You have all probably heard the pitch by now on the home shopping stations and seen the ads in various discount mail order catalogs: “30 Knives For Only $29.99!” The numbers vary, but it almost always works out to knives at around a dollar or two apiece.

Back when I was a kid (1960’s), I bought my first couple of folders out of a bucket at Sears for 99 cents each. These were American-made shell-bolster Imperials and, at the time, were about as low as you could go for inexpensive pocketknives. My point here is that if you factor in inflation for the last 40 plus years, these modern Chinese knives must cost something like a nickel each in 1960 dollars! Believe it or not, I thought the 99-cent Imperials were a bargain at the time. A KA-BAR or a Western would have set me back five or six dollars (and would have been worth every penny of it!).