I'll be totally honest - I saw the 0777 at the last two BLADE shows - and I just wasn't blown away by it. I was shocked a month or so back, however, when my wife presented me, on my 65th birthday just over a month ago, with my own 0777 (s/n 018X). The shock was simple - I knew she had to have paid the MSRP plus 10% s/t at our now 'no discounts' local sharp-thing-emporium. That store had contacted her when they received their allotment - and put hers on lay-away. She paid it off in July. That is the most expensive knife either of us have bought, although I have a custom made Mel Pardue beauty Mel made for me in trade for a benchrest rifle. That custom knife is valued at twice as much as the 0777. Any way you cut it, an original 0777 is an expensive knife.
What do you get for your moola? You get a deceptively lite weight weird looking knife! Oh, sure, it's a flipper on KVT bearings with a Damascus spine and VANAX35 cutting edge - between sculpted carbon fiber sides (Oddly, with no skeletonized Ti liners!). You also get the 'exclusive knife' club's latest entrant - and the associated bragging rights. It's cutting edge is slightly longer than my favorite ZT - the 0551 - while it's thickness seems consistent with ZT's standard of .156" - I didn't mic mine. It's curved Wharncliffe-like blade is slightly longer than the straighter bladed TILT! I have - which I really like and have carried & used a bunch. My favorite ZT is my 0551, but, I am starting to like the flipper action of the 0561 - and it is catching up to the 0551 rapidly. Oddly, my pair of 0551's and a 0561, each <$200 on closeout and all three adding up to less than the 0777's MSRP, are each more desirable - to me. But, that's why Baskin Robbins has so many flavors of ice cream.
What does this have to do with the more mass produced m390 bladed 0777? I'm betting it will be sold at over half that original 0777's $600 price. That's no bargain, either! I suppose it still has the m390 steel bladed - like the original - mounted on KVT bearings between sculpted CF sides - with no Ti liners. The Bohler m390 is great - but you can get healthy hunks of it in other knives for a lot less - and they'll be in tougher knives, too. My original 0777 may appear on evil-bay one day - maybe soon - at a rare goodie price. Until then, it will reside in it's box, having seen the light of day now four times in my hands - never for more than ten minutes - and yet to make it's first cut. I may add my original BM 755 MPR, with it's m390 steel, to today's carry - along with the 0551, of course! YMMV.
Stainz
