This is not a flame at anyone, or any kind of inditement of anything, just the musings of an older knife knut.
I have read the posts about some who have never handled a slip joint, others who are overly worried about a carbon steel knife rustings. Other posts debating if a liner lock is as good as a frame lock, and the debate over the best steel.
Our grandfathers had none of that, the new frame locks, the one hand tacticle knives, super stainless steels, and in most cases they rarely had more than one knife. I can remember my grandfather had this really old stockman with the blades almost black they were such a dark grey, exept for a bright sharp edge, and he used that knife for EVERYTHING. If he went bird hunting his stockman dressed the quail, and if he got a deer, the knife did that too. On his birthday he would neatly slit open the gifts so cleanly the wrapping paper could be reused. The idea of replacing that old stockman was herasy to him. But then he only used one gun, his old shotgun he'd had since the invention of gunpowder.
Have we become in our knife worship a bunch of knife snobs?
It seems to me that we have become so jaded that if the knife does not have the latest wonder steel, or some new gimmick we turn our noses up at it.
I wonder if to some degree alot of "us" have become so used to the modern wonder knives that we don't really appretiate some humble but great little cutter like an Opinel or a carbon steel Schrade Old Timer thats soon to become a thing of the past.
The knives today all have the high tech materials that will look the same 50 years from now. I guess it's no longer permissable to have a knife that will age and gain some personality. I have an old barlow knife that has real wood handles and over the past 30 years the wood has darkend to a rich walnut hue from the handling, with a few dings here and there. My old Hen and Rooster stockman has stag handles that have turned a golden brown patina and the carbon blades are a medium charcoal grey. They have aged some, but so have I.
But my Gerber LST that somebody gave me ten years ago and has been carried on and off still has no character, and to me has no soul.
Like I said, this is just something I muse about, but sometimes I look at all the marvelous new knives in a knife shop near me and I get the same feeling as in a gun shop and I see all the new wonder autos that all look alike.
IMHO I think we have lost style. The new stuff all looks alike, all the same materials, shape of the tanto tacticle blades ect. I did not mind it when I was younger, I even tried some of the "modern" stuff. But after owning some of it and carrying it I ended up selling and giving away all of it. I found the Glock boring and kept my old K-38 masterpiece, and the Balisongs went and I kept my old stag stockman. There was something too sterile about the new stuff.
By now all the young guys will be thinking "another old fart" and I admit they will be right. I just feel a little sad sometimes that the world has become such a homaginized place. Once upon a time you could tell a Winchester from a Marlin from the other side of the room. You could tell a Case stockman from a Schrade trapper from a Queen barlow across that same room. Now I can't tell one tacticle knife from another unless I read the name on it.
Sorry for the long post, just an old man feeling a bit nostalgic.
I have read the posts about some who have never handled a slip joint, others who are overly worried about a carbon steel knife rustings. Other posts debating if a liner lock is as good as a frame lock, and the debate over the best steel.
Our grandfathers had none of that, the new frame locks, the one hand tacticle knives, super stainless steels, and in most cases they rarely had more than one knife. I can remember my grandfather had this really old stockman with the blades almost black they were such a dark grey, exept for a bright sharp edge, and he used that knife for EVERYTHING. If he went bird hunting his stockman dressed the quail, and if he got a deer, the knife did that too. On his birthday he would neatly slit open the gifts so cleanly the wrapping paper could be reused. The idea of replacing that old stockman was herasy to him. But then he only used one gun, his old shotgun he'd had since the invention of gunpowder.
Have we become in our knife worship a bunch of knife snobs?
It seems to me that we have become so jaded that if the knife does not have the latest wonder steel, or some new gimmick we turn our noses up at it.
I wonder if to some degree alot of "us" have become so used to the modern wonder knives that we don't really appretiate some humble but great little cutter like an Opinel or a carbon steel Schrade Old Timer thats soon to become a thing of the past.
The knives today all have the high tech materials that will look the same 50 years from now. I guess it's no longer permissable to have a knife that will age and gain some personality. I have an old barlow knife that has real wood handles and over the past 30 years the wood has darkend to a rich walnut hue from the handling, with a few dings here and there. My old Hen and Rooster stockman has stag handles that have turned a golden brown patina and the carbon blades are a medium charcoal grey. They have aged some, but so have I.
But my Gerber LST that somebody gave me ten years ago and has been carried on and off still has no character, and to me has no soul.
Like I said, this is just something I muse about, but sometimes I look at all the marvelous new knives in a knife shop near me and I get the same feeling as in a gun shop and I see all the new wonder autos that all look alike.
IMHO I think we have lost style. The new stuff all looks alike, all the same materials, shape of the tanto tacticle blades ect. I did not mind it when I was younger, I even tried some of the "modern" stuff. But after owning some of it and carrying it I ended up selling and giving away all of it. I found the Glock boring and kept my old K-38 masterpiece, and the Balisongs went and I kept my old stag stockman. There was something too sterile about the new stuff.
By now all the young guys will be thinking "another old fart" and I admit they will be right. I just feel a little sad sometimes that the world has become such a homaginized place. Once upon a time you could tell a Winchester from a Marlin from the other side of the room. You could tell a Case stockman from a Schrade trapper from a Queen barlow across that same room. Now I can't tell one tacticle knife from another unless I read the name on it.
Sorry for the long post, just an old man feeling a bit nostalgic.
He was "old school" and we're totally different, used to advances of technology. Wait 'til you see our grandchildren posting in PhaserForums.com, how nutty their grandparents were, using steel tools and all 
