My Knife-Buying Criteria

[ricebasher302]

I'm an avid knife user and collector. I have somewhat diverse tastes, but do follow some particular guidelines. Obviously, any collector works within his budget constraints. Currently, my budget has kept me to $200 and under blades. I certainly drool over more expensive pieces, but will wait 'till I'm more prosperous to purchase. As a result, most of my collection is comprised of production knives. I've found it interesting to see what guidelines I've set for myself. Some of these guidelines seemed to develop on their own over the years. Others I've deliberately decided upon. Here's what's always in the back of my head as I'm perusing the endless array of knives:

If an American company offers both domestic and foreign produced knives, I only (with a couple of exceptions) purchase the American-made products. Exceptions include a couple CRKT knives.

I will purchase foreign-made knives, as well as their outsourced products, i.e. Boker (German) has their "Plus" line of Taiwanese and Chinese blades. I like many of these.

Tip down carry or reversible clip on folders. Sadly this excudes me from using many cool knives by Spiderco, SOG, Buck and others.

Good steel - good carbon steels 1095, 52100, etc or stainless of 440C or better. I've been happy with AUS-8, Buck's 420, Sanvick 12C.. or 14C.. (Kershaw) 154CM, S30V, ATS-34, D2 (semi-stainless), etc. I've been disappointed by AUS-6, 8cr..., 440A etc. Exceptions include my CRKT Drifter for $12.

No finger grooves without holding in my hand first. Most of my online purchases are knives with no finger grooves. Same goes for sub-hilt designs.

Prefer liner or frame locks on my modern folders. I'm not used to button locks, lockbacks or others. Exception would be my Ontario Apache, and I still fumble with it.

On fixed blades, I find it aggrivating if the edge does not extend rearward to the handle. An inch of unground choil does me no good. Knives with a forward finger groove in the choil are an exception.

Dull or rounded tips (either by design or by poor finish) that cannot pierce are unacceptable.

I like sharp jimping. Dull or rounded jimping means I'm paying for a feature that does nothing.

There are probably other factors I'm not thinking of right now.

Many of my favorite knives are by Benchmade, Kershaw and Boker Plus. Some of my favorite knives include my Steven Kelly designed Lone Wolf Trailmate in 154CM and jigged bone. I love my Boker Trances. I have three. My Benchmade Rant in D2 is a phenomenal hunting blade. Really love my TOPS Tom Brown Scout. My tastes are always evolving though. My current collection is represented below.

Anza-1
Bark River-1
Benchmade-6
Boker Plus-7
Buck-3
CRKT-2
Kershaw-4
Linder-1
Lone Wolf-1
Marttiini-2
Mora-1
Muela-1
Ontario-2
Queen-1
Schrade (USA)-1
SOG-1
TOPS-2
Wusthof-1
ZT-1

 

[JimStC]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It is interesting to understand how other knife buyers/collectors make their buying decisions.
Nice collection.

Jim

 

[JShirley]

I, also, rarely buy knives with finger grooves.

I don't buy inexpensive knives with liner locks. I rarely buy liner lock knives at all, but NEVER on cheap knives. Back locks are fine, frame locks are great, and ball-bearing locks and compression locks are my favorites.

Other factors being equal, I'll buy a USA knife first. I'll buy ROC/Taiwan before PRC. I don't buy knives made in Pakistan, rarely buy knives made in India, and think carefully before buying knives made in Nepal.

I look for makers with good business ethics. Spyderco gets my vote here. They have several knives in production at any time with some portion of the proceeds going to causes such as disabled vets and the American Cancer Society. They are also making a knife Sam and I designed, so far as I can tell, with the primary goal of creating a good tool to fight sexual assault.

Reputation means a lot. The Busse family has earned a reputation for extremely hard-use knives, and if they (Busse, Swamp Rat, Scrap Yard Knife Co) make a knife that fits into my discretionary budget, I expect it to be the toughest edged tool per weight that can be found.

Reputation means a lot. I only buy Cold Steel knives if I find them at an extreme discount, and have a reasonable expectation that the particular model I'm buying is reasonable quality. There are just too many good people in the knife world to give my money to Lynn Thompson if I can help it.

I'll buy 5160 before 1095, especially if there isn't much cost difference. I like VG-10, 154CM and BD1, and S30V is also good. 52100 can be a great cutting steel, and it's fairly resilient, but it will rust if you look at it wrong. H1 is great on knives that have a premium on not rusting. I'm excited at the potential 3V shows.

Since I've had the pleasure of working with Sam, I have been able to help make knives that I think are perfect for particular tasks. My favorite knife is my Camp Defender (version 2), and my Justice Soldier's Knife and the Spyderco Manix 2 XL that a forumite sent me during this last deployment are also favorites.

John

 

[22-rimfire]

I don't have any serious knife buying guidelines for myself other than I want the blade to be functional and have good to reasonably good steel which holds an edge. The one brand that I buy a lot is Victoronix which has medium edge hold capabilities but easy to resharpen and I use them often. Replacement is not usually a problem if one is lost, misplaced, ruined.

I have been shifting my knfie buying to things that I want to use rather than just put on the shelf to gather dust, or "collect"... whatever the heck that really means with knives in terms of resale.

I give preference to American manufactured knives over Chinese. Some of the Japanese blades are quite excellent and Taiwan made stuff is often good. The Chinese stuff has improved a lot in the last couple of years. CRKT comes to mind there. Rough Rider slip joints aren't half bad for the money.

I have never once sold a knife that I made a dime on. Technically, I could sell a few that I own now and make some money relative to what I paid for them. Starting to think about thinning the herd a bunch and selling via a forum listing.

I don't have any particular price limit, but most are under $200. I have been tending to buy what I believe to be better knives within this price range to use.

But for me, I can't use them all. I have my favorites but am always looking for something I will like better. It doesn't happen often anymore.

 

[kBob]

My knife buying critera ia simple, do I like it enough to part with money or trade goods or services for it....thats pretty much it.

the magic letters USA do increase the chance I will part with value and the word china is generally a deal killer.

I have a couple of knives marked Pakistan that I either just wanted or some one gave me....at least I feel like I sort of know what I am getting with those as opposed to shelling out bucks on a chinese crap shoot.

Found a little Japanese food prep knife I liked, went back bought another, went for a third a year later for a bug out bag and they had that awful c word on them. Bought one anyway.....it only looked like the japanese made knifes of that brand. THe steel would have been thought poor on a Pak knife.

Besides I don't like giving the Red Chinese anything anyhow and this is not a new opinion.

-kBob

 

[jeepnik]

Pretty much an impluse buyer. I like it, I want it, I buy it. I must admit that over the years my "likes" have tended to get more and more toward the high end. But, as they say, "you can't take it with you" and I'm a firm believer in the bumper sticker "I'm spending my kids inheritance".

 

[ricebasher302]

I look for makers with good business ethics.

This comes into play for me as well. I've not really ever considered buying a Cold Steel product. Fehrman Knives' mission helped generate interest in their products, I just haven't yet justified the expenditure. I like Buck's Christian beliefs, TOPS' support of out troops, others as well.

My avoidance of certain offshore knives stems not necessarily from a sense of poor quality so much as from wanting to keep my dollar at home. China's got their hands so deep into our pockets that they could nearly tie our shoe laces. I don't like contributing to that.

 

[JimStC]

tmi
Edit to add: some random thoughts that I deleted. tmi=too much information.

 

[sidheshooter]

I'm with others on business ethics. Spyderco is at the top. USA or the occasional Japanese knife primarily. I also like knives that I can actually use or carry: I've gotten rid of my more expensive custom knives and things like push daggers (though the one exception is my Polkowski pug; illegal to tote in my location, and hitting 5 bills now that Al's gone, I still can't bring myself to let that one go).