Safe Queens and Users: And How does Joe Hillbilly decide?

I know the majority of my knives will not be used. But they Will handle the Task.

This does not insult me, because I know the owners are enjoying them in their own way.

A few of mine are seeing use and this pleases me also :)
 
I think that there is a line between art knives and knives, art knives are pieces of sculpture that are made in the form of knives, i can understand people not using these knives.
I suppose that the amount oif money that a knife costs does have an impact on the way it's treated, i suppose my two most expensive knives would be a sebenza and a custom hunter from a maker in the UK- Toby Crocker. Both have been used extensivelyt and both were bought for use. I suppose i use all of my knives because that's what they were bought for whereas others may buy knives as investment, art or just nice things to have.

perhaps my blanket statement was a bit silly, but i still feel that all knives, in order to be called knives, need to be a useful tool. If it's not useable for actually cutting things is it still actually a knife?

edit: just to answer a few of the questions you guys asked- firstly i have between 20 and 30 custom knives, not counting the ones i made myself, my most expensive cost me about $300 but is probbably worth closer to $4-500 or would be if i hadn't used it so much.
 
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Nathan Gould said:
.....perhaps my blanket statement was a bit silly, but i still feel that all knives, in order to be called knives, need to be a useful tool. If it's not useable for actually cutting things is it still actually a knife?

edit: just to answer a few of the questions you guys asked- firstly i have between 20 and 30 custom knives, not counting the ones i made myself, my most expensive cost me about $300 but is probbably worth closer to $4-500 or would be if i hadn't used it so much.
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Most of us who are collectors of 50+ custom knives share the opinion that it should be functional and competent for cutting chores, but also make serious decisions on what to use and why.

I have used knives by Buxton, Baldwin, Carson, Caffrey, Crawford(x2), Pendray, Reeve, John W. Smith(x2)...........my choice.......HOWEVER as a counterpoint to your statement....and simply food for thought....YOUR MOST expensive custom is my starting point....and that goes for most of the others chiming in on this thread.....in my world...you are what we call an "entry level collector"....which you may remain at, or shift to a different approach.....either way......welcome.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Kohai999 said:
Most of us who are collectors of 50+ custom knives share the opinion that it should be functional and competent for cutting chores, but also make serious decisions on what to use and why.
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That certainly goes for me. My knives range from simple to complex, from unadorned to lavishly embellished - but they are all functional tools. I am far more likely to use a $200-500 functional tool than I am a $2,000-3,500 functional tool.

Roger
 
one thing that has not been mentioned, i think, is the fact that for certain designs there are no tasks in our daily life. why should you use a bowie knife or a double edged fighter if there is no enemy to stab? there are better knife designs for slicing onions, opening a letter or skinning deer. i own two bowie knives, have never used them, but still like them - simply because i like knives.

but i have a lot of hunting knives, and whenever possible i use one or the other (without being a hunter). i open the drawer, hold several in my hand and make a spontaneous decision which one to use. mostly it's one of about four or five knives, the others remain untouched.

another type of knife i often use are camp knives. i have four bigger ones, and all of them are used. i spent the last week camping in the swiss mountains and had a cashen damascus camp knife and a foster clip point hunter with me (and a sak because of the corkscrew).

on weekends i often carry, but rarely use, a small fixed blade (zowada, lamey (!), foster, jd smith, fogg), concealed under the shirt. and in my pocket there is always a folding knife, it's been a shadley multi-blade stockman for about half a year.

i know very well that the value of a knife is dramatically reduced as soon as i use it. when i buy a knife i spend the money as if i pay the bill in a restaurant. the money is gone, never comes back, but nevertheless i feel happy (if the food/knife is ok). that way i am saved from financial disappointments and the whole roi/investment stuff which i find rather annoying and distracting from the main thing, the knife itself. but hey, to each his own!

oh, and i forgot to mention our eight custom kitchen knives. we use them every day (picture in another thread).

best regards,
hans
 
Ed Fowler said:
Entry Level Collector ? Me too!
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Entirely possible, Ed...I don't know.

How many knives from other makers do you own? I have known knifemakers who have LARGE collections of their own work....but that just seems....different?

Do you have a "theme" for your collection, or are you more of an "ahem" accumulator?

There are knife users, knife collectors, and those who do both. Most fall into the "little of both" category.

I KNOW that you collect and hoard sheep horn.:D

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Kohai999 said:
..in my world...you are what we call an "entry level collector"....
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Gee whiz STeven -- could you be a little more condescending? Not everyone can afford $3,000 folders and $2,000 swords, let alone afford to use them.

I'm not sure where I fit on your continuum of collectors. Offhand, I don't know whether I have 50+ custom knives, although my collection is at least close to that number. At the moment, the user in my pocket is a Bailey Bradshaw interframe folder. I also have a nice little slipjoint by Takeshi Matsusaki with me.

Personally, I won't buy a knife I can't use. My choice, influenced, at least in part, by the fact that I don't sell my knives and don't care about resale value. Doesn't make Antonanton wrong, although I like using my Timascus TNT.
 
dsvirsky said:
Gee whiz STeven -- could you be a little more condescending? Not everyone can afford $3,000 folders and $2,000 swords, let alone afford to use them.

I'm not sure where I fit on your continuum of collectors. Offhand, I don't know whether I have 50+ custom knives, although my collection is at least close to that number. At the moment, the user in my pocket is a Bailey Bradshaw interframe folder. I also have a nice little slipjoint by Takeshi Matsusaki with me.

Personally, I won't buy a knife I can't use. My choice, influenced, at least in part, by the fact that I don't sell my knives and don't care about resale value. Doesn't make Antonanton wrong, although I like using my Timascus TNT.
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D....it really, really is not condescension...it is reality.....many of the collectors that I gather with consider ME an entry level collector, and consider $2,000 folders and $3,000 swords as "economical"....it is just a matter of perspective.

Your choice...you have made it, and hopefully, that remains the case....but sometimes, we live to regret our decisions....no way to live though.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Your choice...you have made it, and hopefully, that remains the case....but sometimes, we live to regret our decisions....no way to live though.
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and then there are others who , in an attempt to live up to other peoples vision, end up regretting those decisions , and that is no way to live either.

Live for yourself , don't live for the other guy , do what you want , and what makes you happy. For some it is the financial aspect that floats their boat , for others it is not.
That's just plain and simple , neither group is better than the other.
 
I disagree with the type of statement: 'using a knife substantially decreases its value' for a couple of reasons;

1- the value of a knife, to its user, is tied up in more than its monetary worth

2- a REAL valuable knife, ie; one that is made by an accomplished maker who stays in the business long enough to become known for his/her work, in the long term will increase in value, from a monetary standpoint, used or not.

Some collectors, maybe the majority of them, look at knives the way some collectors look at things like Beanie Babies, short term 'investments' which have little meaning outside of the status which holding them generates. Buying, selling and trading are what is really valued, the object itself, well I don't know whether it in itself is really valued beyond what it represents.

Some collectors look beyond their lifespans, or even years into the future, and see that a knife's value will never diminish. There is no compulsion to sell or trade it. Using it unleashes the knife's intrinsic values, either as a tool or as an artifact to display, depending on the knife itself. When a knife becomes an antique, well I don't know what that means exactly, but I do know that antiques are things that are generally highly valued, and have often been used during their time here on this planet. This use, quite often, seems to increase their value, (thanks, Antiques Roadshow:thumbup:).

Now, I don't want to make it seem like I believe it's so black and white, I'm sure that the majority of collectors do both of these kinds of collecting to various degrees and that there are other ways I haven't thought of. The human experience is a dynamic thing which allows for all sorts of shades of gray. There is no wrong or right when it comes to collecting, unless of course, someone is getting hurt by it, (Nazis, Silence of the Lambs, The Devil- they all practice 'malevolent collecting':eek:). The knife collectors I've met through this forum are, to the person, benevolent collectors:).
 
John T Wylie Jr said:
.....and then there are others who , in an attempt to live up to other peoples vision, end up regretting those decisions , and that is no way to live either.

....... For some it is the financial aspect that floats their boat , for others it is not.
That's just plain and simple , neither group is better than the other.
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John, the attenuation of my statement may lead to confusion....I MEANT that fearing a regret of choices is no way to live......make them, and move forward....but many cannot, and get mired in regret.

I agree with what you said.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Lorien said:
I disagree with the type of statement: 'using a knife substantially decreases its value' for a couple of reasons;

1- the value of a knife, to its user, is tied up in more than its monetary worth

2- a REAL valuable knife, ie; one that is made by an accomplished maker who stays in the business long enough to become known for his/her work, in the long term will increase in value, from a monetary standpoint, used or not.
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1) Well, to be fair, the commentary about use of a knife dminishing its value did refer to its monetary value - not any other kind. It would be kinda hard to put a percentage value for decreased intrinsic or sentimental value - but not that hard to put forward an approximation of decreased monetary value.

2) A "REAL valuable knife" may well increase in value, used or not (REAL small potential group of knives here). But I GUARANTEE you that the unused one will increase more than a comparable used one. (Unless it was used in the context of some momentous historical even - like, say, the defense of the Alamo).

Roger
 
Lorien said:
I disagree with the type of statement: 'using a knife substantially decreases its value' for a couple of reasons;

1- the value of a knife, to its user, is tied up in more than its monetary worth

2- a REAL valuable knife, ie; one that is made by an accomplished maker who stays in the business long enough to become known for his/her work, in the long term will increase in value, from a monetary standpoint, used or not.
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The value of a knife to a BUYER is ONLY tied up in monetary worth....and a used Loveless will not be worth what a new Loveless is worth....in dollars(now, someone is going to pop off with Lawndale vs. Riverside.....:foot:).

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
dsvirsky said:
Gee whiz STeven -- could you be a little more condescending? Not everyone can afford $3,000 folders and $2,000 swords, let alone afford to use them.
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Don't lose sight of the context of STeven's response - which was the pointed assertion that failing to use one's knives is an insult to the maker, along with a good bit of 'I use all my knives dammit' chest-thumping.

The value of the knives in question very much informs the validity of that assertion - as your response would seem to acknowledge.

Roger
 
Roger and Steve; I agree with you totally, that in comparison, two identical knives, one used the other not, the unused will be worth more, (unless the used one has a historical significance associated with its use).

And, Roger, my statement about the sentimental value I brought up only because I believe it, although I do understand that most of the question had to do with monetary worth- an easy one to gauge in the short term, but to me, not as interesting as or as meaningful in the long term as emotional attachment:thumbup:. In fact, emotions play a big part in a collector's desire to acquire a thing, which has been noted time and again in this forum.

Now, say a person buys a knife from one of the relative, but growing, handful of currently active knifemakers in the business right now, say for example, an ABS MS, who has a proven reputation, good promotion and a life time of prolific work. Say that maker lives a long a fruitful life, selling knives for anywhere between $200 and $2000 for the most part, then passes on, leaving behind a fine reputation and a lifetime of work.
Then 100 years down the road, someone in possession of one of these knives decides to sell it. Over the course of 100 years or more, it's quite likely that most of the maker's knives will have either been used or neglected, leaving said knife in less than pristine condition. Used or not, would the knife's value increase- even a 200 dollar one? It's a rhetorical question, but that's the angle I'm coming from.

It may be meaningless over the course of my life whether the Lamey chopper or Foster hunter I have now will increase in value after I'm dead and gone, but when I am, and my daughter is in possession of these objects, do you think that beyond sentimental reasons, these knives could have a higher dollar value than they do now, used or not?

I've seen the faces of those people on Antiques Roadshow, who are floored by the fact that an item that's been in the family for several generations are told the present value, who only kept the thing because of sentimentality. Too much care sometimes diminishes the value! (say, removing patina, or doing repairs...)

While knives are far from being new to humanity, the custom knife world that we know today still seems to me to be very young, and constantly evolving, and projecting into the future whether a knife will be more or less valuable do to the fact of its being used can only go so far into the coming ages. That is the REAL value I speak of.

Ed Fowler's Scagel kitchen knife will likely be worth as much down the road as most other Scagels of its type, and maybe more, should Ed's legacy be passed down through it, regardless of its cabbage cutting heritage.
 
RogerP said:
Don't lose sight of the context of STeven's response - which was the pointed assertion that failing to use one's knives is an insult to the maker, along with a good bit of 'I use all my knives dammit' chest-thumping.

The value of the knives in question very much informs the validity of that assertion - as your response would seem to acknowledge.

Roger
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I just wanted to make sure that no one misinterpreted my post as "I use all my knives dammit chest-thumping". I merely was responding to the question. I could care less what other people do with their custom knives. We are all different people with different lives that obviously get enjoyment from custom knives in different ways. The one common thread is that we all get enjoyment from custom knives in some way. another point that I think has appeared in this thread is that our hobbies outside of buying custom knives influence what we do with at least some of our customs. I know that is true in my case.


Trevor

Trevor
 
Like Gollnick once said, I use all my knives. They are displayed, I look at them, I derive pleasure from this - I use them.
 
Another view of value:

Wouldn't your "most valuable" knife be the one you wouldn't sell?
 
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