Your First High End Knife

Three pages on the subject of "high end" knives and not a single picture? That's just wrong. Come on people, show what you've got.

As has been stated ad nauseam, high end is relative term. The first knife I considered "high end" was a William Henry E10. My most recent purchase was a large Sebbie 21.

For my next knife I'm currently trying to decide between a small 21 with ebony inlay or a William Henry Atlas.

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I think one could define high end as the price is decided after the knife has been made... i.e. there are no bean counters on the design team...

Hey... that makes my knives high end... NOT!!!

But seriously high end is a skilled maker or factory making knives for which the design elements are only performance and probably aesthetic performance if we have to be honest...
 
My first "high end" knives were ordered in around 1997; at a price of approx $400 each (maybe a bit more).
I had all but forgotten about them by the time they were ready 3 yrs later...but, I did still have some excitement when I opened the boxes. I'm not sure what I expected - heavenly lights and music emanating from the package, I suppose....after all, these were RandallMade Knives. Instead, my thoughts were more along the lines of "Huh. Pretty nice, I guess" as I rewrapped them, and slid them back into their boxes.
I've always been a dagger fan; so the Model 2-7 (Fighting Stiletto) was pretty much a necessity...

Conversely, I've never really been into bowies; so my decision to purchase the Model 12-8 (Bear Bowie) still puzzles me. I think it was because of the sharpened top edge?

Both in desert ironwood with nickel silver.

After that, I think my next high end purchase was a mammoth ivory and damascus custom by Frank Dilluvio

I'm not sure exactly when I bought it; but even I thought I was nuts spending that much on a knife at the time.

The pics are several years old; but it was easier to recycle them than to take new ones.
 
My "high end" knives is a moving target. I believed that the SOG Vulcan and Mini-Vulcan were high end when I got them. I was generally pleased with the knives but I found the handles to have hot spots if you use them hard. This past year, I bought my first ZT (0770CF) which to me was high end and I was pleased with the knife. The S35VN Spydie Native 5 also was high end to me. So, you can see that my high end has gotten to about the $200 price range on a folder unless it has special handles (like ivory or something similar). I have "higher end" fixed blades and have no dollar limit for those. Customs are all high end to me.

All of my GEC traditionals are "high end" for a factory knife.
 
The knife that really started it all for me was the zt 0566, I am new to the game but the bug has bit me pretty hard, so far I've picked up an 0562cf, sebenza insingo carbon fiber, bench made 940-1, and a 0770cf.

What sold me on the knife was how good it felt in my hand. I've never had a knife that actually had heft that meant something. It was a very smooth knife with great fit and finish. It was a great step up from the CRKT drifter I had been carrying.
 
The highest "end" (around 200 bucks) EDCs my modest means allowed are a ZT 0560BW, a ZT 0620CF and a Benchmade 940-1, in order of acquisition...
 
Until just a couple of years ago, I bought cheap junk knives exclusively. For me pretty much anything was a high end knife compared to what I was getting at Wal-Mart.
 
I got this one in 2009, and the whole one-piece range was discontinued immediately after, becoming much more expensive. A good buy for $400, my most expensive knife up to then.

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There were later disapointments, in that the knife is from deliberately softer Carbon steel, and with diamond hones there is no real justification for this, and in fact for the whole notion of Carbon steel (Carbon steel does sharpen better with stones, but diamond hones elliminate that advantage). This is why I stuck a sharpener to it, to help mitigate the lower edge holding -on its reasonable 1mm edge thickness-, but then I later took the sharpener off...

This one turned out to be better (440C, and much more precisely ground: Perfect secondary grind symmetry!), but it was incredibly dull from the box: I re-shaped the edge profile and it is now acceptable -despite its silly 1.8 mm edge top thickness-, but its clever sheath stone should still be a diamond hone given the 440C stainless: It will lose its flat shape pretty quickly on any heavy sharpening...:

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Then I bought two Randalls: Poor rough blade finish (both had to be re-done, one by Randall the other by Razoredgeknives), but thin edges that are superior to any other fixed blades I know of. Definitely users, despite the price... The 14 and 18 blades are claimed to be 1/4", but they are 3/16", and this robs much of their chopping usefulness.

Gaston
 
When I joined this forum last year, my highest 'quality' knife was a Buck/TOPS CSAR-T 095... Since I caught the fever, I've acquired a ZT0560, a ZT0301, a ZT0200, a ZT0550, and a Spyderco PM2 (and a few others). Thanks for the introduction to amazing, useful art, everyone.
My first high quality knife was a ZT 0301.

One day, I'll own a real Hinderer...
 
My first was a Benchmade mini-AFCK that I bought 20 or more years ago. Virtually all of my knives since then have been in approximately the same price range. The only exceptions are the ZT 0561 that I traded for and the new Spyderco Manix 2 XL S90V that I bought.

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