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Smith & Wesson SWAT First Millennium Run - value estimates?

I've been searching and don't see any better group to place this question under. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough or need to start a general knife values / questions area somewhere.

Somebody at work heard about me and knives, asked if I could sharpen a knife for him. It's been abused a bit, was a gift from a friend when he was best man at the friend's wedding.

The knife is as the subject says, a Smith & Wesson SWAT First Millennium Run. This one is as the picture shows, a partial serrated. From what I can tell searching about, it's a 440C stainless steel, one of the first 5,000 made for the y2k millennium. No made in the US, or made in China stamps on it so I can't tell for sure where it is made. I found previous ebay sales that look like people paid between $15 - 50 but can't tell for sure if all were the exact same model.

There is no box or paperwork of any kind, but the knife is in reasonably decent condition - after I cleaned off all the years of stickiness (from cutting box packing tape and stuff maybe), smoothed out a few minor nicks and sharpened it.

Would anyone care to give any estimates on the value? I'm just curious, there's no plan to sell or anything - just wanted to give him some data since he told me he didn't even know if it was cheap junk or is a decent quality knife. The knife has more sentimental value to him than anything.

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Permalink Reply by Shlomo ben Maved on April 4, 2017 at 14:27

About $20 - $25.

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Permalink Reply by J.J. Smith III on April 4, 2017 at 15:15

Knife Center indicates that it was made in Taiwan, and has been discontinued.

https://www.knifecenter.com/kc_new/store_detail.html?s=sw5000

New, I would, for the most part, agree with Shlomo, used I'd value it around $10.00.

I have a few Smith and Wesson knives, marked "First Production Run", and found them to be decent user knives.

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Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on April 4, 2017 at 18:14

Seems the guys have the value covered. Just a few observations. Nothing wrong with 440C and it is obviously a go to in the user line up for him sense you had to clean so much off of it. So my opinion would be that yes, it is a decent knife and holds up well to regular use. With that and the personal value, my thought would be for him it is priceless.

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Permalink Reply by allanm on April 5, 2017 at 7:42

Thanks all for replies - I passed it on, and as Jan said - to the user the value is priceless. I will try to remember the knife center link and use it to search in future, thanks JJ

That and five other knives I sharpened the same night earned me a rebuke. After I did some testing, cutting thin slices using grapes, I sat in a chair where my wife was watching TV and put my arm out. She asked "what?" I said look. She looked down and saw a big bald patch on my left arm from testing 6 knives and told me to stop doing that, use my legs if I have to shave test so I don't look silly. :-)

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Permalink Reply by J.J. Smith III on April 5, 2017 at 8:56

Tell her that it's not silly, it's a family trait.

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FeaturedPermalink Reply by dead_left_knife_guy on April 8, 2017 at 18:01

Ditto on the $20 value range. As long as it works for your friend & he's not planning to sell it, dollar value isn't an issue, but obviously the consensus is that it's not a collector piece. If your friend wants manufactured tactical knives that actually tend to increase in value, I'd recommend Spyderco, Benchmade, & Cold Steel (but avoid using them, for the most part).

I was (& still am) skeptical (cynical?) about the ability of S&W knives to hold up over time. Hearing about your friend's knife holding up after what sounds like years of use instills a bit of confidence I just never had in that brand. (Side note, my S&W kukri actually seem to be of better quality than my Ontario kukri, so maybe they're not doing too bad after all.)