Wanting information about my acquired Custom/Handmade knife. (Read: What’s it worth?)

[SharpByCoop]

I drafted an open letter which I'd like to post in the Custom and Handmade forum at some point. It does NOT have to be a sticky, but the intention is to direct someone to it when this question pops up (about every two weeks).

Please make appropriate suggestions on editing or additions. I'm using a clumsy dialog of 'I' and 'we', but I'm hoping the sentiment for 'we' is universal. Thanks!

Coop

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Hello new Bladeforums member!

Thanks for joining our site. This IS a great community and we hope you will read a lot to understand more.

I will guess you have searched online and found this site because you are interested in a particular Custom or Handmade knife (or knives) that you have acquired. This happens often.

Your Google search hasn’t turned up many clues, but there is always a chance you have something real valuable. You are hoping.

Quite possibly you have a knife that you are simply trying to identify. Who made it? How old is it? How popular was this maker? And even…

…what’s it worth? (This is a biggie. We’ll talk about that in a moment….)

First things first. Without photos no one can fully help, we can only speculate. Take clear full-frame photos outside, and detail shots with a macro setting on your camera. You need to host them to post them. Pay for a membership level to host them on this site will help you twice in this regard. (More on that also in a moment.)

Often the only clue is a cryptic set of initials or a name etched/stamped/carved/engraved into the blade. Any quality handmade knife should have had the maker mark it somewhere.

We hope you have performed a search on this site of the name, if so noted. You may learn all you need.

Some of these maker’s names and their marks are immediately recognized. More than likely these are makers who made many hundreds and even thousands of blades. We can help you quickly here.

Many times there are past makers whose names are familiar in the Knives Annuals (a catalog series of who’s-who in the knifemaking world, dating back to 1981), but have very few models on the internet. There is always a chance that some of our long-time members will help identify and share a story or a location to contact.

And often the maker was a talented craftsman who made a quality piece, yet never went through the registration process in these Annuals. That’s a shame, but it happened. They were more-than-likely a hobbyist and only made a small selection.

If you can find little information through a Google search, that is probably a big clue that your piece is rare. But, rarity does NOT make it valuable. Well-known examples from noted makers are most valuable.

Most times a knife is acquired from a relative. Because of this it has heirloom value. It’s a keepsake treasure from a man/woman whom you admired. I daresay this may exceed the monetary value more times than not. But, everything has a price….

Pricing? How much is it worth? If I were to sell it how much could I get? Would anyone here be interested? We know this. This is a prominent motivator to have brought you here.

That said, this is a privately owned forum. There are rules for even potentially selling ANYTHING, which involve registering as a paid member for our Exchange area. Here are the EXACT rules:

WHAT IS MY KNIFE / GADGET / SPATULA / TUNING FORK WORTH?!?!?!?!
In order to curtail potential abuse of membership privileges associated with the forums, questions regarding valuation of knives and collections are limited to those with a membership level which permits selling on this site. Accordingly, registered and basic members may not start or post in threads with such requests whether with the intent to sell or for informational purposes only.

And so we must refrain from answering any valuations UNLESS you have become a Gold member or more. At that point you have become a supporting member, and this is allowed.

Outside of this, your identification questions are still welcome. I hope someone may be able to help you.

Thanks for reading this far, and welcome once again!

Jim

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Not bad but I see the people coming here for valuations just jump right in and ask, no looking around.
Mostly that's in the General Knife Discussion, of course. New members post everything in General Knife.
Your letter probably needs a brief lead paragraph that catches their attention and makes a few main points:

Need to be Gold to ask values.
Might be better placed in Bernard Levine's.
READ THIS FIRST! How to ask questions that get answered.

 

[SharpByCoop]

Esav: Like you I frequent Bernard's forum often. More times than not, the questions and posts there are not specific to Custom and Handmade. The C&H forum attracts plenty of newcomers who are looking for just this info.

True, General gets these questions, and Bernard's forum will certainly help, but the C&H would be my query point if this is what I was looking for information.

That sticky of Bernard's is a gold mine of good info. I will edit later and incorporate that link.

It's just that I see this happen in the C&H forum with such frequency, and the answers to almost all of these posts are usually some combination of what I outlined above. It would not hurt to be slightly redundant, I'd think.

Thanks,

Coop

 

[Esav Benyamin]

I certainly don't object to any of it. People come here with very little idea of what we need to know before we can help them.

I just got one a few minutes ago.