What is your experience with cheap knives from amazon or others? There are a lot of sub $50 knives there with mostly positive reviews. Are they actually good? Or do you have better cheap options that are not sponsored by amazon? I see brands on there like Lothar or Bergkvist. They actually have decent websites on their own, so I don’t know if they are actually that amazon trash or a decent budget brand.
Really bad overall. You can get lucky and end up with something that won’t fall apart in a year, but it’s one of those things that if you don’t know the company, you’re rolling the dice.
Used to be you could trust reviews to weed out the duds, but that day is long gone.
Of the two you mentioned, I don’t have personal experience. So second hand is alli can give, feel free to ignore this part if that’s not useful for you. Lothar is mid; not going to be a prized possession, but it’ll get the job done as a brand. Bergkvist is sub mid, with a tendency to fail at the worst possible moments. Never buy a linerlock from either company, I know people that have gotten injured when the locks failed in use. Don’t expect great steel from either company, though lothar is less prone to bad heat treats.
Tbh, I don’t think there’s a budget brand that’s universally reliable. They all have flaws, and they cheap out in the worst ways when they are otherwise good. Take Rough Ryder as an example. Really solid slipjoints, bad linerlocks. Their “reserve” line of slipjoints is the best bang for the buck that’s out there in that category, but their fixed blades aren’t even mid tier.
Schrade is crap except for their stuff that’s now being made in the US.
But the stuff with random chinese names in amazon is all crap (and that’s not just knives for the most part).
You can’t trust amazon reviews any more. Not only are there plenty of fakes, but the companies will pay people to remove bad reviews.
If you’re balling on a budget, it comes down to specific models under 50 bucks.