Before stepping outdoors, my wallet is in my hip pocket and a pocket knife or two and a BIC lighter are in my front pockets. It has been that way for 20 years.
I am not picky. If a knife sits comfortably in my pocket, holds a fair to middling edge, and is unlikely to fail or hurt me, we get along. In my view, a pocket knife should not cost much, and used is fine. Historically, garage sales and junk stores supplied most of my knives.
A usable (if embarrassing) knife can still be purchased for $25 or less, and you know it came from China. A few are made from honest steel, some even made from good steel, but the makers generally have no idea how to harden or heat treat what they use. In fact, most Chinese knives just list “stainless steel.” That means, “pot metal with 18% chromium.”
Today’s favorite tool steel for cheap knives is called D2, and its quality is sufficient, especially for knife makers who do not fully understand steel characteristics and quality. To really understand the problems requires more space than I want to use up in this post, but D2 in the hands of an expert should be better than almost anything you can currently get from China. Improperly treated D2 can chip easily, break, roll, or bend, rust, pit, and be very difficult to sharpen or keep sharp. It ranges from as soft and malleable as a cheap hatchet to as hard and brittle as a shaving razor. Without superior technique, it can easily reach either extreme along the length of the blade.
My favorite knives were standard hardware store issue for a while. In fact, most of my favorites are no longer made. Schrade, Case, Boker, Keene, Rodgers, and Cattleman either died out or entirely moved to China. A good, high quality, made-in-America or Western Europe knife has become pretty rare, and most of the manufacturers are pretty new (to an old guy. Since 1990 or so.) Good pocket knives are certainly available, beginning at $60 or $80, but most of them cost well over a hundred.
I will not leave this without mentioning a few good knives from the old days.
First is Buck. Buck is not a little pocket knife. It was never considered the best knife out there, but the classic 110 Hunter (since 1964), and little brother, the 112 Ranger (1972), are great outdoorsman knives. Buck knows how to treat steel. Both are tough, high carbon, “survival” type knives. They will not fit my pocket though, requiring a sheath on my belt. Sort of like trying to carry a .44 magnum revolver or Bowie knife.
The other is the Opinel, still made in the French wilderness. They still know exactly what they are doing, and produce a delightful slicing knife that works perfectly in a camp kitchen, out in the garden, or for whittling a stick into a bear.
Millennial problems have little to do with the particulars of pocket knives alone, however. In fact, good pocket knives stay fairly available. We Americans remain fairly passionate about them. The problem is tools in general. The preponderance of all tools now come from China, America’s manufacturing slave labor market, and that truly leaves me sad. Every almost-adequate twenty dollar Chinese knife or tool drives up the price of quality. America is now accustomed to it. We have no enduring interest in our tools. We make do, and buy new ones every season. It says something. What? I leave that to you.
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