Price? Its the same old story. People will spend loads of cash at walmart hoarding up junk then balk at paying 500 bucks for a good knife. The knife linked to is on the extreme of what the average collector will pay for blade art but far from the extreme of what is out there if you have thousands to spend. There are knifes with diamonds, rubies, other gemstones, and plenty gold flash too. That kind of thing can jump up to 10,000 easy.
The thing about the Scary Tac is the quality of the steel in the blade and the tolerance of the fittings, the overall craftsmanship. The reason its was called Scary is the skulls forged into the Damascus bolsters. While the knife is presented as "Bling" it is one hundred percent functional and you could use it as hard if not harder than any blade out there in its size and measurements.
One of the things that is way off in the tactical and training community is the general education of blade function and blade quality. Certainly you can stab a guy to death with a cheap Chinese knife but often the blade is brittle hard and can break much easier than one believes. Where guys would not dream of taking a unfired gun into a fight they carry untested blades, that is blades that have never been stress tested, blades of unknown manufacture process.
Spyderco is maybe the best of the inexpensive knives out there. I carried one for years back in the nineties to cut rope with in an emergency. Chris Reeve makes the best production knives in the market.
http://www.chrisreeve.com/ For less than five hundred bucks this is the best deal out there. Its a Cris Reeve and Wilson collaboration.
http://shopwilsoncombat.com/StarTac-Titanium-Framelock-Wilson-Tactical-_-Chris-Reeve-Knives/productinfo/WTK-STARTAC/Webby, long history and low tolerance for Kent, disregard the banter.
Kieth, Mai Care,
Whitewolf, I'm a little surprised you are so cheap when it comes to tools but its no shock. Certainly you don't need bling for a knife to be great but having a cheap knife has disadvantages compared to one that has been well designed and produced. Its the extra steps you don't know about in blades like the Chris Reeve produced knives that make the difference. Its just like guns, cheap guns will often fire as designed/presented but sometimes they don't. Most people I know avoid cheap guns and prefer some of the better known manufacturers and models. Then there are the guys who spare no expense in seeking out the best available tools for the job.
