Saving knife boxes

I keep my knives in their original boxes because anywhere from 90-95% of them won't get used. That box will add a lot of desireability if you ever decide to sell or trade a knife.

Say you want a knife that is no-longer in production, do you look for NIB, or used and beat up?
 
I used to just keep the paperwork, now if it's an expensive knife I keep everything. If it's a cheaper model I usually will just toss it. Boxes have gotten a lot more important the last 15 years or so, and values reflect that, good or bad.
 
I try to save the boxes. I have lost (or mangled) a few over the years but I definitely prefer to keep the box. When I buy a knife off the exchange, I also prefer it has the box (although not a deal breaker).
 
I wish I'd kept as much as I could since the beginning over 60 years ago.
Sadly, most if not all got tossed in the first 45 years.
 
I live in a humid place. Really good storage space is at a premium. Cardboard boxes are too fragile for me to bother with. Too susceptible to mold/mildew, water damage, mouse nests, smoke damage, getting crushed, etc.

I figure it’s inevitable they’ll get ruined eventually anyway, no point in wasting the effort to properly store/protect them. So I toss them right away. If they come in a wood or metal or even plastic box I save them but probably repurpose it anyway.

my knives are all users so the box doesn’t really add to the value of a used knife, I’ll never sell anyway.

If I loose a few dollars, it out weighs the effort to save them IMHO.
 
Agree on the collector value having the whole package.
If you have the space and may sell in the future, you may get a little more money with box/papers.
I keep all mine.
 
I know it's better to keep the box. It will increase the resale value (although not by a lot, I think. I mean, knives usually drop in value a lot as soon as they become second hand).

However, I live in quite a small house and my knife collection sits in a small cabinet, so I really don't have the room to save the boxes. It is what it is, but I gotta thrown them away anyway.
 
I keep all of my boxes. I think they are pretty important to have when selling/trading. I almost always pass on knives in blister packs, or without boxes.
I keep 80% my knives in their boxes when they are not part of my 30-40 knife rotation.
I wish I had kept my long gun boxes!
 
It depends. I'll generally save them for more expensive knives. For budget knives, I'll hang on to them long enough to decide if I'm going to sell or gift them. Having the box can make a lightly used and freshly sharpened knife a great gift under the right circumstances.
 
As a collector who uses very few of his knives, I prefer to buy knives w/the box and any other material that came w/it. I sell very few of the knives I've purchased but, when I do, it's always better to have the box (and anything else that originally came w/it) than not.

However, I have purchased knives w/o a box if the knife itself is in excellent condition and it's a knife that I want and haven't been able to find elsewhere. It just depends.

I'm really not sure how the existence/condition of a box affects the sale/resale price of a knife.

I personally will NOT pay more for a knife than I think it's worth (regardless if there's a box or not) but I may NOT buy the knife at all if there is not a box (in reasonably good condition - not necessarily perfect) that comes w/it, if I can buy another knife in similar condition for the same (or a lower price) that comes with one.

Boxes are also better to have than not because it is easier to store/stack and organize the knives in boxes than when they are loose.

As someone else noted above, the boxes also have useful identifying information on them and, although I do not store all of my knives in their boxes, when I die, it will provide information to my executor that will help him/her match the knives w/their respective boxes in order to identify and price them before distribution or liquidation of the collection.
 
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