Who is buying these new Benchmades?

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Snacktime said:
When I see an expensive Benchmade I personal feel bad for who ever buys it. That customer is missing out on either a high quality product or a better design. With the expiration of the cross bar lock patent the door has opened and I am loving it.
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Your concern is touching but please don’t feel bad for me. I, and many others, have bought “expensive Benchmades” and still had some money left over for other high quality products.
 
luethge said:
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I wish @Benchmade would rerelease some of the older ones in upgraded steels - specifically the Presidio 2 and 910 Stryker , Cruwear, M4 or even S35VN steel would be incredible. Benchmade makes great user knives.. I think they’re losing a lot of potential customers at the newer price points. I’ll still carry and use my Benchmade stuff .. been carrying one since the mid 90’s, not stopping now.
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Personally, I am tired of the knife industry always chasing after the newest latest and greatest steels and charging ridiculous prices for everything when in my opinion it is only marginally better performance. I dont have a problem with them offering them to those who want that, but I wish Benchmade would go back to making base models with 154CM and take the price point back to around $100.
Personally I get more excited about design, cool blade shapes, grinds, etc. Every blade doesn't have to be made of super steel and sell for $200 and up.
I guess it must be profitable for them, but it is ruining the hobby for me.
 
chevyrulez1 said:
Personally, I am tired of the knife industry always chasing after the newest latest and greatest steels and charging ridiculous prices for everything when in my opinion it is only marginally better performance. I dont have a problem with them offering them to those who want that, but I wish Benchmade would go back to making base models with 154CM and take the price point back to around $100.
Personally I get more excited about design, cool blade shapes, grinds, etc. Every blade doesn't have to be made of super steel and sell for $200 and up.
I guess it must be profitable for them, but it is ruining the hobby for me.
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I agree, since I mostly use traditionals with trusharp or some 1095 variant. I can tell you, I use my knife quite often. Both trusharp and 1095 sharpen up after a day of use with 5 seconds on a diamond compound strop or a fine ceramic. I have never felt like my knife wasn’t sharp enough for the task at hand.

That’s because most traditionals are ground like they were originally. Back when men were men and women were happy for it, people actually used their knives for work.

Now I’m not going to pretend to be some ranch hand or a crab fisherman, but I use my pocket knives everyday. 1095 or trusharp has been more than enough, but that is also because I maintain my knives, and enjoy doing so.

Now, with traditionals like GEC you are still going to be paying insane prices. But Case, Buck, and Boker all make perfectly serviceable cheaper options.


This is going to the crux of my point. People aren’t buying knives to be honest to god work knives. There is a reason why most knife reviews are tabletop instead of involving some kind of testing. Most people do not need the latest and greatest steel, and honestly most people could get through life fine with a gas station surgical stainless mechforce folder with a lock that doesn’t work.

People cut box tape, packaging, food. The hardcore user oriented may cut rope, paracord, clothing, burlap sacks, fishing line, strip and cut wires.

There are exceptions, and of course there is going to be a guy who NEEDS to baton through a brick and still slice phone book paper, but they are rare.


So to finish this off, most people are paying for boutique luxury pocket jewelry with an edge so that they can tell themselves that they still have hair on their chest. Pretty much every knife you see on the market will never be “worth it” to you, financially or logically, unless you live a specialized life.

Most knives are essentially muscle cars or sports cars, punching way above their needs. You have a v10 dodge viper in a pocket knife but you drive on 25mph roads in terms of use. So basically no knives in higher end category are “worth it”, and if you want to buy whatever benchmade, chris reeve, shf, or bark river, more power to you.

But as you can see in this thread and many others, there are going to be people that think you made the right choice, or the wrong choice, but in reality you are the only expert on your life. Thus, your opinion and choice is the only one that should really matter to you.
 
TouhouFan said:
I agree, since I mostly use traditionals with trusharp or some 1095 variant. I can tell you, I use my knife quite often. Both trusharp and 1095 sharpen up after a day of use with 5 seconds on a diamond compound strop or a fine ceramic. I have never felt like my knife wasn’t sharp enough for the task at hand.

That’s because most traditionals are ground like they were originally. Back when men were men and women were happy for it, people actually used their knives for work.

Now I’m not going to pretend to be some ranch hand or a crab fisherman, but I use my pocket knives everyday. 1095 or trusharp has been more than enough, but that is also because I maintain my knives, and enjoy doing so.

Now, with traditionals like GEC you are still going to be paying insane prices. But Case, Buck, and Boker all make perfectly serviceable cheaper options.


This is going to the crux of my point. People aren’t buying knives to be honest to god work knives. There is a reason why most knife reviews are tabletop instead of involving some kind of testing. Most people do not need the latest and greatest steel, and honestly most people could get through life fine with a gas station surgical stainless mechforce folder with a lock that doesn’t work.

People cut box tape, packaging, food. The hardcore user oriented may cut rope, paracord, clothing, burlap sacks, fishing line, strip and cut wires.

There are exceptions, and of course there is going to be a guy who NEEDS to baton through a brick and still slice phone book paper, but they are rare.


So to finish this off, most people are paying for boutique luxury pocket jewelry with an edge so that they can tell themselves that they still have hair on their chest. Pretty much every knife you see on the market will never be “worth it” to you, financially or logically, unless you live a specialized life.

Most knives are essentially muscle cars or sports cars, punching way above their needs. You have a v10 dodge viper in a pocket knife but you drive on 25mph roads in terms of use. So basically no knives in higher end category are “worth it”, and if you want to buy whatever benchmade, chris reeve, shf, or bark river, more power to you.

But as you can see in this thread and many others, there are going to be people that think you made the right choice, or the wrong choice, but in reality you are the only expert on your life. Thus, your opinion and choice is the only one that should really matter to you.
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I own an auto repair shop and can assure you that we don’t care about pocket jewelry here. My GB2 has cut the sidewalls out of a thousand tires and cut more zip ties and random broken plastic pieces under cars than I can count. And opened a lot of parts boxes.

I tried a kershaw, an old HK Benchmade and a Tenacious before I decided on the GB2.

Sometimes the steel matters more than the price because you pay the price on one day and use the knife for many days.
 
I think my last Benchmade purchase was a Bugout in 2021 or 2022. I haven’t picked up anything since then. I’m out with those high prices as there is much better value out there with other brands.
 
TouhouFan said:
I agree, since I mostly use traditionals with trusharp or some 1095 variant. I can tell you, I use my knife quite often. Both trusharp and 1095 sharpen up after a day of use with 5 seconds on a diamond compound strop or a fine ceramic. I have never felt like my knife wasn’t sharp enough for the task at hand.

That’s because most traditionals are ground like they were originally. Back when men were men and women were happy for it, people actually used their knives for work.

Now I’m not going to pretend to be some ranch hand or a crab fisherman, but I use my pocket knives everyday. 1095 or trusharp has been more than enough, but that is also because I maintain my knives, and enjoy doing so.

Now, with traditionals like GEC you are still going to be paying insane prices. But Case, Buck, and Boker all make perfectly serviceable cheaper options.


This is going to the crux of my point. People aren’t buying knives to be honest to god work knives. There is a reason why most knife reviews are tabletop instead of involving some kind of testing. Most people do not need the latest and greatest steel, and honestly most people could get through life fine with a gas station surgical stainless mechforce folder with a lock that doesn’t work.

People cut box tape, packaging, food. The hardcore user oriented may cut rope, paracord, clothing, burlap sacks, fishing line, strip and cut wires.

There are exceptions, and of course there is going to be a guy who NEEDS to baton through a brick and still slice phone book paper, but they are rare.


So to finish this off, most people are paying for boutique luxury pocket jewelry with an edge so that they can tell themselves that they still have hair on their chest. Pretty much every knife you see on the market will never be “worth it” to you, financially or logically, unless you live a specialized life.

Most knives are essentially muscle cars or sports cars, punching way above their needs. You have a v10 dodge viper in a pocket knife but you drive on 25mph roads in terms of use. So basically no knives in higher end category are “worth it”, and if you want to buy whatever benchmade, chris reeve, shf, or bark river, more power to you.

But as you can see in this thread and many others, there are going to be people that think you made the right choice, or the wrong choice, but in reality you are the only expert on your life. Thus, your opinion and choice is the only one that should really matter to you.
Click to expand...
Hilarious and true. I’m also over the super steel rat race. And I’m also guilty of overbuilt pocket jewlery. I don’t buy based on steel but I do buy based on quality and design. However, I must admit based on need an opinel is probably more than enough knife for any task for the majority of my needs. I’m in it for fun just like driving a ferrari is probably effin awesome 😂
 
mitchnola said:
Hilarious and true. I’m also over the super steel rat race. And I’m also guilty of overbuilt pocket jewlery. I don’t buy based on steel but I do buy based on quality and design. However, I must admit based on need an opinel is probably more than enough knife for any task for the majority of my needs. I’m in it for fun just like driving a ferrari is probably effin awesome 😂
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Im guilty of it all as well! It’s just part of the experience
 
DMG said:
I own an auto repair shop and can assure you that we don’t care about pocket jewelry here. My GB2 has cut the sidewalls out of a thousand tires and cut more zip ties and random broken plastic pieces under cars than I can count. And opened a lot of parts boxes.

I tried a kershaw, an old HK Benchmade and a Tenacious before I decided on the GB2.

Sometimes the steel matters more than the price because you pay the price on one day and use the knife for many days.
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Then the last paragraph I wrote applies to you directly
 
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I think it is funny the way people here use Benchmade as their favorite Bad Guy. For those who seem to enjoy being upset about high prices, take a look at our Knife Exchange here for example. You'll see people spending hundreds of dollars on key chain trinkets, thousands on watches, and don't forget the GEC knives listed at two or three times their original price selling out in minutes!

Yet here we are, again, with seven pages(so far) of people whining about the price of something they don't need to buy.
I find it very entertaining - please continue.
 
I have to assume that machining titanium in the US costs a pretty penny. All the US made knives I've seen with anything besides a flat slab of ti all have top shelf pricing.
 
For me it's just not possible to justify that sort of price given how many better (IMO) knives come in at a similar price range or less (CRK, RHK, LG, AB to name a few). I'd love to see Benchmade release a new Anthem model in that price range, that I might be willing to pull the trigger on.
 
Who is buying these Benchmades? Some strange characters, that's who. They are beyond help.

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