learn from jackkife, he used to collect all those hi dollar custom and hi end knives before settles with a humble voictorinox classic or bantam hehehe... would you mind tell the story again to bladechick777 carl? hehehehe...
Yeah, I used to collect the customs in my young and single days. I thought nothing of spending 200 to 300 dollars on a new sheath knife, and that was a weeks whole paycheck back then. A new Chevy pickup cost 2500 dollars, and a single family house was 30 to 40 thousand. So high end custom knife back then was big money. I had some Randall's, a Ralph Bone, some Harry Morseth's, Barry Wood folder. Ended up selling them all off. I got sort of disenchanted with them in time. Some were good knives, while some were very over rated. I look back on those days like I was in the grip of some sort of temporary insanity. They were nice looking knives, and had great workmanship, but when it got down to the nitty gritty, they didn't really do anything that a moderate priced good quality knife could do, and I was always worried about loosing or damaging one.
On one camping trip, I was chopping some kindling for a fire, and the blade of my Randall 14 chipped on a knot in the wood. I had a sak with a saw blade in my pocket, and it cut wood just fine, as does my 12 inch Ontario machete. The only good thing was that I made a good amount of money when I sold off all the Randall's and other customs, that my better half and I took a round the country trip, and spent a month on the road, camping in all the major National parks like Yellowstone, Bryce, Grand Canyon, Arches, Mesa Verde, and had a ball.
Now I don't like to carry any knife I can't replace at the next Walmart or Target I pass. I carried a Buck stockman, a Victorinox hiker, or Wenger SI, and they did everything my high end knives did just as well. Sometimes better. I can't list all the stuff I really fixed out someplace, with a sak. Fixed the twist control of a trolling motor in the middle of a very large lake, my Vespa motorscooter on a little country road in the middle of nowhere, and some other stuff. Sometimes a couple of basic tools are all you need to get the cover off something to fiddle with it and get it going again. Not to mention that for 99% of what we need a knife for, only needs a few inches of sharp blade. Cutting fishing line off a prop that's tangled up.
It seemed like the older I got, I found out the less I really needed. Before I became a knife nut, I carried the same Buck 301 stockman for 25 years. Got by just fine without the miracle steel of the month, let alone the wonder knife of the month on the cover of one of the knife magazines. I've gone back to basics, and I'm happier for it, kind of a liberated feeling. There's a point of diminishing returns on most things, and after a certain point, it gets to be unneeded over kill pretty quick. I think I suffered from being a knife snob for a while. Just like I was a motorcycle snob for a while, riding BMW's. But they were not the flawless machines they were hyped to be, not as reliable as my old Honda 750 that never let me down. I never had the Honda in need of a tow truck.
Too many things get hyped up, knives being one of them. These days my favorite pocket knives are my Case damascus peanut, my keyring sheathed classic, and my Victorinox bantam. If I need a really rugged pocket knife, my old war horse Wenger SI will along for the day. It's amazing that for a moderate cost, you can buy something like a sak with such predictable quality control.
Carl.
