When were knives “built to last”?

What era built the most DURABLE knives (materials & assembly)?

  • Pre-1920

    Votes: 1 1.8%

  • 1920’s through 1930’s

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 1940’s through 1950’s

    Votes: 2 3.5%

  • 1960’s through 1970’s

    Votes: 3 5.3%

  • 1980’s through 1990’s

    Votes: 5 8.8%

  • Post 2000 (current day)

    Votes: 46 80.7%
  • Total voters
    57
  • Poll closed .
I abstain. There are many types of knives, and lots of fixed blades, even carbon steel ones from long ago, could last a lifetime or more with proper care and maintenance. Secondly, the poll is missing the option of acknowledging that fact.
 
yeah seems like a loaded question. I don't know any maker that designs a knife and intends for it to fail, with proper care.
 
Okay so now I have read page one and skimmed a bit on page two.

KenHash said:
Couldn't vote because there's no option for:
"They've always been built that way".
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Exactly. But not all of them, as some have said. You can't expect a tiny pocket knife with a low wear resistance carbon steel blade to be used every day and not eventually sharpened away to nothing.

VorpelSword said:
Bronze. Blades made from this alloy have been found intact after being buried in the ground for thousands of years.
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Really good point! Bronze is such a neat alloy. Ancient analog of H1 or LC200N!

Kettleman said:
Todays quality knives are vastly superior to knives from earlier period. Materials alone set them apart. Now apply modern tech for design and manufacture and it’s not even the same game.
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Definitely true. Now with MagnaCut and synthetic handle materials I can make a knife that will be here a hundred years after I am dust.
 
eisman said:
Please show a knife you have worn out in your lifetime. Any of you.

I routinely carry knives pushing 100 years old that still work as intended. I have knives in my kitchen that are not much younger that also do the job.

I can guarantee you that smiths forging knives 1000 years ago were building them "to last". Your ancestors bought tools to last, the best they could afford, and they specifically demanded that quality. The throw away consumer is a much newer phenomenon.
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I haven't truly worn out a knife in my lifetime, but as a kid I had plenty that rusted badly, handles that fell apart, etc through abuse and neglect. There are lots of examples of old pocket knives, etc. with the blades so worn down to nubs over years of use, that you can't even tell what the original blade shape is anymore.

We seem to have a pretty romantic notion of the "good old days," imo. Were there people who took good care of their tools? Absolutely. Were there a lot of people who didn't? Yes. Same is true today. Citing surviving examples from history is a distorted perspective, without acknowledging that many more examples didn't survive.
 
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I have a cousin who works in a large meatpacking plant. He says the knives they use typically last about 2-3 years. They go from being a normal looking filet type knife to a very skinny knife that could be used for fishing, but not for large meat animals anymore. The plant would put all the worn out knives in an ice cream bucket and sell the whole bucket for $5. That was back in the early 2000's, don't know if they still do that.
 
I wore out 2 Buck 110’s My kitchen knives show wear. My great grandmothers kitchen knives were not even worth saving. Worn down to nubs.

Daily used and kept sharp, knives are not going to last a lifetime.
 
I hate to do this , because the OP is new and I don’t want to jump on him, but this is a troll post. Perhaps he is well-intentioned, but this thread has all the attributes of a troll. New member (although to be fair, he has a few hundred posts in his five weeks here), poorly- designed poll, with no clear answer likely to appear, but containing an open invitation to comment, pontificate, bloviate, formulate carefully thought out responses, etc, etc, etc., gets everybody talking in circles.
Of course, that is sort of what we do anyway, but if the issue is well formulated, interesting discussions often ensue. Not this time. Halfway through page 2, my eyes glazed over. Can’t vote, can’t answer. I am reduced to pontificating and bloviating.
 
I feel like this question should be asked of appliances made today. Because nothing now will last 30 years like those refrigerators from the 70s lol. So I voted for the 80s through 90s and did so because back then many companies like Buck or Gerber were able to make knives out of American materials and thrived. Funny when I was visiting my parents back in San Diego, my dad was telling me a story how he used to be friends with Chuck Buck and would go down there to get his knives resharpened when they were on Sports Arena BLVD close to where the very first PriceClub was before it became Costco. I forgot how they knew each other but my dad still loves his buck knives and will continue to support the Bucks. Today a lot of work has gone over seas to cut costs in manufacturing, I would say there's a market for knives that are built to look cool more so than their functionality. I think the knives made in the 80s and 90s were made to last and still do if used within the correct limitations. But there are plenty of knives that will last us a lifetime and plenty of new knife makers who could achieve this status easily since PM technology has come a long way.
 
A lifetime of what? My late grandfather had some unknown Stockman of unknown manufacture of unknown date in his pocket the entire 39 years I knew him. He couldn't remember where he got it or what he paid for it beyond he was sure he got it on sale. I have no idea what it was as it has gone missing after he passed 3+ years ago, but it was never purchased as an heirloom. He was a dyed in the wool product of the Depression, and all he ever expected of his tools were that they be affordable and not break too quickly if he took care of them.

This man has hand tools older than him, and he lived to be 92. He found them at yard sales, in basements he was paid to clear out, and any number of places he stumbled across. His Stockman was probably from somewhere in the 1970s and of whatever brand he stumbled across at the local hardware store. Always sharp. Always oiled, just like all of his things.

It was never really about the quality that made things last. It was how they were taken care of. After he passed, I found drawers full of cheap gas station folders he got for a song. Many of which were duplicates he offered to me and I politely took, as I knew why he was gifting them. He got a great deal on them and thought I would appreciate just how little the cost while still managing to cut things. All of them worth about 3 bucks. All of them bought in bulk in the mid 90s. All of them used but pristine and honed and oiled. Everyone of them preserved and maintained as well as I keep my $400 CRK or Microtechs.

Knives are made to cut. If you remember that and do your best to take care of it, even the crappiest example will last longer than you need it to. Short of sharpening a blade to a nub, there isn't much you can do to a knife that will wear it completely out short of prying and digging with it.
 
Knives are now seldom used. They are discouraged at most work places, packaging is now relatively easy to open, most information is now digital so mail is scarce and even accessible outdoor areas are low impact. When was the last time you saw a worn out knife on this site? Most everything on the exchange is like new or unsharpened. Even when used, we most often see pocket wear than blade wear.

n2s
 
The last few decades of steel innovation and renaissance of the knife industry are making quality tools that none of my ancestors got to make use of and I would have loved to have had access to when I was younger. My father grew up in a logging float camp, where knives were handy, but certainly nothing like today's knives and certainly not prized over other tools. The speed of innovation of all outdoor gear in general over the last couple decades has been staggering thanks in no small part to material science. There has always been and will always be cheap junk, but the high speed kit of today is truly amazing compared to what it was only a few decades ago.
 
I've got kitchen knives that go back to the 1950's & 60's that I inherited from my parents that I still use.

So, I'd say 1950's-60's which is a time period that's missing in the poll.
 
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