I could live with 3 really good production knives, in an elevator, taxicab, or while wearing a parachute. Oh, wait, you meant only HAVE 3? uhm.. like, I was traveling.. out and about in the great north woods or where ever.. 3. Hmph.

Yeah, 3 is doable, 4" folder, 5.5" utility, 10" semi-chopper. BUT..

I'm a hatchet guy and a bowsaw guy, and treasure both of 'em. And by hatchet I mean 'half-axe', 1.5 lb head and 19-20" handle, and my bow saw is a 30" bow saw with a Sandvik blade on it, sharpened with a triangular ceramic stick. Which is a lot more discreet than a chopper, suppose you like to cut firewood the first hour after sun up.

The hatchet has been more useful less often, basically cutting tee pee poles, driving wedges and pegs, kindling sometimes. Knives cut. They aren't best to pry, chop, hammer, chisel, or play the fiddle. They are best to cut. Cutting is what they're good at.. and if they don't, won't or can't, they oughta be called something else.

Given the fact of todays quality steel, and tools to work it, the vast majority of commercial knives can be induced to cut something.. only the rarest trash nowdays is so bad it's comparable to the pretend-buck lockback pakistani junkers.. even CHEAP knives will actually take an edge for a little while. So, GOOD knives are a lot better than they've ever been in history. Amazing quality is possible, and then some..

I've got a folding Case XX 4" blade 'Big Coke Bottle' style knife i've carried now for almost 20 years. Off and on, but it's a regular. It's a 70's version, has been in semi-regular use for at least 30 years. It's not hurt. It'll walk and talk, pick a splinter or dress out small game or shave your face if you want to bother to strop it. That's a quality of manufacture I'd not expect, then or now. Lifetime good.. and nothing special for steel, just got a good batch and a perfect heat treat on that CV ..

Heck yes you could get by with 3, and wouldn't it be LOTS of fun picking 'em out.. take me months, it would. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'm already drooling on myself at the prospect of having to fondle dozens of good blades and compare them directly. That was what you meant, right?