What is the holy trinity of knives?

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I'd guess Spyderco, Benchmade, and maybe ZT.
All very popular, well-made, accessible, stylish, useable mass-produced knives from reputable companies...
 
Why try and shoe horn a religious narrative into everything? 3 isn’t even all that great of a number.

There’s more than 3 because knives are infinitely more popular than bows. ;)
 
Spyderco, Benchmade, Zero Tolerance, Hogue and of course Chris Reeves are perhaps the best made knives. You will be paying $100 - $800.00 for a single knife. Kershaw, Buck, Case,Gerber, Boker etc. make great knives at lower price point. You generally will not get the super steels or more modern models, but they are tried and true.
 
JFR66 said:
Spyderco, Benchmade, Zero Tolerance, Hogue and of course Chris Reeves are perhaps the best made knives. You will be paying $100 - $800.00 for a single knife. Kershaw, Buck, Case,Gerber, Boker etc. make great knives at lower price point. You generally will not get the super steels or more modern models, but they are tried and true.
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Spyderco is definitely on the list. I'd pick Hogue over Benchmade since (issue not allowed for discussion on Blade Forums). As far as ZT, the quality per price is questionable. Echoing Mako109 Mako109 , WE has more than proven its quality. Even Kizer would be worth considering over ZT.

That same reasoning works its way into the budget category. Kershaw's Chinese-made knives still run 8Cr13Mov or worse and charge a stupid premium for D2. Boker uses 440A on their budget end. Gerber and Buck both run 7Cr17Mov. Just to give an example, the new Buck Decatur recently caught my eye. I was interested until I saw that it was 7Cr17Mov and cost $35!

Meanwhile, Civivi makes knives with great manual action and better fit/finish for $40-something. Those knives use 9Cr18Mov, a steel that is already a step up from those mentioned above, and give it an outstanding heat treatment. Ruike and a few other companies have been offering Sandvik steels at extremely competitive prices. Kizer's budget brand uses Acuto 440 in the $20 range, which is also better than any of the steels in the above paragraph. Going up a little in price but still competing with Buck's 420HC and 8Cr13Mov from Kershaw or CRKT, Kizer has some very nice budget knives in N690.
 
Jsega51 said:
Why doesn’t someone research which knife companies have sold the most over the last...10 years should work. I can’t do it though , I have to wash my hair.
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if we just measure actual numbers of knives made/sold, the break down would be:

morakniv (7k per hour... so at least 56k knives a day, and more if they do shifts)
victorinox (they make about 45k knives per day according to their promo video)
zwilling -aka- henckels (they don't have blade numbers, but they made 700m euros in 2019, or about 800m USD) so this might be the largest of the 3


outside of those european powerhouses, you have the mass produced chinese cutlers: I think Zhejiang Supor is the largest...
oddly enough, they got bought out by a french conglomerate in 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supor
in 2020, they made 18b yuan, or about 2.7b USD ... so like triple zwilling?

hard to count zwilling and supor - however - since they also do 'cookware' etc... but still interesting
 
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SteelPanther said:
ganzo
mtech
anything that has zombies
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You're not the first person to make this joke. However, I just looked. MTech has apparently grown in the last twenty years. They still make the bottom-barrel trash that made them famous. Now they've also created a mid-tier with real 8Cr13Mov. They've got a premium tier with titanium frame locks in D2. They even have a couple of knives in S35VN?!?
 
Hinderer, ZT, Spyderco w/Benchmade a very close 4th...
For a combination of affordability, QC, looks and performance you can’t beat Zero Tolerance however. There’s a reason I own over 40 ZTs and about 3 each of the other brands.
It’s the Corvette of sports cars. Just as good as any other performance car at 1/3 the price.
 
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"Modern American" Spyderco Benchmade Kershaw/ZT
"Traditional" Case Boker Schrade
"Offshore" Victorinox We/Civivi, Reate,
Im thinking folders though...
Fixed blades "Modern American" Busse Kabar Cold Steel?
"Offshore" Victorinox , Mora, Condor
Just my opinion as a low end enthusiast, happy for the more informed to explain how Im wrong.
 
Production :
Spyderco
CRK
SAK/Case for multiblade

Custom:
Loveless
Bose
RJ Martin
 
I am not aware of there being one ate the moment. It is a very fast changing market. There are some older makers that still have some strong following, but the newer stuff has greatly closed the gap if not surpassed them(in some ways).
 
Jsega51 said:
Why doesn’t someone research which knife companies have sold the most over the last...10 years should work. I can’t do it though , I have to wash my hair.
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Victorinox would be number one by a large margin. They sell several million knives (not counting their kitchen cultery line) world-wide every year.
I read somewhere they sell in excess of 15 or 16 million Swiss Army Knives alone (all models combined) every year.
Number two might be Opinel (who also sells millions of knives a year) or Morakniv, world-wide?

I'd not be surprised if the companies that poduce the more popular knives here on the forum aren't ranked in the top 100 to 200 range world-wide ... if that high.

Knives that "everyone" should have at least one of in their accumulation/collection?
I nominate the Buck 110, a Stockman (whatever brand and size you prefer. I like the "large" Buck 301 for current production); A 2 or 3 layer SAK (Huntsman/Fieldmaster/Farmer/Farmer X/Recruit); A Morakniv Number 1 or Number 2, and maybe a SAK SD Classic or Signature for the keyring.
 
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