At what price point would you consider a knife to be decent?

I think it's about finding the sweet spot. There is a sweet spot motorcycle, truck or knife or whatever. What knife (or motorcycle, etc) will fill my needs and do whatever any other can based on my skills and desires? Thats the starting point and can only be determined by YOU.

I just bought a $16 dollar knife that gets me amped more than a $100+ knife I bought last week. But is the $16 knife doing a $16 task? Maybe, but it's doing the task asked of it and the $100 knife is sitting in a drawer as a 'collectable" (whatever that is).
 
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But is the $16 knife doing a $16 task? Maybe, but it's doing the task asked of it and the $100 knife is sitting in a drawer as a 'collectable" (whatever that is)."

Yeah - that's a real issue for me. I got off the knife merry-go-round quite a while back. Nearly all the knives I bought from back then have become too "valuable" to carry & risk have something happen to them.
I did just as you mentioned - I bought some $100 to $200 knives, tossed them in the drawer and never used them.
 
Hal said:
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But is the $16 knife doing a $16 task? Maybe, but it's doing the task asked of it and the $100 knife is sitting in a drawer as a 'collectable" (whatever that is)."

Yeah - that's a real issue for me. I got off the knife merry-go-round quite a while back. Nearly all the knives I bought from back then have become too "valuable" to carry & risk have something happen to them.
I did just as you mentioned - I bought some $100 to $200 knives, tossed them in the drawer and never used them.
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Similar issue here. So I sold off my $100+ knives.

For me, decent means comfortable, sturdy, useful, good lock up and deployment, single handed use, etc. I'll second the pro lite, as I had one and found it quite nice for the price, but I have given it away because I wasn't using it enough. The deployment wasn't there for me.

I've since settled on the Spyderco Resilience and Tenacious as my preferred user folding knives - at any price. Of course I always mod mine to be lighter, thinner behind the edge, more comfortable and some of the Resiliences get custom blade and handle shapes. I'm now taking it a step further and am in the process of reblading two of them with AEB-L.
 
You can get a Rough Rider slip joint for $15. Same for a Morakniv. I believe Atlantic Knife sells their display models on ebay. I got a Kizer Dukes for $37.00.
 
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Waiting for a Svord Peasant and a Douk Douk (squirrel version) to try as inexpensive users. Gave my mini Peasant away, wanted a longer blade, and coming from Baryonyx, it will have a better edge since they worked on it.
 
Lots of Svord branded knives at good prices.
 
Interesting conversation. Everybody is talking about prices, or about specific knives they like, but I guess the first thing I'd ask is: what do you think 'decent' means with respect to a knife? Lots of very cheap knives will cut things: does that make them decent? Depends on what matters to you. Edge retention, ease of sharpening, ergonomics, slicing ability, ease of deployment, fit and finish, aesthetics - these (and a bunch of other factors) matter in different amounts to different people.

To try to answer your question: of the knives I currently own, if I lost them all, the cheapest one that I would almost certainly include in a replacement plan would be my Opinel #08. $17.00, and worth every cent. I've EDC'd this knife in the past - it's not ideal for me, but it works really well. I don't currently have any plans to buy another one, but it's probably the least expensive knife I'd be willing to buy again if I needed to.

I used to occasionally carry a Gerber Paraframe II (the small one) that I paid $12.00 for, and it wasn't very good, but it was probably 'decent', as I would define it. I'm just at a point in my life where I want a lot more than 'decent'. The five dollars more for the Opinel over the Gerber gets you from 'decent' to 'pretty darn good'.

Spend another $160.00 over the Opinel, and you get into the knives that I really like, and that seem to just check all the boxes for me. Honestly, I'd much rather have one moderately expensive knife like that than have a whole box full of merely 'decent' knives. YMMV.

-Tyson
 
Tyson A Wright said:
Interesting conversation. Everybody is talking about prices, or about specific knives they like, but I guess the first thing I'd ask is: what do you think 'decent' means with respect to a knife? Lots of very cheap knives will cut things: does that make them decent? Depends on what matters to you. Edge retention, ease of sharpening, ergonomics, slicing ability, ease of deployment, fit and finish, aesthetics - these (and a bunch of other factors) matter in different amounts to different people.

To try to answer your question: of the knives I currently own, if I lost them all, the cheapest one that I would almost certainly include in a replacement plan would be my Opinel #08. $17.00, and worth every cent. I've EDC'd this knife in the past - it's not ideal for me, but it works really well. I don't currently have any plans to buy another one, but it's probably the least expensive knife I'd be willing to buy again if I needed to.

I used to occasionally carry a Gerber Paraframe II (the small one) that I paid $12.00 for, and it wasn't very good, but it was probably 'decent', as I would define it. I'm just at a point in my life where I want a lot more than 'decent'. The five dollars more for the Opinel over the Gerber gets you from 'decent' to 'pretty darn good'.

Spend another $160.00 over the Opinel, and you get into the knives that I really like, and that seem to just check all the boxes for me. Honestly, I'd much rather have one moderately expensive knife like that than have a whole box full of merely 'decent' knives. YMMV.

-Tyson
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:) Yes !

;) "Decent" for the average person that just wants a safe to use , adequate , functional cutting tool for normal utility use is very different from what the knife knut , collector , enthusiast , accumulator might consider "decent " ! :cool:
 
I dont know about decent. But cheapest knife that i carried daily and used was Ontario Rat 1.

Opinels r nice too but i dont carry it
 
I think it would be fun to have a thread asking the opposite question, 'at what price point would you consider a knife to be indecent' i.e. at what point is it no longer about actually cutting stuff or using the thing. I'd start it but I have this weird aversion to tar and feathers. :D
 
I have some cheap knives, a few around $100, and a nice CPK U/F in D3V. The CPK is the only one that I would bet my life on. And it can do just about anything the cheaper knives can do. So to answer the question, it just depends on what you expect from the knife.
 
I wonder how much this would be worth now in mint condition... don't answer, just a thought.
I beat on it almost every day for 15+ years, and it's been a pleasure.

BM812hs-hand.jpg


Lessor knives wouldn't/didn't last a minute/hour/day/week/month/year. I'd name some, but it would offend too many.
 
Pomsbz said:
I think it would be fun to have a thread asking the opposite question, 'at what price point would you consider a knife to be indecent' i.e. at what point is it no longer about actually cutting stuff or using the thing. I'd start it but I have this weird aversion to tar and feathers. :D
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Good idea. For me the best knife that meets my daily needs at the lowest cost is perfect, usually I'm in the under $30 range. I can sharpen my knives on a rock if necessary, they cut everything I need to cut with no problem, they fit in my pocket comfortably and if I lose one it's no big deal.
 
SAK Farmer, Douk Douk, Opinel #8, 9, 10, Morakniv, are all about $25.

Pretty damn hard to destroy begins at $36 in my book, for a Terava Jaakaripuukko.
 
jpm2 said:
I wonder how much this would be worth now in mint condition... don't answer, just a thought.
I beat on it almost every day for 15+ years, and it's been a pleasure.

BM812hs-hand.jpg


Lessor knives wouldn't/didn't last a minute/hour/day/week/month/year. I'd name some, but it would offend too many.
Click to expand...


From what I can gather - between $129 to $149 - is about the asking price for one that's as new in box. As I mentioned earlier in this thread - a lot of my old knives have become too valuable to carry and use.
My as new in box - AFCK being one of those.
I have a bunch of older knives that are in that same category.

It's not that the dollar amount is out of line - it's the fact that you can no longer just go out and buy a new AFCK.
 
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