As far as what price they sell to the civilian market goes, I couldn't care less. Anything ever made is only worth as much or as little as what its market will bear, and companies adjust accordingly. High prices during feast times and lower prices during the famines. Their forged 4140 Chrome Molly Alloy Shrikes were a horse of a different color when they came out. They are amazing tools and the production costs and warranty actually justified the price in pretty much everyone's opinion that ever put one through hell, and I did several of them. Mr. Johnson once said, several years ago, that one of the reasons his prices were so high was that, and I am paraphrasing here but trying to get as close to the quote as I remember him saying during an interview in relation to complaints from civilians about the limited availability, no civilian has a justifiable need for one of these tools, our target market is the US military and our first responders. We want to provide them with the best tools we can, at the best pricing we can, in as timely a manner as we can. He said another factor in the pricing was, and this was right after the attack at the theater in Aurora Colorado in 2012, that one of his biggest concerns was turning on the television and finding out one of his hawks had been used in a similar massacre. So their goal was to take care of the military market, and the civilians could go buy Cold Steel or Estwing or whatever else they liked he didn't care. The thing I find disappointing about it now is that they have switched to all CNC production, and have in the case of some of their hawks moved to a less expensive steel that according to the data I have seen is less tough than 4140 and I personally wouldn't want a Shrike made from it if I planed to use it the way I have tested the 4140. Maybe they're just following the pharmaceutical formula of getting in their licks before the inevitable new kid in town shows up, but it appears they may be going the same route SOG went when they lowered their production costs by moving from the US and Seki Japan facilities to primarily Taiwanese and Chinese production, and then raised their pricing significantly with a target market of the US military. I guess only time will tell if it will have the same effect on how seriously RMJ is taken in the market place in the future as that sort of thing had on how a lot of people view SOG today compared to the 90s. But just looking back at what happened between a certain big box store and a certain former US knife maker (maybe more than one but one in particular), what has happened with SOG, both of which were at one time two of my favorite knife companies, as well as what has happened to several other knife companies over the years that many today don't even know existed... but greed runs rampant in the world today, and over time greed seems to have a penchant for devaluing, diminishing, and destroying everything it touches.
