How risk averse are you?

not2sharp

not2sharp

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Jun 29, 1999
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I ask the question as a collector who has been chasing knives for nearly 50 years. As you progress through the hobby you have to limit your risks. We all tend to start with relatively inexpensive knives and slowly work our way up to more exotic knives. The limiting factor is often money, but more so it is knowledge and information. It would be very foolish for someone to pluck $50,000 from their account and then rush out to buy their first samurai sword. Often it works out, but you are setting yourself up to get scammed. Before you can buy some of these things you needs to develop a good sense of what you are looking for, the features that make it desirable and the process one goes through to confirm authenticity.

While the Bladeforums has a diverse population, I suspect that most of us are at an intermediate level, where we are willing to spend some money, but rarely stray from the printed catalog pages. I doubt many are chasing high end art knives, exotic Bowie knives, original medieval swords or ethnographic presentation items. That‘s a shame, because our hobby is much richer than whatever is currently mass produced and we should be developing a new generation of those who are willing to learn about the broader historical items.

Where do you fit in this?

n2s
 
I'll risk money to support a new maker, provided they're in my zone in terms of ergos and aesthetics. I've been disappointed and I've been pleasantly surprised. But buying one knife from a local or BF maker is worth passing on ten Civivis or a few Spydercos or Benchmades or whatever.

Chasing high-dollar collectibles simply because they're high-dollar collectibles, though? Got better things to do with my money. Anything that doesn't look practical and usable isn't going to pull me in. I don't think I've ever bought any knife without intending to like and use it.
 
I wanted to cover all present and future use cases. I wanted tools. Good, dependable tools and a few gent's folders basically. I achieved or am very close to achieving this by buying knives with blades with good geometry, good steel and good ergonomics. I have everything I can use. Now I am more into enjoying and enhancing what I already have, mostly by simply replacing plastic scales with nicer materials. I feel like I achieved even more than what I initially expected from this hobby and I am not sure why would I need to go into it deeper for diminishing returns, when another, new hobby would give a much better ROI, so to speak.

It was the same with watches. Just bought a few dependable, low maintenance pieces, mostly Seikos, replaced the factory straps with nicer ones and called it a day. :)

The only area I can see myself going beyond users and starting a 'Knife Collection' is handmade, traditional folders. Time will tell.
 
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I doubt I ever hit the level where I can afford to plunk more than $1000 on a knife (or much of anything really). My earning power has gone up in my 20+ years in the workforce. However, my hobbies have all tended to be low-ish dollar things. Pocket knives, pistols, etc. I have never been nor never will be a guy that collects cars or boat or whatever of that level of price.

I'm not exactly risk averse when it comes to knives/blades. It's just that the super high end/antique of impeccable quality aren't the items I gravitate toward. I'll never be a guy that tries to equate the quality of a $100 Cold Steel to a one of a kind hand-fit and finished custom costing $10,000, but while the CS might be a bit pedestrian for my tastes, my pride of ownership realistically peters out at around $800 with my sweet spot being in the $500-650 range as I purchases knives to use, not collect.
 
At this stage of my life, I am really not interested in anything I wouldn’t wear/carry/use. I enjoy well made and aesthetically pleasing things, but I don’t think I would buy a knife just to own and look at. If I was going to spend $30-50k on something (theoretically) I would much rather buy a nice watch and wear it than an art or antique knife I can’t use.
 
I was always raised with the idea that gambling money was money you could afford to light fire to without suffering harm, so financially I'm pretty risk adverse. I'm more likely to take a risk on a cheaper knife and at some point have enough knives that I'm buying better ones, but doing more research, and now even doing a lot of research before buying cheaper ones. I'm not likely to be the guy trying to figure out why he owns two authenticated Excalibur swords.
 
I'm an accumulator with kinda weird taste. I have a couple sock drawers that are full of knives but I wouldn't look in the dictionary and pick the word collection to describe them.
 
mak1277 said:
At this stage of my life, I am really not interested in anything I wouldn’t wear/carry/use. I enjoy well made and aesthetically pleasing things, but I don’t think I would buy a knife just to own and look at. If I was going to spend $30-50k on something (theoretically) I would much rather buy a nice watch and wear it than an art or antique knife I can’t use.
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Adding to my post above, I would never buy a knife (or other collectible) as an investment. If I want return I’m putting my money in stocks & bonds, not knives or watches or baseball cards or cars
 
I'm just a budget/ value knife accumulator at this point .

More like $50 then 50K , hardly ever much over ~$100 .

Even so , I usually buy with only the risk of the time and trouble to go through the return process .
 
I don't take any risks with the knives I buy, because basically anything you collect is likely to have a terrible ROI and, if you're doing it for financial gain, you're likely to pick things that you think will increase in value rather than stuff you like.

If I start making eff you money, I would happily start buying and commissioning one off customs and such, but as of now I but knives that I want to handle and use and I never think about making my money back. If I sell them it's because there's a new shiny to buy. 😉
 
I don't collect as much as I accumulate. I recently dropped 300 bucks on a Microtech. I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon. 50 to 100 is my sweet spot. A little less and a little more if warranted. No specific brand or model, just whatever strikes my fancy.
 
I find that handling high end knives in person makes a big difference. Most of my purchases in the last year have been custom/semi-custom. Sometimes, you like what you like, you've heard good things on BF or reddit or wherever you get your info from and just pull the trigger. I've done that twice with these higher end knives--an Alan Davis on the exchange, and I've wanted one for 8 years. That has worked out fantastically, and was exactly what I wanted and beyond what I expected. I purchased that in May. I have another custom coming I ordered from the maker, won't be here for a few months so nothing to say yet, other than I got to pick the steel and handle material and am quite excited. This will be the most money I've spent on a knife.

I see so many knives on the forums that interest me but I did not really consider until I met Alex from Breathtaking Steel Knives Breathtaking Steel Knives last summer in St. Louis. I've now bought 2 Biryukov's and 1 Cheburkov, and I love them.

The biggest risk to my wallet has been Monofletch Monofletch forcing me to buy another Biryukov.

Handling a knife from Jim from Seamus knives convinced me to buy one as well, and it should arrive soon.
 
$150.00, hard ceiling. There is a lot of esoteric math involving risk factors that gets to this number.

I'm trying to concentrate on making my own. The timeline for that is.... very flexible.
 
I'm a simple man. I like cutting, chopping, and slicing with knives and therefore seek out knives based on how well I think they will perform. Aesthetics do matter, and I gravitate towards certain styles, but I think form should be dictated by function. When I buy a knife I consider it a sunk cost that will never be recovered. My one or two attempts to do otherwise taught me that knives are a perilous investment and I'm better off enjoying the hobby through use than gambling and losing.

I am blessed to have a pile of great knives from different makers/manufacturers that run the gamut from $10 to around $500, with only a small handful at the upper end. My current finances do not yet permit me to play at a higher level, but I certainly do not feel under-equipped. I hope that someday I will have enough expendable income to buy a Bowie from Jerry Fisk or Napoleonic era sabers, but my Cold Steel bowies are fun to use for now.

I am grateful there are so many makers on BF offering knives that are affordably priced (less than $500, and often much less than $250) that provide an outstanding value. That makes the accumution of knives accessible and more fun to me.
 
I don't think it's risk so much as what you're looking for in a knife. If you want a functional tool that's high quality and priced fairly, risk will probably never be a concern for you. Knives like that tend to hold their value.

Risk is only relevant when you start paying for things like perceived rarity, historical significance, hype, name prestige, etc. The bottom can potentially fall out on a collectible like that.
 
I can't spend more than $200 on a knife. I believe spending more just satisfies a fetish, rather than fulfilling a real need.
 
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