Hello, my name is Jon and I am a knife addict.
A little bit of both, I guess.
My biggest weakness is vintage knives priced real cheap, doesn't really matter condition, I have several fixed blade butcher knives I use in the garden or garage, so looks doesn't matter.
It all started about 35 years ago, when I fell in love with my Dad's Western fixed blade hunting knife. Then years later when I started doing gunshows, I started buying up all that I seen, if reasonably priced, no matter the condition. At the peak, I bet I have a hundred of them. Then all of a sudden the Western market jumped and all the Westerns, like the ones I bought for $1 to $5 each, (obviously they all had condition issues), started selling for $20 and $25. So I started selling all those problem children for a nice profit. Today, I still have about 10 nice Western examples, as well as several other brands of fixed and folders...there could be a hundred total?
Lately, I've been on a kick with acquiring vintage Chicago Cutlery knives. This kick started about 2 years ago, when I stumbled onto a butcher block with a mix & match group of knives, at a antique shop. There was a mint condition Chef knife (model 42s). I didn't want the block or the other knives, so I offered the owner $5 for the one knife (the block with 6 knives was priced at $10). I think he knew that the CC Chef knife was the only good part of that deal and was hesitant...well actually he was pretty sure that he wasn't gonna sell the CC knife separate...I told him repeated, my offer stands. I wandered around his store for another half hour waiting for him to decide for sure...then I just walked out the door, not buying anything. He stopped me and said, OK, you can have the one knife for $5.
Attachment 252241
When I got it home and put an edge on it, I fell in love with it. I guess I've acquired 5 or 10 more CC knives of various styles/models since then.
PS, I moved your thread to a more appropriate forum