Thinking about selling nearly all my knives. Anyone get that far out of collecting? How did it go?

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Dadpool said:
M5610-U, a Multiband 6 square. Been a favorite for years. I don't think I could pull off "the King" like I bet you do!

Outside my rotation I have a second G-SHOCK for camping/hiking etc. where an ABC watch shines, a Rangeman.
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I have a G-shock that I like, a GW-B5600, but once I got the Garmin solar instinct, I've rarely worn it. Looking at upgrading to one of the higher end garmins next year.
 
I sold most of mine. I had collections of PM2;s, Millies, CRK, Strider, Busse, Survive Knives and others,
Then got sick in 2020. Still sick...and old as hell.
Of course, most of the knife-buying was a definite obsession. fun but catastrophic to my checkbook.
I now keep a couple favorites on hand. My modest carry is a Spydie PM2 in camo; S30v. Does the job!
 
I am not an intentional collector. More an accumulator of things i like. Guns, knives, tools, kayaks and canoes , used to be jeeps and motorcycles before i started a family.

I am currently doing a caliber consolidation and unloading some firearms that haven't left the safe in a decade. It actually feels pretty good. However the fates laughed at me because my 85 year old father just told me to take all but 1 or 2 of his guns home next time I visit. Including a matched set of light and magnum Belgium made Browning A5s that my grandfather bought many years ago that I will pass on to my son.

Anyway, I may pare down my knife collection. Sell a few, give some to my son and nephews and nieces. Hopefully that goes better.
 
It took me a long time to realize that non-knuts do not care about knives. My conclusion is that my accumulating obsession of the past will die in the trash heap of a yard sale after, you know. I must find a way to cash out the mound of cardboard tube encased folders before the sunset.
 
He who dies with the most knives wins!! 🤣

Seriously......I think there is a time when disposing of your collection on your terms is the right thing to do. But if you are financially secure, healthy and still relatively young I would council against it.

Insofar as my collectables are concerned I've never sold anything that I wouldn't buy back in a heartbeat. Regret is a s**tty teacher.
 
I got into knife collecting looking for the perfect folding knife and wound up owning at least fifty folders and a half dozen fixed in addition to several slip joints and SAKs and even had a CRK kitchen knife keeping the bulk but selling those not fitting my fancy. I had roughly $30,000 worth of knives at one point mostly Shirogorovs (15 in all, one custom), Chris Reeve (1 Sebenza and eight Mnanadis) and a gorgeous Rocksteady. I had my favorites of course.

For very real safety concerns I had to keep them locked away and started picking a favorite knife for several days or a week so wouldn’t have to go into my safe every day and wound up using only a select few while several were limited edition safe queens. As I got into knife collecting to find the perfect one I began selling the safe queens almost out of frustration because they were incredible to look at and handle. My collection got smaller and smaller and I began selling the favorites including the Shirogorov/Sinkevich Sigma which I didn’t think I would ever part with. Now I have only two Shirogorov users and couldn’t be happier because both are perfect: flippers (my opening mechanism of choice), one is a frame lock and the other a liner lock, one big and one small in addition to a Fantoni I tried to modify and the usual SAKs.

I have zero regrets although I sometimes miss individual knives. This may sound corny and hard to believe but I feel I can finally appreciate the the feel knives I was seeking when I started collecting: The Shirogorov NeOn and the Shirogorov F3R. And no, your wife, girlfriend or mother did not ask me to write this.IMG_0042.jpeg
 
abcdef said:
It took me a long time to realize that non-knuts do not care about knives. My conclusion is that my accumulating obsession of the past will die in the trash heap of a yard sale after, you know. I must find a way to cash out the mound of cardboard tube encased folders before the sunset.
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A lot of plain old truth in this statement.

When I did my first great downsizing, I called in the family and had all the stuff laid out on the dining room table. Kids, grandkids, nephews, nieces. I found out that few of them actually wanted any of it. Of my three kids, only one is a knife Knut, sort of. My other son and daughter only want a small SAK in their pocket or on their keyring. Of my nephews and two nieces, only one nephew is a knife aficionado, and that is conditional. He only seems to want a knife that I have carried. Of my grandkids, only one is a sort of knife nut. So a lot of my knives would have ended up in a junk shop or worse. The truth is, most of our families don't share our obsessions, and couldn't care less about our stuff once we're 'gone'.

One of my friends passed away, and after the funeral I asked his wife about his pipe collection. Both Phil and I were pipe nuts, and went pipe shows. I know he had a nice collection of Petersons, a few Dunhill's, some Savinelli's. His wife told me that she had thrown all those stinky old pipes in the trash.😳😢 His small knife collection she took to a pawn shop and "Got a few bucks for." 😧I know for a fact that Phil had a few Randall's, a Moran, and a few Jay Hendrickson's.

Give the stuff away to those who care about it now. At least you'll make sure it goes to people who will appreciate it, and not go into the land fill or some wheeler dealer pocket.
 
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There was a point in my life where I was pretty low on money, so I sold all but one of my knives, my ZT 0452

sTJwaEP.jpeg

I carried it exclusively for a couple of years. Still have it today. That was maybe 13-15 years ago. I've since gone back to buying all kinds of ridiculous things that I absolutely don't need

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Dadpool said:
Thinking about selling nearly all of my knives. Anyone get that far out of collection? How did it go?
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Good luck with selling off your collection, if that's what makes sense for you.

I don't even want to be bothered with selling off a few of my knives, let alone the bulk of my collection. So, they're all going with me to my grave & it will be my executor/trustee's headache to deal with after I'm gone.

Unless s/he can unload it in bulk for a fraction of it's cost, it will take years to sell off the collection, which is why I have no intention of trying to do so myself.

-------------------------------------------------

As the saying goes: "From my cold, dead hands.” [Charleston Heston, 1989]

And this saying applies equally to my guns as well as to my knives. :cool:
 
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I don’t think my collection would be considered a collection by many folks here, but I have spent more hours on researching my knife purchases than I have with any other hobby or free-time activity. I have forged several knives for myself and friends, and think about knives every single day.

I also buy my knives as users, and get the most enjoyment from them when I’m using them and sharpening them. I’ve only had a few that I didn’t click with and let go, but once they’re part of the stable, they stay unless I give them away.

They’re my pets and they’re not for sale. 😺

IMG_7667.jpeg
 
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During the 80’s I accumulated several hundred Case XX, Case USA and 70’s Dots knives. Five or six of them were users, the rest were my ‘collection’. All but two got eBay’d away in the late 90’s and early 00’s. Not one regret.
 
Dadpool said:
I've never heard it put this way, but that's sort of what I've been doing for the past few years. I guess this would just be making a deliberately small Pile 1 and selling Pile 2 and 3.

I'm thinking about things more like how I approach watches. (Which, as an aside are waaay too expensive for the "rental model" I've adopted for knife collecting.) In terms of daily drivers I have "my" watch, an automatic diver (6 oz.); a 2 oz. G-SHOCK for summer and anytime I want something really lightweight; and a just-for-fun dive watch right in between the two (4 oz.). That's the perfect number of watches for me to have as a rotation. They all get roughly equal time throughout the year and they all bring me joy.

Obviously knives != watches, but some version of that is what's calling to me.
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The way I control my watch collection is easy...I didn't start 🤣 Jokes aside watches are another love of mine, but I'm a one watch type of person, and occasionally the wish to be a one knife type of person strikes me but knives are tools to me and there aren't any perfect tools. For watches I have a daily diver I wear, a gshock for when I'm doing something really rough, and then a nice watch for when my wife tells me the other two aren't nice enough for whatever event we are going to.

Dadpool said:
Currently feeling the winds of change blowing through my life and thinking about paring back my daily carry options to like five or six knives, plus thinning the purpose-specific knife herd for good measure. 🍃

For carry options, I'd keep something along the lines of 3-4 modern folders (one medium "does it all," one lightweight, one rustproof serrated, one medium flipper just for fun) and two slipjoints (one Barlow, one SAK).

Even though I've had a scaled-down collection for the past several years, this degree of scaling down would be a first for me. If you've done something like this, how'd it work out for you? Any tips on avoiding regrets?
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The way I keep my knife collection down is ironically by packing most of it away. I keep most of my knives in storage, with only a dozen or so left out at any given time. Here is what I recommend, pick a time frame, 3-months, 6-months, 1-year, doesn't really matter. Pack away all your knives except for the one you are carrying. Don't swap knives for a couple weeks, then start swapping whenever you feel inclined, but only retreive a knife when you actually want it.
As you pull them out to carry place them in a seperate location, at the end of the 3-month, 6-months, 12-months, see what you never touched.
 
Dadpool said:
Currently feeling the winds of change blowing through my life and thinking about paring back my daily carry options to like five or six knives, plus thinning the purpose-specific knife herd for good measure. 🍃

For carry options, I'd keep something along the lines of 3-4 modern folders (one medium "does it all," one lightweight, one rustproof serrated, one medium flipper just for fun) and two slipjoints (one Barlow, one SAK).

Even though I've had a scaled-down collection for the past several years, this degree of scaling down would be a first for me. If you've done something like this, how'd it work out for you? Any tips on avoiding regrets?
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If it's time, it's time.

Reducing stuff to focus on other things is healthy. But sometimes "having" is nice. I would take 6 daily carry and 6 I just like these as a target, but the 1/3rd, 1/3rd, 1/3rd method might be a good way to get there with fewer risks that you miss it, at some point it is just, I don't need these anymore and it is time for someone else to appreciate them.
 
TheJon said:
Here is what I recommend, pick a time frame, 3-months, 6-months, 1-year, doesn't really matter. Pack away all your knives except for the one you are carrying. Don't swap knives for a couple weeks, then start swapping whenever you feel inclined, but only retreive a knife when you actually want it.
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Dang, that's a really neat idea.

Lots of great suggestions and feedback in this thread. Thank you to everyone who has contributed. :)
 
I'm with y'all. I have many more than I'm aware of. Will need to hire someone to help sort and ship. Majority going to family and friends as selling is a hassle for me. I have many types discontinued or considered rare. have many Buck fixed blades. If I ever get off my spoiled procrastinating butt they will start to go!
 
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