There have been threads on this from time to time over the years. Do a Storage search on this forum and over on the Traditional forum.
There are many ways to store.
Moisture and hand oil is evil number one. Number two is the stuff you put them in.
EEE and others have it right, go museum quality acid free no odd chemicals that touch your knife. Be careful of things such as foam shelf liners, felt, carpet etc.
Do not store with celluloid scaled knives, they give off corrosive gas as they break down.
These are usually old folders, none are Buck.
Think protection and security combined. Even a single box of a dozen knives need to be kept from small hands and out of sight of windows, repairmen and visitors. If you want to enjoy them in a display for others to see then it needs to be locked. Try to fix it so someone looking in a window can not see display. If I had say six really fancy knives I would only openly display 3 or 4 at a time and rotate them around. Then if something happens you are wiped out. So far even the value of my used stockman have risen if I had to go a replace them.
Here is a post I did over in the Traditional forum.
"I have looked for a 'knife' gun safe and no one makes one. I am making my own. I currently have a 12 gun safe, not fire rated. I was told by a knife collecting employee of a gun safe company, that lots of safes just use fire rated sheetrock as there fireblock and I could retro-fit mine by just lining it with some. What I wouldn't have is the special seal around the door that expands with heat. I bought Craftsman tool drawers from Sears, the ones that bolt on the sides of rolling tool chests. That should give me 18 drawers 2" high x 8"wide x 10" deep. Storing mostly traditional slipjoint folders that should let me get quite a few in a safe. Now don't trash me yet, I also have a couple of old store knife display cabinets that I keep some knives out to 'play' with. The big problem I have found with safes is that if you keep your knives in rolls or in trays or boxes, it always seems you want to get in the box or roll that is on the bottom of the stack. If you use plastic tackle trays, check out the Fly fishing Catalog from Cab---s. They have a wire tray storage unit for fly tying materials that lets you slide trays in individually.
I feel that if you have more that 20 knives you have an investment to guard. Even if you use them all. Folks will find out you are a knife person and word will spread by rumor. Most likely from your own family. Maybe to the wrong ears. I believe in a "belt and suspenders". I feel better going off with the safe method. Yea, I have sawed-off 12 guage and a dog and night lighting and watchful neighbors. But I like cold steel as the last barrier. To each his own. I don't even like talking about it here.....know what I mean..... 300 Bucks"
Robbed from another knife site:
~Gold is for the Mistress - Silver for the maid~
~Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.~
~Good! said the Baron, sitting in his hall,~
~But Iron - Cold Iron - is master of them all.~
If I am talking knives and someone asks where I live I reply:
I live in a cave with a bear and hide both my knives in a hole in the rock where a rattlesnake lives. The skunks and I generally get along.....but they complain about my smell
300
