What makes a knife go up in value?

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Planterz said:
So, did this thread go up in value in the last 11 years, or no?
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madcap_magician said:
Everyone knows the best way to make a small fortune on investing in your knife collection is to start with a large fortune and then start buying knives.
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This.

CWL said:
You buy & collect knives because you like them.

Knife prices go up and down, mostly down. Knife fads come and go, so do knifemakers. What is hot today, can be worthless, 5, 10 years from now.

Nobody knows whether CRK, Busse, Strider, Hinderer, Spyderco, etc. will be valued 10-20 years from now. Buy them because you like them, if it goes up in value, you are lucky, or it could just be inflation.
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Also this. As an example, there's an awful lot of people who try to sell knives in the Customs section and end up having to repost them again and again over the course of several months, that only sell after drastic price reductions. There are VERY few makers who are guaranteed to increase in value (because 90% of 'em are dead), but the issue is that you had to have been there, having bought at the maker's price at the beginning. 🤷‍♂️
 
VorpelSword said:
Hi Ron,

Can you be more plane? I, for one, just don't get it (its probably me).
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Like most members have noted here, it is not very common to have a knife appreciate in value. If you examine the knife exchange here, you will see that most knives sell for less than their original purchase price. Some exceptions exist. For example, Chris Reeve knives hold their value well, and some even go up in value. If there is a "safe bet" in the knife world, it is a CRK knife. You won't lose much money and might even make some money. Some other production knives might net you a profit on certain models, such as Great Eastern Cutlery.

If you bought knives from one of the classic custom makes such as Bob Loveless or Ron Lake, you would make money BUT you would have had to buy from the maker himself (maker's price) and not the already inflated prices on the secondary market.

Some other exceptions exist, but the basic message that we are all trying to send is - don't count on making money from any knives. If you do....then great. More likely than not, you will lose money if you sell your knives and so the point is to buy what you like and can afford.
 
To answer the original question, in order:

Quality - the better, the better.
Rarity - the fewer the better.
Time - the more the better.
 
Ron: Thank you. I just didn't get the number references.

Your assessment reflects my admittedly limited experience with buying knives. Also in the exceptions category might be some of the Ek knives and various Gerber Mark-II iterations.

As it turns out, when our son was on a track to deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan in the early 2K years, I franticly bought him a Ka-Bar, a Randall Special Fighter, a CRK Green Beret and two Ek daggers along with a Camillus Cuda Maxx folding dagger. While I chose them for what I perceived as genuine suitability for daily use by a warfighter in a combat zone, each of them has appreciated to one extent or another.

Investment? That was not the plan at the time of purchase.
 
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Quiet said:
This.



Also this. As an example, there's an awful lot of people who try to sell knives in the Customs section and end up having to repost them again and again over the course of several months, that only sell after drastic price reductions. There are VERY few makers who are guaranteed to increase in value (because 90% of 'em are dead), but the issue is that you had to have been there, having bought at the maker's price at the beginning. 🤷‍♂️
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Agreed, I would be surprised if one in a hundred knifemakers command a secondary market price greater than what their table or book price was in the first place. Even the ones where there are years of waiting to get on the books often still sell at a discount when second hand. It's just like picking meme stocks, there's some knowledge of the trends, some patience (I've been on the books for makers for knives at $500 or so and then given up my spot, and ten years later it would have been a $1,200 knife many a time), and a whole lot of luck. That's no winning strategy for investing.

Even on the far end of that equation, you have things like Loveless knives that will command prices in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars... but the community of people who can afford to pay that is small, so even though the price is high and the demand is up there, the ability of the smaller group of people willing and able to pay at the stratospheric prices for RWL customs is a lot lower than when you're talking a $450 CRK or a $150 Spyderco. So if you want to make some money off a Loveless, my advice would be to build a time machine and go back to when he was still alive and taking orders.
 
You guys are giving me a nosebleed with your numbers here. I build or buy used the knives that I like, and keep them til I lose them, break them, or give them away. Most, I have no idea of their value. I haven’t sold a knife in 10 years, but I use one every hour, seems like.

Guess I lead a commercially sheltered life, gotta get out more.

Parker
 
Dumb luck indeed.

A lot of years ago now, my wife saw me handling a Spiderco multitool (Spider-Wrench?) at a big-mall knife shop. They had just come out. I looked at it and didn't like it, so I didn't buy it for the $80 or so they wanted. Guess what I got for Christmas?

Yup, you guessed it. Kept it in the box with all it came with; maybe I opened the box that one time at Christmas. Fast forward to 2018 (I think). Sold it on e-Bay for $320 or so.

That is dumb luck.
 
dkolds said:
Buy a whole bunch of knives overtime and some of them will go way up in price. that’s happened to me.
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The guy you quoted hasn't been on in here in 9 years, so I wouldn't hold out much hope of him replying to you...
 
What if the knife had been used in a series of horrific murders?
 
Gold and silver are more a store of value than an investment. Knives are a hobby. Buying knife making tools and materials with the intent to use them and make a living is an investment. Ironically when I first got into it though it was only as a hobby, and then 2020 happened.
 
If I were making knives for a living, I’d starve. My sales pitch would go something like, “For 1.49 in materials and 600 in labor, I can build you a one of a kind knife like none you’ve ever seen. It’ll cut stuff almost as well as a Buck, Case or Schrade you could buy for less than 50.”

Fortunately, when I make a knife for myself, I don’t care how long it takes. Sometimes there’s 3 or 4 knives worth of labor before I get the mistakes fixed.

Parker
 
Bad idea.
I buy any knife because I want it for the usefulness and because I like how it looks. I want to use it.
To make almost any knife an investment would take incredible foresight and luck and it should be unused.
 
C catspa I didn't actually think I was going to make knives for a living. I always loved it when it was a hobby, but didn't start off very good at it. I started with premade blanks, then moved on to cutting out my own from sawmill blades and having them heat treated. In 2019 a lot of things started to click for me, and by the end of the year and early 2020, I made my first couple purchases of a bunch of AEB-L and a big order of handle materials from USA knife maker, because I just wanted to have fun with it. And then got laid off in February/March 2020.

And although things had already started to click, it was still a learning curve, and that year I only made it through by: 1) selling off nearly my entire production folder collection, 2) cashing in my RRSPs (Canadian 401K equivalent), 3) being paid by my mom to do a bunch of work on her garden and condo, and 4) taking a loan from a friend, which helped paid for 5) materials and heat treatment for making knives for the wonderful Bladeforums community members. (I was able to pay the loan back a few months early as well) All the while the time it took me to make a knife I would personally be willing to pay for was gradually coming down as I practiced and learned.

But when I started, a knife that would today take me, say, 8 hours of work to make, would have taken me easily three or four times that, like you said. I still have a long way to go before I'm anywhere near the amazing world class makers that populate this forum, but I feel I am at a point where I am at least through "knife making pre-school", as it were, and can more efficiently and effectively create a knife that I would personally want to buy, which is was my motivation to try making in the first place.
 
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