What do you consider "rare"?

[ICanFixThat]

OK! If you find one, don't buy it. 

"I believe those SAKs are very collectible ..."   

[pthycrpg]

Rare     I have the another knife I am contemplating AUCTIONING off for Tim's kitties, sitting on my desk. I have not had the time to do any research on it. It is not  heavy compared to all of the other "old school" knives. Is there going to be enough interest in this knife if it is auctioned off? The Tang stamp shows 1943. The can opener is broke? Is this knife worthy of enough to be auctioned. 

[jazzbass]

- Hoffritz Limited Edition (91mm)

Limited Edition? Never heard of it. Hmm..could it be I have one?
It has exposed rivets, bail, no T&T, Hoffritz stamp, scissors,
old style phillips and awl on the back. Very nice condition too!

No, that sounds like a mid 1950s Super Tinker with Hoffritz tang stamp. Very cool knife. The Hoffrtiz "Limited Edition" is a special model made for Hoffrtiz in the late 1980s with a tool configuration different from any other Victorinox knife. Take a SwissChamp and remove the file, fish scaler and scissors:

[jazzbass]

Jazzbass, any ideas when was the last Apollo 11 Craftsman sold, value?

Last one sold 8/5/2012 as a Buy It Now for $550. Last one to sell in a competitive auction sold on 12/20/2011 for $350.

You're probably the only one here with the level of data to consider such a precise definition. The rest of us have to make do with a more general sense of 'rarity', based on our own experiences and observations while collecting SAKs over varying lengths of time.

That's true, and I try to help people out when they ask but also realize that data analysis is boring for 99.9% of the population so I keep it to myself. I guess I didn't state my original question well enough. I wasn't really asking "What knives do you consider rare", but rather was curious, in a general sense, how infrequently something (anything really - SAK, Leatherman, coin, stamp whatever) had to be sold to be considered "rare". I was curious how people's definition of what is rare matched up with the availability of knives that are collectively considered rare. I didn't post my personal definition at first because many people know I have actual hard data on this stuff and it would have resulted in a less interesting conversation.

Like I said, the Technician Plus is what got me thinking about this. That there is a proper "rare" knife. However, I do think the term "rare" is overused to to point of almost having no meaning anymore, and the downside of this is that a lot of guys who are new to this hobby have a hard time distinguishing what is really rare from what I call "internet rare" - rare because someone posted that it is. Sure, I know what is rare because I have a database of every SAK auction from the last 3 years, and experience as a collector for a bit longer than that. You know because of your experience, and the other long time collectors here are the same.

But I think guys that are new to this struggle with knowing what is really rare and as a result overpay for a lot of knives and regret it later. Knives like 84mm Golfers and small Climbers are very cool knives but come up for sale several times a month (both average 1 per week). They're not made anymore and 84mm scissors have that cool "NLA" factor to them, but something available once a week IMO is not rare. Now, I'm probably devaluing a large part of my collection for posting this, but I'd also like to see guys enjoy the hobby without getting into bidding wars over relatively common knives.

So here's my personal definition, based on what I'll call the "SAK Rarity Index" - a number indicating average number of days between sales of the same model on eBay and other auction sites. Higher number = more rare.

• Collectible: < 15
• Unusual: 15 - 50
• Hard to Find: 50 - 100
• Rare: 100 - 200
• Extremely Rare: 200 - 400
• ColoSwiss Rare: 400+

Last thing, just to put a point on the fact that "rare" does not always mean "valuable". I checked my data for the rarest 91mm knife out there that I also have in my collection. Turns out it's not a SwissChamp XL, or the 84mm Grand Prix, or even a Technician Plus - all of which would probably sell for $200 or so on eBay. It's an old "134 faU" (Fisherman w/o scissors) from the early 1970s. I paid $12 dollars for it, and could probably sell it for the same. 

[ICanFixThat]

My simplified definition:

You may not see on for:

Hard to Find: 120d - 1Yr
Rare: 1yr - 5yr
Extremely Rare: 5yrs or more

Truly Rare: only so many of the item in specified condition still remain in existence.

[Wootz]

Thanks guys 

[kkokkolis]

Maybe you should all discuss it in depth and agree to some "formal" classification, recognizable by everyone here. Something like "Global Statistical Swiss Army Knife Collectors' Index" with data from all reselling knots. You could produce an elaborate filling form (or a battery) to ensure objectiveness and homogeneity. After all you are the speSmurfpillsts, isn't that so? I had literature like this for stamps 35 years ago, why shouldn't there be for SAKs today, a dozen years after the dawn of the 21st century?

[ColoSwiss]

Jazzbass,

Agree with you on ebay's overuse of 'rare'. Seems that 'vintage' is another word for 'used'. There are a lot of people on ebay, both buyers and sellers, who don't know what they're doing. Too many people watch 'Antique Roadshow', etc, and assume everything they have is worth a mint. Guess it provides fodder for the 'Crazy' thread.

As for a personal feel for rarity, a fair amount is a variation of Heinze's "I can't afford it". I've been collecting for well over a decade and have a pretty solid collection. If I don't have something I want and am regularly outbid on it, it's RARE. Very subjective. 

To return to one of the places this conversation started, I commented in another thread that the grooved red alox Voyageur was 'rare, and the smooth alox version 'very rare'. How does that stack against your data?

[ColoSwiss]

kkokkolis,

I would be happy to have something that tells me WHAT I have, let alone how rare it is. Probably like most of the other hard-core collectors here, I have a number of items that I have no information on with regard to names, model numbers, dates, etc. SAKwiki is a great start, but the fact is information on pre-1960s Victorinox is scarce; and almost non existent for older Wengers. 

More detailed information is available for stamp and coin collectors. There are a lot more coin and stamp collectors out there. Knife collectors are a relatively small group, and SAK collectors a very small subset of that, at least in the US. Companies like Krause can produce telephone-book sized reference guides because there's a market. Here it would depend on individual input, which means the same dozen or so people who run the forum, populate SAKwiki, and do all the other things that need to be done.

A nice idea, but not very likely to happen.

[ICanFixThat]

I think on this forum we use the WKN evaluatuion system;

Wiki, Karl, Nsa check.  If Karl doesn't have it it's extremely rare, if only Karl has it then it's very Rare, For Alox you have to check with nsa-file.  If it's on the wiki, there's hope for you too. 

[McChouffe]

I think on this forum we use the WKN evaluatuion system;

Wiki, Karl, Nsa check.  If Karl doesn't have it it's extremely rare, if only Karl has it then it's very Rare, For Alox you have to check with nsa-file.  If it's on the wiki, there's hope for you too.

ICFT + JB + SM5000 = SAK Wiki??

[ColoSwiss]

I think on this forum we use the WKN evaluatuion system;

Wiki, Karl, Nsa check.  If Karl doesn't have it it's extremely rare, if only Karl has it then it's very Rare, For Alox you have to check with nsa-file.  If it's on the wiki, there's hope for you too.

ICFT + JB + SM5000 = SAK Wiki??

Second that! They do a great job. 

[jazzbass]

To return to one of the places this conversation started, I commented in another thread that the grooved red alox Voyageur was 'rare, and the smooth alox version 'very rare'. How does that stack against your data?

Damn near spot on - just reversed. Per my definitions, red ribbed versions are "very rare" and smooth are "rare". Voyageurs in general (and silver ribbed ones in particular) are actually all the way down in the "Unusual" category as defined above. I was pretty surprised by that when I looked to answer your question.

[ICanFixThat]

I think on this forum we use the WKN evaluatuion system;

Wiki, Karl, Nsa check.  If Karl doesn't have it it's extremely rare, if only Karl has it then it's very Rare, For Alox you have to check with nsa-file.  If it's on the wiki, there's hope for you too.

ICFT + JB + SM5000 = SAK Wiki??

Oh Right need a letter or two more in there depending on the knife there is the SM5K factor to consider, and you can probably get input from the kitties too for at least a check if you think you've got something few have seen.

Maybe in another 40 years there will be the auctions of the famous SAKs.  I know a set of famous ones in a frame I'd love to get my hands on.

I think I'll see if I can leave my phone number with Karl, so he can pass it on to his brother, I'll be out of SAKs on a daily basis by that time, but I'd come out of SAK retirement to help his brother out 

    

[ColoSwiss]

I think I'll see if I can leave my phone number with Karl, so he can pass it on to his brother, I'll be out of SAKs on a daily basis by that time, but I'd come out of SAK retirement to help his brother out 

    

I'll do that. Also Felinevet's and Freeport Knives. Anyone else I can tell him to add to the bidding war? 

[kkokkolis]

Here it would depend on individual input, which means the same dozen or so people who run the forum, populate SAKwiki, and do all the other things that need to be done.

By the way, I want to thank  by heart all the "people who run the forum, populate SAKwiki, and do all the other things that need to be done". I am much obliged for all this wealth of information and multimedia I have freely accesss to,  thanks to you.

[nsa-x-file]

Here it would depend on individual input, which means the same dozen or so people who run the forum, populate SAKwiki, and do all the other things that need to be done.

By the way, I want to thank  by heart all the "people who run the forum, populate SAKwiki, and do all the other things that need to be done". I am much obliged for all this wealth of information and multimedia I have freely accesss to,  thanks to you.

That's the great thing about this forum and SAK community in general, there are lots of people with really helpful info and advice. 

[Styerman]

Three criteria : I want it , it's expensive , it's hard to find .

Chris

[ICanFixThat]

Today I thought about the big flaw in most of this discussion. 

Try to buy a Black-Oxide Spirit-S ... pretty hard ... I don't know how many have appeared on ebay recently, but it's not many.

So is it Rare?   NO;  there are thousands of them out there... so hard to aquire Yes, but you can't call it rare.

Very similar with the Silver Spirit-S... hard to find... but recently a dealer had a small pile of them... I didn't buy any because I have a few spare... then someone bought them all.  Can't call these rare, but they can be hard to acquire. 

[ColoSwiss]

There's "Rare" and there's "Pricey". Some of the limited edition alox knives have runs of 50 or so. Definitely rare compared to standard models where the production run is in the tens of thousands to millions, but some of the alox are slow movers. Wenger Giant -don't know how many they've made but you can get one any time you want; just come up with $800 - $1200.