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Post by Odingaard on Mar 22, 2011 14:05:18 GMT
I was looking around for a bollock dagger, and stumbled upon this one for a mere $12,995: www.nordicknives.com/GenGAL1.php?id=7013Looking further into the site, I found this little gem for a stunning $45,000: www.nordicknives.com/GenGAL1.php?id=5756And lastly, this dagger for a mind-numbing $850,000.00: www.nordicknives.com/GenGAL1.php?id=4934Now, I definately respect craftsmen and their work, but these are the most outrageous prices I have ever seen on anything collectable in the modern era. I can halfway understand the price tag on the gold/jewel encrusted dagger, as it got 2 pounds of gold in it and many, many carats of precious gems; so it's easier to see the possible value. The other two are completely beyond my comprehension, as I have no idea how such simple creations made in the modern era by non-mainstream artists could be considered worth so much money. My mind reels when I think about how many beautiful and unique custom swords I could have crafted by the most-talented bladesmiths in the world many times over for these prices. VInce Evans, Peter Lyon, Raven Armouries, Castle Keep, or even Peter Johnsson himself. Any number of actual period weapons could be purchased for these sums, swords that were crafted hundreds of years ago and used in history-altering wars with true historical significance. Or anything else collectable for that matter. I could buy Salvador Dali originals for considerably less money. To each their own, I suppose. As for me, I'll stick to swords in the sub-$850,000.00 range... :lol: What about the most-expensive knives or daggers you have seen?
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Post by chuckinohio on Mar 22, 2011 14:11:17 GMT
Actually it doesn't surprise me to see that Bill Moran knife priced at that level. He is deceased, and his knives are highly sought after. Google him once and see.
The other ones, Gaaaaaakkkkkkkkk :shock: thats alot of coin.
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Sean (Shadowhowler)
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Post by Sean (Shadowhowler) on Mar 22, 2011 17:00:37 GMT
Egads... I have never seen anything like that. My brain hurts.
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Greg
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Post by Greg on Mar 22, 2011 17:12:25 GMT
"A very rare Moran style blade, made in 1973, near mint condition "
Wow! There is a surviving artifact from 1973!? I wonder if it was used to kill a dinosaur!!!
...
And who the hell would make a knife out of solid gold... That goes against every 'function over form' nerve in my body.
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Post by Sean (Shadowhowler) on Mar 22, 2011 17:25:08 GMT
Well... many knives, swords and other weapons throughout history have been made adorned with precious metals and gems as ceremonial weapons for the opulent and wealthy. I think its pretty epic looking... but for 800K+ I'd rather by a massive home with land, 10 cars, and set up a retirement fund.
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Post by frankthebunny on Mar 22, 2011 17:28:12 GMT
I like this one for $70
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Post by Sébastien on Mar 22, 2011 17:42:16 GMT
Hell, I find 300 $ Chris Reeves knives overpriced ... Those 4-5-6 figures blades make my brain hurt.
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Post by Odingaard on Mar 22, 2011 17:42:51 GMT
I did a little reading, and as I said, I can respect the craftsman. He was an interesting man that seems to have contributed alot in his own part. However, I still don't think I'd pay $15,000 for a pocket knife I would never use. As it seems, neither would he. :lol:
Here is what I found on Bill Moran in a nutshell. There are a few errors in the article regarding the origins and rediscovery of damascus steel, but it's still a pretty good little read:
Artisan's Creations Lure Kings of Countries, Film Frederick Bladesmith Among the World's Finest By Elizabeth Williamson Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 6, 2003; Page C05
William Moran's workshop at the foot of Frederick's Braddock Mountain has floors stained with four decades of tobacco juice, no running water or phone and only an old electric fan to counter the 2,000-degree heat of its flagstone forge.
About five times a year, a work of art emerges from here that is created of material so rare, its craftsmanship so fine, it has drawn the likes of Jordan's King Abdullah II to this remote hollow, in hopes of owning one.
Moran makes knives, by hand -- from the forging of the steel, to the precious metal inlay and carving on the handle, to the stitching of the sheath. Over 60 years, he's become known as one of the world's leading bladesmiths, practitioners of a once-dying art that he helped revive by discovering a largely unrecorded formula for high-grade steel and founding a school.
About two decades ago, Moran, 78, charged about $500 for one of his better works. Last month, one sold privately for $25,000.
"I certainly wouldn't pay that much," said Moran, who laments that his knives have become "too expensive to chop a tree down with it."
Like the graceful works born in his soot-streaked shop, Moran is a study in contrasts. He is largely self-educated, yet his knowledge of U.S. knifemaking history and his reinvention of the art of making Damascus steel draws scholars' interest.
A trapper, hunter and fisherman, he has spent his life in Frederick's woods and hollows. His favorite work is not a long, gleaming bowie knife with rattlesnake embossed on the sheath, but a slim, elegant Mediterranean utility knife, its wooden handle inlaid with a spray of silver flowers. Moran charges only for his time and materials, leaving subsequent buyers to price in his reputation. But he demands what he's worth: When Sylvester Stallone offered him a movie plug in exchange for nine of his finest blades, he said, he told him: "Who the hell reads the screen credits?"
These days, Moran is slowing down. He doesn't take custom orders anymore. He lost his wife and business partner in 2001, and a battle with colon cancer has left him thinner and less able to travel for teaching and appearances. Yet he still spends most days in the forge, where he welcomes Japanese trade writers and European bladesmiths but more often local folks who want to shoot the breeze, talk politics and, most of all, watch him work.
"Bill Moran means everything to bladesmithing," said Joe Kertzman, managing editor of Blade, an industry magazine. "He is one of the five most collected knifemakers in the world."
Moran was born in Frederick to a well-off dairy farmer. He forged his first knife at age 12, from one of his father's old wood saws. By 14, he was selling knives, having taught himself how to forge a blade by asking local blacksmiths "and getting all the wrong answers," he said.
Bored by school, Moran nonetheless read every book on knives he could find. He traveled to Washington for a wood-carving exhibition, to see the carvers' tools. He attended hunting shows, studying, sometimes buying, well-designed swords and knives.
Before he was 20, he'd built his first forge on the dairy farm, in Lime Kiln, a few miles from where he now works. By the mid-1950s, he was selling knives through a rudimentary catalog and was one of only a handful of custom bladesmiths in the country. Most of his customers wanted bowie knives, but Moran also experimented with such exotica as the cinquedea, a Renaissance dagger composed of more than two dozen parts. "Of course nobody bought them, but I liked them, and I did finally begin to sell them," he said.
About that time, the late Smithsonian Institution scholar Harold Peterson featured Moran's bowies in his book "American Knives." Moran began getting orders from all across the country. In 1960, he sold the family farm and built his current shop.
In 1973, after years of trying, Moran reinvented the centuries-old process of making Damascus steel. Forged by Germanic tribes in the first millennium and resurrected briefly by the Nazis, Damascus had never been developed in the United States, and the unrecorded process was in danger of being lost.
Damascus is made of iron and steel, welded into three layers, heated and hammered flat. The piece is folded, rewelded and hammered out again, a process that is repeated eight times, exponentially multiplying the layers into as many as 500. The blade is then acid-treated, exposing its layers, which form a watermark-like pattern that belies the knife's superior edge and strength.
After Moran unveiled his Damascus blades at a Knifemakers' Guild meeting, the process grew into the industry's gold standard. Shortly after, Moran helped found the American Bladesmithing Society to promote the technique and a bladesmithing school based in Texarkana, Tex. Today the society boasts 800 custom bladesmiths.
"Knife collecting is on the upswing, and what's driving it is a nostalgia for old world craftsmanship," said Mark Sentz of Taneytown, Md., a well-known bladesmith trained by Moran. "And Bill Moran is the granddaddy of us all."
Moran's proficiency with Damascus bridged the hunting and art worlds, bringing him fame. In the late 1980s -- he can't remember when -- Stallone called, wanting "the most elaborate knife I could make," Moran said. He made a curved, Asiatic-looking Damascus steel combat knife, its handle and case inlaid with more than 30 feet of silver wire. The price: about $7,000. After the disagreement over supplying knives in exchange for screen credits, Stallone called back, ordering three less expensive models, Moran said.
Moran's favored celebrity client, however, is King Abdullah, who he said visited in the early 1990s -- U.S. bodyguards in tow -- to order a long, slender combat knife with a maple handle delicately inlaid with pure silver. Abdullah returned several weeks later to pick it up. "It cost about $3,000. He also gave me a beautiful Swiss watch," Moran said. "Very nice man. I never met a king before -- but of course he was only a prince then."
Moran's knives feel like a well-balanced instrument -- even a hefty bowie knife feels light. The blades are sharp enough to shave with, yet they just as easily cut timber.
Moran makes every element himself: Even the brass stud that fixes the belt loop to the sheath is hand-lathed. He insists on the best raw materials: dense stag horn from India; maple whose curled grain occurs once in 10,000 trees. He won't compromise on tools, often making his own. His tiny hammer and chisels used for setting inlay are themselves works of art.
About 20 years ago, Moran spent months searching out the purest coal in the United States for his forge. He found it in a remote corner of West Virginia. "I ordered nine tons," he said. "It'll last the rest of my life."
How long that'll be is a question that haunts knife collectors. Moran aims to stick around for a while but has cut his output of 40 knives a year to a half-dozen or so detailed ones that he sells once every two years at an invitation-only show in San Diego. Childless, he has willed his forge to the local Frederick County Landmarks Foundation. Like his knives, he said, "I'd like to see it get used."
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Post by chuckinohio on Mar 22, 2011 21:53:10 GMT
I whole heartedly agree. He is worshipped like the second coming in some circles, and his work commands commeasurate prices. Go figure.
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Post by Sean (Shadowhowler) on Mar 22, 2011 22:00:00 GMT
Well... just based on some of his quotes in that article, he sounds like a cool guy... I can see why people dig him. I'd like to have a beer with him. However... I wouldn't pay 15k for a pocket knife either.
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Post by frankthebunny on Mar 22, 2011 22:03:19 GMT
how about 15K for the beer and the pocket knife is thrown in for free
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Post by Sean (Shadowhowler) on Mar 22, 2011 22:08:58 GMT
Better be one HELL of a beer... the kind that knocks me on my ass so hard that I don't get up for 24 hours...
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Post by randomnobody on Mar 22, 2011 22:35:45 GMT
I know a few that'll do that for less than 15k..
Haven't actually looked at the links, but I think I've heard of this fellow before, and remember being impressed by his work.
When I'm home again, I'll have a peek at the links.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2011 23:54:06 GMT
thats hilarious a 440c knife for 45 k.
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Post by f.m. on Mar 23, 2011 0:07:01 GMT
I know, the 440c one looks like a $20 fantasy blade from budk. i'm sure this one is heat treated and constructed better, but damn, $45000 better? also the spikes coming out of the sides of the blade would ..reduce it's cutting ability a little..
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Post by Tendrax on Mar 23, 2011 0:23:55 GMT
Yeah, when I saw that is was 440C I about fell out of my chair laughing. People are on crack.
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Post by chuckinohio on Mar 23, 2011 0:33:24 GMT
440c is used by some very well known makers for some high dollar knives.
It's not the material that makes the price seem out of line.
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Post by sam salvati on Mar 23, 2011 0:58:37 GMT
you and everyone should show some respect. Bill Moran was one of the fathers of modern custom knifemaking and was a very kind sharing guy, his work commands a premium and is highly collectible for this reason. The fact that you tinker with blades most likely would not have happened if he had not been. what is so outrageous the seller mentioned it was made in 1973?
Bill Moran is a knifemaking legend, on of the "hall of famers", his style is emulated by many and highly respected by most. plus, he is dead which as everyone knows immediately raises the price of anything that the artist made, in any genre.
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Post by chuckinohio on Mar 23, 2011 1:11:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2011 1:16:19 GMT
if they wanted to stick with stainless at least they should of used CPM S110V or ZDP-189.
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