Knife values

chevyrulez1

chevyrulez1

Gold Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2007
Messages
695
Is there a good periodical or source with approximately values of knives? I see some paid collectible valuation services online that are more than I would like to pay.
I can Google and see what stuff has sold for at auction, etc. But these prices can vary wildly. I realize that ultimately they are only worth what someone is willing to pay, but if I have some older items I want to sell I would like to check and see what a reasonable price to ask would be.
Any insight into how people value knives would be welcome. I have a Levine guide but it is older so I feel like the pricing is probably not valid anymore.
 
That's kinda what I have done, but back years ago in my baseball card days I got spoiled by the Beckett's price guides. You could look up stuff and see the "book" value based on condition. Realistically you could figure that you could sell stuff for about 1/2 book value or a little more depending on what it was and feel that was a fair price. I wish there was a resource like that for knives but I guess there is not. :confused:
 
If someone actually complied a resource like that, it wouldn't be accurate or useful at all. There's often a wide spread in how much a particular knife goes for and hype raises and lowers values quickly. There are too many new models being introduced to the market, too. The vast majority of knives out there are both rare and depreciate quickly. But find the right buyer who absolutely has to have that knife and is willing to pay for it, and that changes things.

You can also check the sold listings here and on Reddit, although a lot of sellers delete the prices later.
 
chevyrulez1 said:
That's kinda what I have done, but back years ago in my baseball card days I got spoiled by the Beckett's price guides. You could look up stuff and see the "book" value based on condition. Realistically you could figure that you could sell stuff for about 1/2 book value or a little more depending on what it was and feel that was a fair price. I wish there was a resource like that for knives but I guess there is not. :confused:
Click to expand...
Candidly speaking, I don't know if any printed material hardcopy guidebook is going to be accurate in pricing knives since a lot of factors go into those prices on secondary these days. When a maker is hot, their knives command a higher secondary price, but just as quickly, they can be overshadowed by the Next New Hotness (NNH) and suddenly their knives are sitting unsold until sellers start dropping their prices. Then, you'll have situations like we're collectively in now, where knives have to be discounted on secondary* in order to move, and many aren't selling at all. There are an awful lot of unsold knives on the Exchange right now, making the value essentially very low. It's why these days, if I want something mainstream, I try to buy it on secondary at a cheaper-than-street price because I know that I'm not going to get much more out of it if I decide to sell. It's also why I don't buy many knives at all these days, because I have just started purchasing those knives I genuinely want to keep around, because the days of just being able to discount a knife (purchased from an e-retailer at street price) 10% and it sells are over. I no longer buy knives "just to check out" because I don't want to be stuck with something I'll have to take a huge bath on if I decide I want to move it along. Hell, even CRK knives aren't the dependable "You'll totally get all your money back!!!!" holders of value they once were.

So, to recap, a lot of factors are going into what sellers are pricing their knives at right now, and as others have suggested, I recommend checking Ebay for pricing. Arizona Customs is another decent one, but the issue is that a lot of those knives will sell for less than that price if they've been sitting, because you can email them and make offers and most of the time (again, especially if a knife has been sitting) they'll take it. I know, I've done it many times.


* Unless, again, it's one of several hot, popular models
 
Guess and check method. Start higher and if they don’t sell, then lower the price. I wouldn’t check any platform for ballpark values unless it’s the one you intend to sell on. BF prices are way different than eBay
 
Actual "sold for" prices may not always be readily ascertainable.

I am on motocycle forums frequently - especially Harley-Davidson and get a chuckle when I see someone say that they perused FOR SALE ads to see what bikes ar "going for."

Truth be told, those ads typically reflect what bikes are NOT going for as the ads languish for months on end without the bike actually being sold. To some extent, the same could go for knives - or boats or jetskis or ...
 
No matter what brand of knife I buy ~ I always figure if I was to sell it 🤔 I certainly would get much less than What! I payed for it ~
 
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