What's your point of diminishing returns?

After your collection gets to a certain point and your preferences are set in stone, price is not so much an object as function. If a knife has the features you like, that's the one you get, whether it be a $17 SAK or a $500 custom.
 
Around 100 bucks or so for me. Not to say I won't spend more, but most knives that cost more than this aren't any more usable to me than ones that cost 100.
 
Tony_A said:
I carry a Sebenza, but would be the 1st to admit that once you hit $80 or so, spending more doesn't directly translate into a correspondingly better knife.

Meaning paying twice as much won't get you a knife that's twice as good, more like ~20% better for every 100% more you spend.
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I don't really know if I agree that after the $80 or so mark that every extra 100% translates to an increase of 20% quality or performance. I would say that the point of diminishing returns really starts to become apparent in the $100 but I wouldn't say then that a $500 knife is somehow 80% better than the $100 knife.

A CRK Sebenza has titanium for the handle and S30V for the blade steel. Is CRK's titanium somehow more titanium-y or S30V-y than a $150 or $200 knife?
 
Usually I put the number at $150, its not too bad of a blow to the wallet if the knife doesn't come through the way you hoped. But now I am seeing the light of spending more on custom knives or limited runs, they seem to just have a certain, undefinable "something".
 
I think $170 is the most I've ever paid for a user. Which doesn't mean I don't own knives that are worth considerably more than that.
 
The most expensive knife I've used (and paid retail for) cost $800.

I have another user that is easily worth $1000, though I got it much cheaper.

The knives that gets the most use? A $40 Case Peanut and a $100 Spyderco Caly III.
 
I'm struggling with that too. I have a couple more expensive knives like the SnG. But the mini grip, Delica 4, Vantage Pro, and Paramilitary are carried most frequently. I'm not sure if I need any more expensive knives. The functionality of what I have seems to fit me.

Aside from that, there are some other really nice looking knives out there.
 
depends on the knife.

i'm prepared to spend ~AUD$200 on a top-end fixed blade but i object to spending much more than ~AUD$50 on a folder (unless it's a leatherman or similar).

short of winning Lotto or making it onto the Forbes Top 1,000 list, i don't ever see myself dropping Strider or CRK kinds of cabbage on any blade.
 
I think it's about $100. At that point, with the Sage1, you can get high end scales (CF), and a high end blade steel (S30V), along with good fit and finish (although it is made overseas), along with a wonderfully useful blade (FFG).

Beyond that, you're just paying for coolness through design, or perhaps the same thing made in the USA.
 
i'll spend 200 on a folder but most really good knives need not cost more than 110. however as one member mentioned ,it's hard to imagine a better value than the spydie bradley at even 3 times it's costs. simply put [i.m.o.] for a hard use super smooth cutter i think the bradley is the best value around. do i carry one? no it's a little heavy for my work requiem. my formula is city--endura & country--- gec pioneer or muskrat.straight knives are a different kat with 400$ not improbable.
dennis
 
I don't mind spending over $200 for fixed blade knife with a quality sheath that I'll keep for life. I won't spend more than $60-80 for a pocket knife since I might lose it.
 
$125 is about my cap.. in the new or used market... but I have spluged a few times up to $150. There is just so much quality stuff out there that can take way more abuse than I'll ever put a blade though in EDC.
 
My point of diminishing returns is not directly tied to money but rather machining tolerances, whereby anything beyond ten thousandth of inch is unnecessary and pretty much undetectable unless your an engineer or machinist. That being said CRK takes the machining on the Sebenza down to ten thousandth of an inch. So prices on those range form 250 to essentially 400. I'll pay for that level of attention to detail as I think it makes a difference in durability and longevity as your simply buying a higher level of workmanship and or skill and expertise. Also willing to pay for materials which are advanced say to carbon steels or simply stainless steels, like Warren Thomas titanium carbide or mission beta ti blades. I think its worth it because of the added cost of the materials and the additional expertise to work with these materials.
 
Ten thousandths of an inch (0.010) is a fairly common tolerance for machined parts. I have read that CRK takes the flatness of their pieces down to one half of one thousandth of an inch (0.0005). I am assuming this is true and is a level of precision that I do not need or feel the need to pay for. I would bet that most high end production knives made on CNC machines have tolerances of 0.010 but cost half of what a Sebenza does.

As far as the original question my point is somewhere around $150. I can buy a top of the line production knife for that price. At $80 I can get a darn nice knife but it isn't top of the line yet. At that price knives don't usually have the best materials yet so I am willing to pay a little more to get exactly what I want. Paying $150 might not get me twice as good of a knife as an $80 knife, but it is getting me materials that probably cost twice as much or more (super steels, ti, carbon fiber etc).
 
DennisStrickland said:
i'll spend 200 on a folder but most really good knives need not cost more than 110. however as one member mentioned ,it's hard to imagine a better value than the spydie bradley at even 3 times it's costs. simply put [i.m.o.] for a hard use super smooth cutter i think the bradley is the best value around....
dennis
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+1
Couldn't have phrased it any better than that. The GB is my cutter of choice. I own Striders, an XM-18, and have in the past owned the Umnumzaan. However, the GB in my opinion reached a whole new level for Spyderco. The guys in Taiwan know exactly what they are doing, and they do it flawlessly. I do have a GB in my EDC rotation, it's seen some very hard cutting from drywall to copper cable to carving through some PVC when it was the only tool I had on me.
:thumbup:
 
I've owned a few knives that I had paid more than $300 dollars each for, and while I did enjoy most of them I can't deny the fact that they really didn't perform any better than my $50.00 dollar knives.

These days I have a hard time paying more than $100.00 dollars for any knife.
 
In the past I have paid over $100 for Spydercos & Benchmades. Lately I've been carrying either a $45 Boker stockman or a Hen & Rooster that I traded a GEC for (still under $75). I have a khukuri that was almost $150. Any more expensive than that and I would have to really think about it.

Frank
 
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