Oh and importantly, price is just as good as anywhere else. They don't have all their stuff on the site yet. The classic edge dot com/news has the show info on it.
 
The only two gun show knives I can think of off the top of my head that I bought were:

1. used Kershaw Skyline for $20. Good buy and sold it a few years later for what I paid for it IIRC.

2. Lightly used Surefire Dart for $90. This is back when they were like $180 new. I thought it was a screaming deal. I wound up selling it for $65...
 
Its a gamble really, our shows never had nice knives untill our big one came through a couple months ago. A guy had about 10 cases of NICE stuff. Had about 3 cases of spyderco and (one was just spirits), 2 for bm, one for zt, one of just bm otf's, and about every brand was represented at below internet prices. I was overwelmed
, and kick myself for passing on his lionspy you dont want to know how much, id be banashed lol. I ended up with my first zt from him the 810 for 40 bucks less than ive seen anywhere. Here is a little tease
IMG_20130907_135248_106.jpg

..
 
I went to my first gun show in September and the selection of knives was very varied, although I still have to agree with what pretty much everyone else is saying. 90% of the knives (and sadly the ones getting the most attention) were $5 chinese junk. One table had a bunch of production knives but they were all pretty much MSRP, and another had some super high end customs, like a $5200 Todd Begg Glimpse 5.0 and a $4200 Tim Galyean Turbulence. There was one table in between the two who had some nice out of production/rare knives for pretty reasonable prices. I nearly walked away with a Ferrk'd Po Boy CQC6 for $400 which I think was a decent price.
 
I find a lot of different knives at gunshots, many traditional knives and many tables with cheap chinese crap. Usually 2-3 tables of quality but overpriced and 1-2 tables with quality and prices that match BladeHQ so they are on par and I buy from them usually or at least fondle some of the knives to go buy online later. One gentleman from Minnesota comes to the big show in KCK who carries CRK, ZT, MT and other fairly high end production models and I like to buy from him. I try to support local small businesses as much as I can while still getting a fair deal. I live in Kansas too and find it to be hit or miss, but usually at least one good vendor with Spyderco and BM and many other brands has prices on par with BladeHQ.
 
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