New to Collecting SAKS - advice needed

[archerwin]

Hi! I've been buying and selling swiss knives and leatherman in ebay.
I'm interested in starting a collection mainly of Swiss Army Knives from Victorinox (and wenger).

How/Where do I start?  What advice can you give to someone who wants to start a Swiss Army Knife collection?
What knives are collectibles? What are the must-haves?

thanks!

[Aloha]

Have you had a chance to look at SAKWIKI? This is a must for familiarizing yourself with the vast models of both Wenger and Victorinox.  Wenger as you may know has been absorbed by Victorinox so some models will be released with new badging while others wont make the cut.

Unusual, limited, and long discontinued SAKs are always collectable as well as ALOX.  You can never go wrong IMO with Soldiers especially the older ones.  Have fun because this particular collecting can be frustrating and expensive.   

[archerwin]

I usually go to sakwiki to look up the model names.

[Chako]

You visit SAKWiki...that is a great start.

You have to ask yourself...do you want to be a generalist or a focused collector. There are so many different knives and  permutations of those knives that the breath and width of collecting SAKs is large.

As for what is a collectible...that depends on the individual collector, and where your interest are.

For me?

- Any Commemorative/Anniversary knife.
- Alox, and all the models.
- The Classic come in so many different designs...for these, I tend to focus on the special collector designs made for specific foreign markets.
- Wenger Snife series. Victorinox Battle series.
- Anything weird or unusual.
- Anything rare and hard to find. Just note, those in Europe have it a lot easier then North Americans when it comes to SAK collecting. On the flip side, plier based Multi-tools are a lot easier for North Americans, and harder for Europeans.

How to start: For me, it was trying to get every single model so that I had a representative of that model in my collection. The base models, at least the popular ones, are easy and cheap to get. The rare ones are a lot harder and more expensive.

[archerwin]

Thanks Chako! I'll keep those advice in mind.

I frequent Mario's blog as well and some other collectors blog for inspiration.
I haven't decided yet but the Alox line seems to be a favorite for collectors.  I might start with all the Soldier's knives released during my family member's birthdates (1954, 1955, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 2003, 2006 & 2009)

[jaydar]

Thanks Chako! I'll keep those advice in mind.

I frequent Mario's blog as well and some other collectors blog for inspiration.
I haven't decided yet but the Alox line seems to be a favorite for collectors.  I might start with all the Soldier's knives released during my family member's birthdates (1954, 1955, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 2003, 2006 & 2009)

Collecting the birthdays is a nice idea ... you are lucky you have no killer years 54 and 55 are quite common 58 is very costly.

Fancy Alox is a little pricey at the moment ... but may crash one day Maybe start with small sets, collecting the 108mm is quite possible  ... my favorites are the old 75mm ones which can still be found at reasonable prices.