Weird trend: starting to prefer cheap(er) knives...

I have found that for the most part the "You Get What you pay for , went down the drain long ago. Most manufactures of even quality knives and tools worry far more about the bottom line and far less about repeat customers than they once did. There are many cheap folders that really have built in quality I would put a Buck 110 up against about anything under 300.00 for strength and durability, thats what I want in a knife, a tool that will stand up to a good beating. Many knives from Kershaw, Buck, Spyderco, Byrd and Gerber come in way under 100.00 and will match most 200.00 folder in everything except high priced names and snob appeal, both of which mean jack to me. However to each his own, thats one old standby that will never change.
 
Since I got into SAK's and am getting interested in Nordic designs , I am begining to rediscover the joys of cheap . My Vic. Huntsman just plain does more than my Sebbie . Loss becomes a much smaller source of worry .

Chris
 
Buying fewer, high quality things never goes out of style. Make no mistake about that. Don't think that you are getting high quality anything for bargain basement prices, including knives. A low cost knife is most likely mass-produced in China to low QC standards with passable steel and design at best.
 
That depends on what you call quality and what you consider bargain basement prices. You can buy a pretty good knife in the Mora for 10.00. Will a 200 dollar knife cut 20 times better? No way. There are some pretty good knives from China, the Byrd comes to mind as do the China Buck knives. If you mean a convenience store 2.00 SAK then you are right, If you mean a 50.00 Kershaw then your not. I didn't hear anyone say anything about cheap junk, just pretty good quality at pretty reasonable prices. Those values are out there in spades.:)
 
No one has made a claim than a knife that cost 10 times as much will perform 10 times better. "Pretty Good" is in the eye of the beholder I guess, and if that sort of knife is good enough for you, then great. Your wallet will thank you in the long run. I'm just saying that people shouldn't expect world class quality in a $10 or $35 knife. And don't expect that sort of knife to necessarily perform the way you want it to when you need it to.
 
I have done more cuttng than most by far. I have been a carpenter, meat cutter, diver, farmer lumber jack and life long hunter fisherman and camper. I have never useed any of what most folks here consider high dollar knives. I have used many Mora's, Old Hickory, Western, Kabar Ontario, Buck and Gerber. This over 60+ years No knife has ever been over 100.00 and very few over 40.00. They have never failed me in any way and I am sure the job would not have gone faster with a big name high dollar knife. If you know how to use and care for your tools, including knives, they will do well by you. A 30.00 Ontario Marine version carried me well in the military and it is still going strong.:) Can't say more abot that.
 
udtjim said:
If you know how to use and care for your tools, including knives, they will do well by you.
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:thumbup: +1000

Somebody using a personally well-sharpened and maintained Old Hickory skinner with skill will probably have as much success with 99% of all cutting tasks as some newcomer with a Randall. It's like that at the trap range I shoot at: bunch of young guys with $3000 trap guns having about as much success as the experienced geezer with the old $200 Remington 870 pump.

It's the user more that the tool (of course, it's nice to have both, but if you can't or won't have both, I'll take the knowledge over the tool).
 
The thing is that expensive knives(or anything)can end up being disappointing and even ridiculous. Of course, some expensive quality items DO satisfy but it's whether an item WORKS well and satisfyingly that's important.

Cheap well known knives such as Opinel and SAK do satisfy, are simple but in no way are they shoddy. I agree that the range of cheap but worthwhile knives is very great at the moment.On fixed blades, Marttiini from Finland offer a lot for not much. A stainless skinner cost me about 30 Euro,very nicely finished good ergonomics and a decent sheath that can put many expensive rivals to shame.Ditto with their carbon puukko I picked up for 14 Euro, birch handle,very sharp and an excellent traditional tube leather sheath.

Just look at the Sodbuster knife, a simple rural knife that can take on multi tasks. Those from CASE, Böker, Rough Rider and others are all decent, nice to own and good to use knives.It's using knives widely in everyday tasks that puts knives into a proper perspective and cuts the ground from under the feet of the anti-knife mob.
 
Meeting the design goals of a successful knife is not a very complicated task. This point is reinforced almost every time I pick up a cheap knife. I'm in awe not at how bad they are, but how good.

The basics of what makes a knife work is extremely mature technology, among the oldest technology known to humanity. What is amazing is that thanks to a free market, these basics are often overlooked due to the need for competitive advantage, and repeatedly rediscovered by knife nuts like us. The simplest, oldest knowledge, such as sharpening a knife, becomes a lost art, and makes us wonder how folks did things as simple as shaving a century or millennium ago. Thanks to advertising, knife users and even knife nuts (or perhaps especially knife nuts) are more attuned to things like micarta, pocketclips, and arcane alphanumerical combinations representing steel than actually using the tool.
 
I actually started with the Buck 110, and than when I got the money I stayed at that price range for almost all my 12 years of knife-collecting. I try to stay below $100, although I will go above if I see a knife that I find is worth it.

Of course, recently I am trying to get a few Moras and Opinels, as I've never had them. (Today I received a Mora from RescueRiley, for my first Mora - thanks!). I guess that would mean I am going cheaper, however someone recently brought my attention to a Fallkniven that I like, so I think I may be purchasing that sometime next year.
 
Metric said:
I have a theory that hobbies in general will often follow a pattern. There is a "discovery" phase where you first start to appreciate something. Then there is a phase of exponential growth in the price you are willing to pay. This can't go on forever, and you eventually realize that you're paying a ridiculous astronomical price that isn't really justified for your own personal use of the item. After this, you may still appreciate super-fine quality and expensive priced items (buying them on rare occasion), but in the final phase your emphasis has shifted back down to maximizing your enjoyment per dollar, rather than the ultimate "holy grail" items for that particular hobby (which become so expensive you almost hate to use them for the purpose they were designed).

This has happened to me with computers, guns, knives, and wine. I'm guessing it's happened to some of you as well.
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I couldn't have said it better

I sold all of my high end knives, and now I just carry $50-$100 beaters
 
udtjim said:
Many knives from Kershaw, Buck, Spyderco, Byrd and Gerber come in way under 100.00 and will match most 200.00 folder in everything except high priced names and snob appeal
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I agree with most of what you said, aside from the Gerbers.

You can get one heck of a knife for under $100 from Kershaw, Spyderco, Byrd, Buck, SOG, heck, even Rough Rider. The RRs I have are better than any of the Schrades made in the last 20 years, and give Case knives a SERIOUS run for their money.
 
Perhaps the unspoken truth about knives is that the low price knives are the ones that do most of the work. The machetes, the cheap folders that the typical farm hand can afford, the basic knives that are used in the kitchen, slaughter house, fisherman's wharf; those are the knives that are used and abused daily. The stuff we like is only used occasionally and with tender loving care. There is nothing wrong with owning solid, well made, things. But, nobody wants to use a $2000 custom folder to cut bail wire all day long; and, to assume that only a premium knife can do that, ignores all of the actual working knives that are used to do that work 99.9999% of the time.

n2s
 
Sometimes one just grows weary of spending $150 or more on folders that pretty and slick but don't actually cut any better than a Skyline or Tenacious. I'm sorta at that point myself. One of my favorite knives is a $3 beater Delica with a broken tip that I found at a flea market.
 
powernoodle said:
but don't actually cut any better than a Skyline or Tenacious
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Or Mora, or Lahar, or Oso Sweet, Native, Needs Work, Monocrome, or SAK...I'm with ya brother.

Unless it has a titanium handle, frame lock, and/or some wicked hard blade steel, its not worth the increase in price.
 
I have a nice collection that I'v been putting together for 50+years and I now perfer knives that have a story/history or that are what I feel are works of art. Howeve, the few knives that I carry and use are all less then $100.One of my favorites, and has been for a long time is the "Kershaw Military Boot Knife"Just seconds ago I found an onlinestore that had one for-$34.43.Some places are including free shipping if you buy over $200 which you can do if go to a store that sells other things that you might want.Its all good.
 
I went from $30-80 range about 2 years ago(gerbers, cold steel, crkt, etc.), then $80-150 range about a year ago(sogs, benchmades, scrap yards), then $200-400 range 6 months ago(busse's and the highest end stuff from spyderco like the s90v millie), today I am about $35-200(ontarios, beckers, rats, mid range spydercos, the top end is made up of customs).
Interesting trend.
 
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