How risk averse are you?

[mak1277]

I can't spend more than $200 on a knife. I believe spending more just satisfies a fetish, rather than fulfilling a real need.

Eh maybe. But unless you only have one knife for every style/use then your extras and overlapping knives are satisfying the same “fetish”.

 

[Petunia D. Feeble]

We need more catalogs. I remember pouring over knife and collector catalogs as a kid. Some had really high end stuff in it. I doubt I’d ever be a buyer for a $50k custom, even if I had the sort of wealth that allowed for it but I did build some appreciation for the craft while flipping through the pages of publications that don’t really exist anymore.

My kids would likely tell you that it’s silly to print things when you could just as easily look at it online. One of those kids is flipping through my Road & Track as I type this… Paper’s better. Especially for coveting something you’ll never be able to afford. (Hence the R&T subscription.)

 

[sgt1372]

Your financial "risk aversion" depends on how much $ you've got and how much you can afford to "lose" or spend. So, there's a wide variance in this.

Personally, there are currently over 360 knives in my knife collection, the total value of which is somewhere around $50k-$75k. I've got a receipt for every knife but never added them all up.

The price that I paid for most of these knives was somewhere between $100-300. Only a few exceeded a purchase price of $300 and none exceeded $500 per. I started at around $50 and worked my way up to $500 but $500 was, is and always will be my absolute limit.

However, I placed a moratorium on buying any more knives around Xmas 2022 and haven't bought any more knives since then.

There are a few "unicorns" that I'd still like to buy for the "right" price but I don't think I'd ever find any of them for less than $500 (they'd more likely cost between $500-$1K (which I can afford but do not want to spend) and I'm fine w/that.

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Given the current market for knives as reflected by the BF Exchange, EB & ACK, if forced to sell all of the knives in my collection today, I could lose around 25% (or around $12.5-20K) if I sell them piecemeal or up to 50% (or around $25-$40K) if I sell them off in bulk lots.

I could afford those losses but obviously do not want to realize them. Fortunately, I don't need the $ and don't have to sell any of my knives.

I still want to sell about 100 of the knives in my collection but suspended those plans after prices/demand for knives tanked. When prices/demand improve, I'll make the effort to sell them to recoup most if not all of the $ that I have in them. Making a "profit" is not/will not be my objective.

 

[knarfeng]

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've carried and used knives for over 60 of my 70 years. Pretty much all of my knives that I buy these days get carried and used because I am interested in finding out how well they function. Even the knives I seldom carry or don't really have an honest need for are "user grade". Stuff happens to knives that get used. They get lost, they get grunged. There's only so much money that I'm willing to risk by carrying a knife around in my pocket. Color me Risk Adverse.