The book offers a lot of useful info such as the origin of pocketknives, how to identifiy some of them and how to identify some counterfeit knives. At 80 pages it's a good start but not a compete index. My particular favorite parts of the book are Mr Levine's insets that offer some interesting info. For example I did not know that WWII ear Nazi knives did not include pocket knives, only fix blade daggers but the many pocket knives sold at knife and gun shows are well done fakes that were made in the US. I think this book would complement any knife collectors library. Some of the examples of the knives discussed are rare and the photos are excellent.

I'm not a publisher, but I bet I could compile a better book than this. I feel like I've wasted my money. The book is incomplete, hard to index and the pictures are shoddy. What more needs to be said?

First of all, Bernard Levine WAS NOT involved with this book even though it contains his name. Krause publication owns the rights to Levine and due to problems between the author and publisher Levine has publically stated that he does not support this book--thus, the unassuming buyer believes Levine wrote this book. This is simply not true. This is a huge warning sign. No one can write a book on Knives and their values like Levine. This book was edited by Bud Lang, the former editor of Knives Illustrated and though I highly respect Bud and miss him at the helm of KI, this wasn't his baby and it shows.

In my opinion there is not enough new material here to warrant a new book. Yeah, there are a few new pictures and an interesting article on William Scagel but there are some very confusing values in the book and according to Levine they were inflated and do not reflect the current market value of many collectable knives.

Levine wrote a very interesting editorial regarding "his" book that was published in Knife World last summer. ...

You be the judge.

Since Bernard Levine does not endorse this book I would buy the 4th edition from Amazon.com instead if you can.

Maybe calling this the "stripped down for racing version" would have been more appropriate. It certainly isn't the family station wagon, full of Knife Information, that it was before Krause slashed all the pertinent data out of it. The 5th Edition is a classic case of creating a new version just for the sake of sales. That may not have been so bad, except they removed much important data which knife collectors use to identify and collect knives. Then, to make it appear they had changed it, they added superflous "bloatware," in an effort to make it look different. If Levine's 4th Edition didn't exist, it would be better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but you can still get the 4th Edition so that option can be avoided. One of the major facinations of old knives is their level of handmade quality. The historical record tells us that newer is not always better.