Welcome to the family!
As Matty/Casinostocks has mentioned, there really aren't any other knifemakers out there who can match (much less beat) the thoroughly Performance oriented knives for the price.
I've posted before in other threads about this, but there are many knifemakers who focus on aesthetics (nothing wrong with that). There are knifemakers who've got some steels with good durability/performance etc.
But when that FK2 arrives, you'll really 'get it'. Carothers Performance Knives really takes pride in fine tuning all aspects of the Performance of their knives. Everything from the blade shape and grind angles, to fine tuning the heat treat for both toughness AND edge retention, to the handle ergonomics for comfortable use in a variety of positions and various hand sizes etc.
I've been a knife nut since I was a kid. Over the decades, I've handled and used many, many knives. Even with knives from the same maker, I've encountered some that had comfortable handles, and some knife handles that were just not well thought out.
When you get hooked and start amassing a collection of CPKs, you realize there's not a crappy handled CPK, because that's just one of the many aspects that Nathan focuses on fine tuning.
Likewise, especially for folks who actually use their knives, you realize that the edge geometry and heat treat, combines to provide a combination of cutting performance and toughness that you're going to be hardpressed to find elsewhere.
Then when you learn to appreciate all those facets, you'll realize as I did, that there are a few other knifemakers who do focus on the performance aspects of their knives, with their personal take on things... and their knives tend to cost 3X as much or more.
To the average Joe, CPKs aren't cheap, but when you really start looking into any other offerings that focus this much on performance, for knives that you could use all your life, then pass down to your kids, grandkids and so on, you realize that CPK's price to performance is incredible.
