Thanks Spyderco and spyderco members....received my new....woohoo its better then...

I expected.

After joining in a flurry of knife research and 25-30 years of owning dozens of <$40(mostly <$13) edc's I decided on Spyderco and/or BM. I spent time on both and still have yet to discover the BM that will thrill me. But along the way I got the Ambitious and the Persistence. I have to say these 'value' blades are a BRILLIANT idea to suck in us professional (woodworker, designer) cheapskates and the faint-of-heart when it comes to +$90 edc blades! So thank you Sal (who I never would have known you had I not come here)

And as for the Persistence over the Ambitious? I ended up preferring the Ambitious for two reasons. They are definitely both EQUAL in quality, blade, f&f and usefulness but I just prefer the smaller size of the Ambitious. My favorite all-time edc even edging out my 10yr old Leek. (oo, sorry K). Also-the Ambitious is actually a .75 to 1.0mm thicker then the persistence and I like this. (I measured-so I know. Don't know if this is a constant or the g-10 varies? But I like chunky little fat edc's) My only quandary is I obsessed over having the blue-which I love-but its the Persistance and its a bit redundant to have them both. I have a huge vintage watch collection and not sure I should deal with multiple designed edc's Ideally-its a pain-but I SHOULD sell the basically pristine blue Persistance and the Ambitous and buy a blue Ambitious to go with....Ta Da:

My FIRST higher-end EDC carry. The first lade I ever spent more then $100 on (except for some expensive Swiss and japanese chisels for my shop) The Yojimbo2.
Less then 2 seconds out of the box and I can already feel the difference. Better g-10 texture. Beautiful weight distribution and F&F is perfect for what I expected. So--exceeds my expectations on pretty much all counts. I may never like having to spend more then $50 on an edc but since this is what I have to do to habdle the quality-I am very happy I picked this particular blade. the odd shape and design is EXACTLY what I wanted and can UTILIZE in my every day use. Perfect for straight-line cutting. Perfect for a semi-chisel. Perfect for gouging (this point is frikkin sharp and STRONG!...not thin like it look in some pics).

The compression lock is also exceeding what I wanted. I wanted something different then a lockback, framelock, liner, etc. And this delivers. I just press the tab and the blade falls closed. In fact-on my first try the blade dropped and locked closed. It is a little dangerous though and takes some getting use to I think.

Blade FLIES out-which wasn't my experience when I first got the Ambitious and persistence (though both of them are fine now) and blade quality is just so....well I am sure most of you know.

So-I am happy I was "underwhelmed" by the other brand (for those that remember my thread last week) And not because I don't like that brand but I just didnt see the design I liked in the material I wanted. I am also SO SO glad I didn't cabe in to my cheap side and get either the Sage3 or especially the Manix2. And again-NOT becuase these blades arent fine. Its because I have the leaf blade in the Amb. And Pers. I wanted something different and I got it. So good for me. And if this helps anybody here who's trying to decide-I hope this helps. And now-on the watch forum Omega WUS they say-"if there are no pictures you don't own it!" So:



and of course. its almost obligatory, yes? (and this is not the ONLY one. ouch!)


again--thanks to all the members that helped me make the decisions I made. I was NOT steered incorrectly at all by ANYBODY The Manix2/Sage3 was great advice for what I wrote because I thought I'd have to pay over $150 for the Y2 and wanted to step up first to the +$75 and then maybe this summer go $150. Then I found a place who sells it and had it in stock for $119 and I just HAD to jump and split the difference since I was leaning towards the $90 sage3 anyhoo.

signed , happy spyderco dabkr