[fishnguy]

Originally Posted by 270person

Benchmade Saddle Mountain Skinner works great for me. I wouldnt notice one iota difference buying a supposed step up.

Those are solid knives. Was one of my recommendations many pages ago. I had one in wood. Can be bought for about $200 today. It’s a bit long though. If I were to buy that model, I would go with the g10 handle, which I think also comes with s90v steel (vs s30v on wood), but it’s a bit pricier.

Originally Posted by tirebob

There is no doubt name plays a part, but that is not a bad thing for guys that do consider collector value, and there is nothing wrong with that either. If you were fortunate enough to have bought a knife from my buddy Paul 5 or 6 years ago for 300 pound sterling you are glad you paid up because today that same knife is 1200 pound sterling or more, and a 5 year wait list.

It is certainly nice to have a knife you never worry about losing etc, but it is also nice to have a blade that continues to appreciate in value you can pass down to you kid and so on...

The thing with this is that it won’t necessarily appreciate in value. In fact, most customs won’t and some you would have very hard time selling for a nominal loss. Some, like dozier, crotts, and ingram mentioned here, for example, you will fairly easily sell used for as much as you paid for them, but not much more (that would be today, who knows what happens a decade from now when Bob is in his 90’s, hopefully alive and well).

You can say the same about the production knives. Some are sure “money makers”, some will hold value, most will depreciate significantly after they touch paper/cardboard.

I bought this knife for $40 plus $9 shipping about… 10 years ago?, brand new.



There is nothing special about it (to me, at least). It’s an aus8 steel, made in Japan. I used it camping, no abuse, but did cut stuff on surfaces I shouldn’t have - kind of a “who cares” knife. However, if I happened to just throw the sealed box into a drawer and forget about it until now, I could get a couple of doziers or crotts for it, if the right person came along; a straight trade for a stag dozier would be a no brainer for most looking for this knife in a sealed box. I am talking about semi skinners and the like, not the “fancy stuff” Dozier has to offer.

So yes, while true, it isn’t necessarily the case that any given knife will appreciate in value. I, personally, also don’t see much difference if a production knife being passed along vs a custom. Most (or higher) value will be sentimental regardless, except for very rare occurrences. A fairly extreme example in regards to knives would be inheriting an Old Timer vs a Loveless. The former (or many of them) can be bought for under $100 dating back to the 70’s; the latter can be worth up to $20,000. Ironically, in many cases, both would be cherished, but not used; the rest, while some would chose to use the Old Timer, almost no one would use the Loveless. Something like this. Or is my train of thought anyway.


Side note, all this talk made me really itch and I contacted a couple of makers about a blade in MagnaCut. I have been thinking about it for a while, pretty much since the steel “hit the streets”, but now there is a real itch. We will see what happens.