I'm pretty much done buying knives

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Resale value is about at the bottom of my list as to why I buy knives. You wanna know how I view my knife "portfolio"?

I buy whatever the hell sparks joy for ME right NOW. I could give two figs what a knife is "worth" so long as I like it.

Here's my plan: spend 60 or 70 years buying and using what I like. I'll then leave behind a clutch of high value pieces of steel and titanium that my loved ones sell off for pennies on the dollar at a yard sale. Why do I not care? Because I didn't buy them for them nor do I care what happens to my knife investments once I'm dirt.

My fleeting years are not to be spent trying to mold MY interests to the be sound fiscal investments for potential future generations. My actual financial investments should take care of their needs once I'm dust. Knives are just things. Silly and immaterial in the grand scheme.
 
1982 to 2025
Can you imagine ?
Well 110s , little Bucks and tiny Westerns don't cost much to start .

I'm with you brother . Just ordered my very last knife yesterday ; Spyderco Endela PD# 1
Excited to get it !
Carrying my Endela K390 the last few days just to "Practice" .

This year I started focusing on carrying ALL of my Case Trappers in one year . That works out to a different one every week and a half or so . I have found myself grabbing ones I have already carried this year just for a couple of days again .

There are A LOT of things I don't spend money on that other people do . . . so it works out .
I have learned to avoid mentally adding up the cost of my knife collection .
That path only leads to fear and madness .
 
edgelion said:
FOMO is a hell of an effect
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It's the really great bargains /sales / closeouts that get to me the worst !

Even if I don't need and will never actually carry or use the sale item .

I can usually resist , but I feel the pull .

"Saving " money by spending it unnecessarily . :rolleyes:
 
I'm pretty much done collecting knives (for now) too. :cool:

I've got over 400 knives in my collection & there are only a few that I'm still interested in buying & those are very rare & hard to find & when they pop up they're going for more than my current max limit of $1k/per knife.

So, it's easy to say "no, thanks" to those. 🤷‍♂️

However, I still browse The Exchange everyday but whenever I see a knife that I might want to buy, I procrastinate in hope that someone else will buy it &, if no one does, I convince myself that I don't really "need" it, which isn't hard to do considering how many knives are already in my collection. ;)
 
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DocJD said:
Sorry to hear that . Get well soon , sounds bad ? :confused:
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No, no, not at all! Döstädning (Swedish for "death cleaning") is the practice of simplifying life and reducing one's possessions as you enter late middle age. I'm 58 this year and I have too much stuff: Saddles I never use, knives I don't even look at, guns I don't shoot, records I don't listen to, etc. The idea is to clean up so one's family doesn't have to do it for you when you die.

Thanks for the kind wishes but I'm pretty healthy for an achy horse trainer who broke his pelvis in three places some years ago, boxed, and suffers from chronic cough (idiopathic). I will live a good while longer, but hopefully with a LOT less stuff! And maybe a little bit of cash in my pocket so I can take my sweetheart to dinner 😉.
 
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sgt1372 said:
I still browse The Exchange everyday
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Oh THAT I most certainly should not do !
nope nope
I've told myself to stop looking at the latest Spydercos to show up on amazon (for some reason can't stop until I see the Slym appear there) .
No don't tell me if it is in another store. I don't want to know . Just a game I am playing.

I did stumble across my Ken Onion Leek in Titanium handle and M390 reverse tanto blade that I just bought .
I am pretty darn happy about not fully stopping before I got that .
 
I think knives give just about the most bang for the buck of any hobby. You can get a seriously amazing knife for under $300.

As an added bonus, knives get you out in the woods, on the trail, in the kitchen cooking your own food etc.... Plus the last forever and arent throw away consumerist garbage.

I vote stay at it.
 
most bang for the buck of any hobby
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I tried to find a vid of Hunter S. Thompson's hobby but failed (maybe some one here can help us out o_O)

He liked to tape a five gallon gas can to a full propane tank and shoot it with his 45 .
as a hobby thing . . .
 
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JTR357 said:
but I also would like to feel like they are worth something close to what I paid for them. If that makes any sense. 🤷🏼‍♂️
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I don't know of many things that will pass that test. Once something is not brand new, it depreciates. And that pretty much applies to everything that's out there other than land.
(Buy land. They stopped making it. -- Mark Twain.)

Anyways. If you're done, you're done. Have fun.
 
re; the op- I totally get it.

counterpoint- the value I've derived from the knives I've had and the ones I still have isn't translatable to a dollar value.

buying knives, (for most) is an emotional journey in that the decision to procure, buy, own isn't driven by pure reason.

Art in its many forms affects us in this way. It doesn't have to be explained because we all understand the essentials in our own way.

although passion and emotion are easy prey for savvy marketers, we should take that as a cue that these are things of value, worthy of investment, worthy of protection.

losing 25% or even 100% of the monetary value of objects that bring us joy is a bargain- so long as it doesn't land us in a van down by the river.
 
Over the years I've been collecting knives, I started out with what I could afford while in the military, then had a dry spell of not working and making the choice of putting food on the table or a knife in my pocket.. Guess what won.. I started working for the feds again in the mid 2000s and the interest came back more so on the customs.. I spent a few dollars over 12 years getting what I wanted, but over the years I have given away more than I kept.. I split my collection between my home in the Philippines and here on Guam after retiring for the 2nd time. It's been about 10 years since I commissioned a custom, but some of my customs have been passed on due to lack of interest and space..I'm on a sabbatical of knife purchasing and collecting now, but the interest is still there and if one squeaks my rubber ducky, I might pick it up.. But for the most part, the purchase power has gone down while the inflation goes up, so it will be once a great while before I put another one to paper for commission
 
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