What was your first “expensive” knife?

AntDog said:
Busse Basic 9 was the first one I’d consider “expensive”. I caught it on a sale for $100 at a website that’s long gone now.

They had 3 in stock. I started thinking about it after I ordered the 1 that I should probably go back and snag the other 2. They were gone.

Still have it and still use it. Knife isn’t phased by a damn thing. Just keeps on kickin’.

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I have one just like it that I bought new. Even have the box it came in. I don’t remember what I paid for it but thought it was high at the time.
 
My absolute 1st real knife was a camillus Becker bk7. Set me mack about 50.00 bucks at a gun show. My 1st over 100.00 knife was a Benchmade nimravus in ats34. Bought it when I was 21 still have it 20 plus years later still in good shape and has seen it's share of dirt time
 
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Bought my first ML knife, got a hunter as I could not afford the Hudson Bay knife I so desperately wanted. It was such a step up of quality from the production knives I had collected, I was impressed. I did eventually get that HB.
 
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A Boker "Speed Lock" automatic, I no longer have it. This was the early/mid 90s and they were illegal, switchblade knives were few and far between unlike today. $200 from a pawnshop and was told to NEVER tell anyone where I got it. It got stolen out of my garage years later.
 
Henry Beige said:
Mini Barrage, $115. My wife had given me a Griptilian, which was my first taste of upscale knives, but it was only $85 at REI. It turned out to be a very popular knife among knife sales persons at Cabela’s, who all seemed to want to show me their knife. I liked the size, but was agnostic on the assist. It didn’t open any faster than the Grip, but I had no objection to it.

A relative with a heroin problem stole it for drug money. Ha later told me that Pawn America had given him $85 for it, which, if true, meant they thought it was about a $400 knife, which would make it by far the most expensive knife I ever bought.
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My heart goes out to you and your relative both having to suffer due to this affliction, I am sorry that he has it, and that he is inflicting it upon you as well.
I really hope they can get out of that horrible trap.
 
I bought an Alox SAK in Switzerland around 2001. I don’t remember how much it cost, but I remember debating it a lot. And it stays in use on one of my desks 20 years later, so I guess it was a good enough deal.
 
As mentioned “expensive” is a relative term. Also, for me living in Sweden, buying US knives comes with taxes and stuff so in average I guess I have to pay one third more than you muricans for the same knife… and with a European salary 😂

I believe I had my first experience with buying non-gas station knives back in the late 90s / early 2000s. I bought a CRKT K.I.S.S and a US made Schrade 1410t old timer hunting knife with a grippy green synthetic handle. I wasn’t happy with the CRKT and gave it to a friend. Still got the Schrade. I would guess they were in the $40-$50 range, which was a lot for me given the general reference knife in Sweden is a $4 Morakniv.

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My first expensive knife i purchased was a Kershaw many years ago..but back then it was expensive to me.
I loved that knife but i passed it on.

The handle and blade on it was just amazing...now looking back i wish i still had it.
 
In the early 1980's I bought this Randall 1-7 and it was something like $200, which was pretty expensive at that time. In 1984 I bought one of these Lile Sly II knives for about $685 new from Lile, and that was a lot of money at the time.

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16 working at the local grocery store.. Don't remember which came first, it was either the BM 530 or the Griptillian (before that a couple cheap Sog's and CRKT's). Got both within a couple months of each other. Still got the 530... The Grip is somewhere on the bottom of the Ocoee river after loosing it white water rafting 🥲 (out of town, so both online photos)
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The first expensive knife goalposts just keep on moving. First it was a Buck 119 fixed blade, bought on the advice of a Algonquin trapper I respected. After that it was a Benchmade Crooked River, which felt like the ultimate evolution of the Buck traditional folding knife. This year I bought a Hinderer XM-18 Skinny Generation 6. It's far from impossible that those goal posts might move again further down the rabbit hole of knife insanity over the next couple of years, with the purchase of a Spartan Blades SHF Custom Harsey, Chris Reeves Sebenza, or more likely a pricey fixed blade.

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Cattaraugus225 said:
You have to love it when a pawn broker (legal fence) gets a dose of his own medicine. When I was still working with my tools, I had my whole loaded toolbox stolen. It was about seven hundred dollars in tools, some of which had belonged to my father. A few months later I found some of them in a pawn shop. (all marked). It disgusted me.
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Dame. Did you end up buying back your toolbox ?
 
Lamelle said:
Dame. Did you end up buying back your toolbox ?
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No, when I found the loose tools it was long after the event and the good stuff was gone. It just really irked me to know that some crackhead had probably gotten $25.00 for seven hundred dollars in tools, smoked that up and went looking for another victim.

Of course, that was not as bad as the situation that I saw a few months after Hurricane Andrew in Miami. My company was doing the plumbing work on rebuilding a destroyed Home Depot. The work was in the last minute rush to meet the opening deadline, a couple of days away. Thieves got on the job site and ripped the coils out of all of the AC condenser units on the roof of the place for the value of the copper, perhaps getting $20.00 for units that cost thousands of dollars and a major delay in opening to replace. It makes you understand why our founders made good use of hanging.
 
I guess "expensive" is a relative term. Relative to ones age, income/financial resources, perceptions, etc.

I'd say the first "expensive" knife I owned was an old, slightly beat up Buck 112 that I bought from a friend when I was 11 (1981). I paid him $25 for it (overpaid), but it was still in overall good condition. For me, at 11 years old in 1981, $25 was a lot of money. It was the most expensive thing I had ever purchased up to that point, and beyond.

Prior to buying that knife the only two locking knives I had owned were a very small Valor brand pocket knife, and a really cheap little folding stiletto. I used to lust over that 112 whenever I would visit my friend, it was the first really robust, high-quality folder I had ever experienced, and I wanted it. Eventually I offered the right price, and my friend sold it to me.

That knife was a prized possession and frequent companion, and it accompanied me and saw a lot of use on many camping trips.

Then about a year later my parents bought me a brand new Buck 110, which totally eclipsed the 112. The 112 had the older "squared" edges, whereas the 110 had rounded edges, which I liked better. And the 110 was simply bigger. The 112 got relegated to limited use at home.

I no longer have the 112, we parted ways. I still have the 110.
 
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That I bought with my paper route money and lawn mowing money when I was a kid?
I forget. Maybe a Schrade or Old Timer, or Camillus stockman, or Western L66?
Regardless, it is long gone.

As an adult? The 2018 Blade Forums 301, at call it "$80" was the most expensive knife I'd ever bought up to that time.
 
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