Buy It For Life: Knives: An Independent Owner's Guide to the Buck, Victorinox, Benchmade, and Leatherman Guarantees

These are the best consumer warranties in America. It will not matter. Buck warrants each knife for the life of the knife. Victorinox warrants for the lifetime of the product. Benchmade runs a limited lifetime warranty and will put a factory edge back on your knife for as long as you own it. Leatherman goes twenty-five years. All four are real. All four get honored. Mitch Pryor has filed against three of them and been paid by three of them, and he says so on the first page, because a series that only ever finds bad news has a thumb on the scale. Then he spends eleven chapters on the two things that will actually take your knife away from you, neither of which is covered by anybody. You are going to pry with it. Buck names hammers, chisels, pry bars, and screwdrivers in writing. And you are going to lose it, in a bin at an airport or on a tailgate, and loss is an exclusion in plain language. Inside: Why knife companies can afford lifetime terms, and what that tells you about what is actually covered The Victorinox clause that drops electronics, lanyards, pouches, clips, and knife blocks to a two-year term Benchmade's authorized-dealer condition, and why a genuine knife from the wrong seller may have no coverage at all What Benchmade's $20 service kit fee actually buys, evaluated fairly Buck's published fallback for the customer who broke it, which almost no company writes down Why sharpening is not a warranty claim, and how sending it as one costs you three weeks Mailing a blade: what the carriers say, what the manufacturers do not cover in transit, and how to photograph a box Schrade closed Ellenville in 2004. Camillus closed in 2007. Both names are still on knives. Plus the Claim File. Nine worksheets, including two this category needs and no other does: the Misuse Self-Audit, which will tell you in ninety seconds whether you have a claim or a repair bill, and the Shipping Checklist for putting a blade in a box. No affiliations. No sponsorships. No opinions about which steel has the best character.