The Curse of the Safe Queen

After you finish selling your surplusage, I'll be interested in knowing what the pre-tax, annualized return on your investment is. My guess is there are more lucrative investments (albeit not as fun).

I'll be happy if I get within the ballpark of breaking even....

For every ZT 0777 that I make some money on... There are a dozen others I end up losing money on...
 
Good afternoon everyone,

Lately I have been really thinking about knife collecting and what it has done/does for me.

What I concluded? A hell of a lot of enjoyment but an equally large amount of stress. As much as I adore the knives I have come through my hands, most everytime, I cannot bring myself to use/enjoy these knives in fear of compromising my investments (F.Y.I. guys, I'm so far into the rabbit hole that scratches can mean the difference in hundreds of dollars...)

Then I think about all of the anxiety generated from ritually and diligently maintaining a collection as large as mine. Dehumidifiers, safes, lubricants, maintenance. On knives that just sit there. Shoot, I bet if I added up all of the time I spent baking off desiccants, relubing knives, and resituating them all, I lose a week out of my life a year.

That's ridiculous. Beyond that, what about all the time I spend on these forums and others chasing grails i will never bring myself to use and that will only further exacerbate the already present stress.

Unacceptable, after all, I have a beautiful family to enjoy. All for knives that just sit there??

Anyway, I have really began to disband my collection and only keep what I will use, enjoy, and do so with reckless abandon. I don't want to deploy my blade with tentative hesitation in fear of biting off more than I may be willing to...I want to mess up and fix it later, and be happy to do so.

I've since began using my knives. Not like divas but like tools. With an intended and necessary purpose. My $1000 Shirogorov is littered with scratches and it's liberating. Dropped it today, while installing a door, right onto tile. A beautiful ding right on the corner.

If you're someone like me, who enjoys knives and tools so much that it's a staple in your life, yet, cant bring yourself to indulge....take my word for it, let go and enjoy. If you can't use it, you have no business having it. Really though, for what reason? So some distant relative can sell it on Ebay after a thorough researching session? No thank you, for me at least.

Have a great day everybody.

Great thread!

I think that if you feel you are spending too much time on the knives you have due to the quantity it is a very healthy move to let some go until you get down to a manageable number of pieces. Good luck on your journey.
 
I use all my knives until they have some sign of wear. I collect the knives I can use, the rest I give away - not many, I don’t impulse buy knives very often, maybe twice a decade.

I do collect knives, but I couldn’t deal with buying a knife that I couldn’t use. I do understand that others may like presentation pieces, and have no issue with that - why would I, or anyone?!

But for me? Nah. It is a decreasing annoyance to pick up a first ding or blemish in a knife as the years go by, and a correspondingly increasing pleasure to take full ownership and put the thing to use properly once it is dinged or blemished.

So the safe queen syndrome doesn’t touch me. Some knives I baby more than others, because they are quite pretty. But the majority of my collection is very functional: made to be used.
 
For me it boils down to diminishing returns and intended use. I bought a few knives with the sole intention of passing them down to my children. I don't mind them being safe queens. For knives I'll actually use, $500.00 or less is my comfort level. Anything more and I wouldn't use it as the tool it was meant to be. So I just don't buy above that range. A tool is a tool and should be utilized as such.
 
For me it boils down to diminishing returns and intended use. I bought a few knives with the sole intention of passing them down to my children. I don't mind them being safe queens. For knives I'll actually use, $500.00 or less is my comfort level. Anything more and I wouldn't use it as the tool it was meant to be. So I just don't buy above that range. A tool is a tool and should be utilized as such.
For no real reason, I've set the upper limit for my knife purchases at $500.00 as well. When I first became interested in knives, I couldn't believe that I was spending ~$135.00 on a Paramilitary 2.
 
The vast majority of mine are users but many have seen little use. I limit the total. Of the ones I've kept new in box, I don't think using them would give me any more pleasure. I'm certainly not a slave to my collection. I don't own any custom folders and probably never will.
 
For no real reason, I've set the upper limit for my knife purchases at $500.00 as well. When I first became interested in knives, I couldn't believe that I was spending ~$135.00 on a Paramilitary 2.

My initial limit was $200, then it was $300 and now it's $400. Haven't spent more than $400 on a knife yet and refuse to do so. That eliminates a lot of popular semi-custom knives from the mix but I'm ok w/that.

$400 is my ABSOLUTE redline because at over $400, I'd rather buy a gun (or a barrel for or an upper or more ammo for my guns) than a knife . ;)
 
I had been doing this almost from the start when I found BF. Basically I needed to get everything in hand bc I thought they were cool and I had to see what a knife was about. It turned into a constant internal battle. What has been great about this process is the learning experience. It took a while and I admit this might change again in the future but my tastes change and sometimes even or often, I should say, reverts back to some hall of famers that I casted off as too simple earlier on in the process of hunting for knives.

Then along the way, something magical happened, certain knives just bonded with me and were so awesome to me that I really didn't need to try out the latest and greatest. As much as I love and want to own ZTs for example, most of them are either weight prohibitive or have the one scale material for me to really want to use. And then I found stuff accidentally like the Alox Cadet which I owned twice before actually having one on me at all times. The same with the Zinker Dogtooth and accidentally rediscovering the Delica again after owning a whole bunch of them in the past. I kept on saying that it was the best edc for me pound for pound ever....then I would get bored and yearn for a CRK. It wasn't until that scratch was itched several times over before I could go back to the Delica and be at peace with it. The one I have now is a wharncliffe and I love it.

I think that's human nature, to collect, to yearn and desire. Hopefully people get lucky enough to scratch that itch get it out of their system and then move on with life. I did the same thing with guitars and paintball guns for a very long time. At some point I had maybe 30 high end paintball guns, I would just buy them online, get them out of the box, say how awesome it was but when it came down to playing, I had two trusty favorite while not the most expensive were my go to guns as I was very attached to them. They weren't the lightest, flashiest, most expensive, but they were my favorites.
 
For no real reason, I've set the upper limit for my knife purchases at $500.00 as well. When I first became interested in knives, I couldn't believe that I was spending ~$135.00 on a Paramilitary 2.

My first expensive folder was a $99 Manix 2 XL. I was so unsure spending that much on a pocket knife.

Kind of funny now, looking back.

Still carry the Manix regularly too.
 
This has been my mindset for the past few years. If I find myself not using something, it gets sold to fund something I will use. I don't believe in buying something just so I can look at it or admire it once in a blue moon and put it back in the safe. Use them and enjoy them. You may take a loss when you go to sell them one day, but if you go into the purchase with the mindset that it's not an investment but a tool to carry and use, you'll be much happier.
 
I remember being a kid and meeting up with a friend at the park. He and his mom were going to go somewhere fun and they offered to take me with them but I had my bike with me. They couldn’t take the bike so I missed out.

It was right there that I realized that the things you own can put limits on you and in fact own you. Since that day I haven’t given one hoot about stuff that doesn’t do work for me and I’m as minimalist as I can be.

I have a friend who’s the opposite and needs all the “toys” he can buy. He goes into debt for them. It’s always weird listening to him talk about stuff given my perspective. He will tell me how his cousin is rich and owns this and that or his buddy just got this new quad or whatever and I’m sitting there thinking to myself “You poor bastard. You care about this crap? This S has meaning to you?” Sadly, I think most people think that way. You can’t keep up with the Jones’s after all without wasting money on what... Toys? Trophies? I really don’t understand it. Any fool can buy a thing. What skills do you have? ;)
 
My first expensive folder was a $99 Manix 2 XL. I was so unsure spending that much on a pocket knife.

Kind of funny now, looking back. Still carry the Manix regularly too.

That's a coincidence. The 1st "expensive" knife that I bought was a Manix2 XL at a gun show for $100. That was about 300 knives ago and I'm still going at it. ;)
 
I would be hard pressed to overstate the significance of this shift in mindset. I feel like a tremendous weight and burden has been lifted off of me. The joy I get from using something truly excellent

I understand what you are saying. I think a person with the means is certainly justified in collecting safe queens, even expensive safe queens. A person has to have enthusiasms (to paraphrase Al Capone/Robert de Niro). You can spend your time fondling knives, oiling, etc., or you can spend your time watching golf on TV. If you get pleasure from dealing with your knives then that is up to you, you don't have to defend it to anyone. You shouldn't even have to defend it to yourself but if you have a change of heart and change your philosophy then it is hard to go back.

As for using your grails, I understand that this can be liberating. I think it is worthwhile to use and appreciate a fine knife even if it devalues it somewhat. If you have a lot of grails you don't have to use all of them, you can pick a few to use. It can seem a bit silly to own fine knives but only use cheap ones. I've reduced my collection of folders but I picked out some that I was going to keep and use. I have a lot of fixed blades that I keep as safe queens but I've picked out a few of those that I'm going to use as well.
 
OP: Thank you for starting this very good thread - which has some truly insightful posts.

I have users, keepers and back-ups for favorites.
I have too many "users" that really don't see any real use; but at least they're not safe queens.
In sum, I have too many knives to ever use even half of them for half their useful life.
Put differently, I have a munch of knives that I own - and a bigger bunch that own me.
 
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