Most collectors these days look at the price the same item has sold for on eBay. It is very important you look for the SOLD PRICE and not the LISTED PRICE! There was a post this week about a small folding knife listed on eBay for $200,000. The number was ridiculous, in my opinion. The listed price is really irrelevant because people often list knives at far more than they are worth just in hopes that they might get lucky and find someone who will pay the price. Most often I think people list the knife for more than its value because they HOPE they can get that much out of it.
There have been two Gerber LST model #6009 sold on eBay in the last 60 days. Both were in new condition.
The first one sold for $16.56, without a box.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gerber-LST-Drop ... qEsO3-1apg
The second one which was still brand-new in the box sold for $19.50 and the box was in excellent condition.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Gerber- ... Swc49Y6SkO
When dealing with new-in-the-original-box knives, the condition of the box definitely has an effect on the price especially in higher end collectible knives. The Gerber LST is not an uncommon knife and it was not inexpensive knife originally. They are good knives but they are not expensive knives.
The handle material is DuPont Zytel, a fiberglass filled nylon material. It is lightweight, high strength, abrasion and impact resistant, and is often used in knife handles but is also used in the automotive industry and in many other industries as well.
The realistic value of that knife is about $15-$20.
$25 would be an excellent offer on that knife in today’s market. The nice thing about using eBay as a guide to the value is that it updates daily.
FYI, when collectors measure folding knives they measure the length of the knife closed. The reason they do that is because the frame length never changes unless someone modifies the knife. In normal use a blade will frequently become shortened. The open length of the knife is no help in identifying a used knife because it could be shortened significantly with normal use.
For this reason the closed length of a folding knife is the important measurement of length among knife collectors. The open length or the blade lengths of a used knife are only really useful if you know how long they were when new and can compare that number to the actual length of the blades on the used knife. That comparison will give you some idea of how much of the blade is been sharpened away.