Brand loyalty?

J

jackknife

Joined
Oct 2, 2004
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How many here have stuck with a certain brand of pocket knife because your dad/grandad/uncle had one like it or it was the first one your dad gave you? Kind of like a Ford/Chevy loyalty for Case or Schrade or such because your favorite old uncle always carried one like it. Or you just like that one brand.
 
I think the closest I have to brand loyalty would be my fondness for KA-BARS. My biggest loyalty lies with a pattern rather than a brand, I own more Barlow patterns than any other.
 
I really like Queen in D2.
A nice selection of patterns, if limited scale choice.
The quality seems consistently high, without buying other more expensive brands of Queen made slippies.
And the priceing is highly competetive to Case.
 
Haven't really stuck to any maker, my Granddad had a henkels, but being a knife nut makes it really hard to decide for one. (note that I said knife nut, and not collector :p)
All of my scout patterns have been made by victorinox or wenger (which is now owned by vic). Like Absintheur I stick to a pattern rather than a brand.

Now if we're talking about other stuff besides knives, I'd say that I'm loyal to a lot of brands. Gillette (adjustable), Wrangler (shirts and jeans), Two Cherries(chisels), Starrett(squares), AO(sunglasses) Tony Lama(boots), Aerostich (Gloves),...
 
I buy Camillus or Camillus made for another brand (Remington) over all others. But I do buy other brands as well.
 
I don't have enough experience with tradtionals yet to have any loyalty to one brand or another. While it's nice to show some loyalty, I sorta think one might miss out on a lot of great products if they were to only support one company.
 
:pNOW you done it :DSCHRADE:D I have a few maybe 100 or so and still going there are ,a guess, 1000's of variations. A maker in business for 100 yrs. now gone:eek: as of 2004 as well as Camillus, oldest US cutlery GONE :eek:as of 2007, which has ties to Schrade and Imperial and and well you kind of get the picture, before their demise the last name was Imperial Schrade Corp. (ISC). For anyone who likes traditional make your way back to the collectors area on the fourms tons of info and pictures as well as interesting history and not to,:) Slight any one here, but also lots of knowledge:thumbup:.
 
or the brands made by camillus seem to be what i'm constantly searching for. Only fitting since the first real quality pocket knife given to me was my grandads Camillus #26 Hunter with a custom leather sheath fast forward 22 years and i still have it along with a handful of his old uticas, schrades, imperials, etc. But I always come back to Camillus though:)
ivan
 
6.0stroker said:
:pNOW you done it :DSCHRADE:D I have a few maybe 100 or so and still going there are ,a guess, 1000's of variations. A maker in business for 100 yrs. now gone:eek: as of 2004 as well as Camillus, oldest US cutlery GONE :eek:as of 2007, which has ties to Schrade and Imperial and and well you kind of get the picture, before their demise the last name was Imperial Schrade Corp. (ISC). For anyone who likes traditional make your way back to the collectors area on the fourms tons of info and pictures as well as interesting history and not to,:) Slight any one here, but also lots of knowledge:thumbup:.
Click to expand...


DING, we have a winner!

I was asking because I just got back from Florida, and one of my cousins, David, I had not seen in a long time had a little Old Timer with a almost black blade and drown delrin handles. He said he never carries anything but an Old Timer. When he heard they had went out of buissness, he bought many old but still usable ones off the 'bay, so he'd have a lifetime supply. He just loves them.

The aged family member I went down to check on was my very elderly Aunt Esther. She was the youngest sibling of my mothers 5 sibblings, and is almost 90 years of age. We sat and talked for hours about family reminising, ( the old gal is sharp as a freshly honed peanut) and she said she had just celibrated her 60th wedding aniversary 5 years ago to my Uncle Charlie when he passed away. When David and I were talking about knives and stuff, she said that Uncle Charlie had always carried his little brown handle pocket knife, even to church. She walked into the bedrom to get it, and it was a small Old Timer two blade model. We looked at it and then she gave it to David, as he was thier son. Very fitting that since David got his first pocket knife from his dad, Uncle Charlie, who always had a Old Timer, that he gets his dad's old knife.

Twixt the two of them, they were die hard Old Timer fans.
 
Great tale, jackknife.

I've always been partial to a few brands, primarily Victorinox, Buck and Schrade (sigh). Lately, I've taken a real shine to Case.
 
I love my Schrade bearhead 30t It was my second knife my father bought me. I was eight and thought wow I have one just like my dad. I was sad when Schrade closed it doors, never was a buck man either. Now I guest I am victorinox man due to i carry the spirit almost 7 days a week 12 hours a day.
 
I tend to have Case and Buck knives. My grandfather carried a Case Copperhead for many years. My Father was never much of a pocket knife kind of guy, but he had a few Buck (trapper and a single blade non lock back). My Uncle and the guys that worked the feilds with him always had some kind of Buck knife along mainly 110's and 112's. This was in the 80's when I think the Buck lockback was in its hay day.


Oddly enough my first knife was a Schrade Uncle Henry LB7. It was close to the Buck 110 and I could not find a Buck 110 anywhere at the time. I still have that knife in my box o knives.

John
 
I personally tend to accumulate the patterns and knives that appeal to me from any of the US makers generally.

That said, in the past year or two I was speaking with the fathers of a couple of my closest friends locally. Both are older gents in their eighties and when I asked them to show me what knife they had in their pocket, each came out with a small Schrade stockman.

One was born and raised here in rural NC, the other a hunter and outdoorsman originally from Ohio.
 
I got my first Buck in 74 and I still use it. Buck's seem to have that something special. Every time I see a new Buck, I feel like Ted Knight in the movie Caddy Shack, when he picked up his special putter, the billy club and says "Oh,Billy, Billy, Billy".

http://youtube.com/watch?v=N3Mj56pTCQE

I see a new Buck and I say " Oh, Buck, Buck, Buck".:)
 
I was a big Schrade guy. Now since they have gone under I kind of lean towards Queen, but I am really loyal to most all companies and makers that make slipjoints.
 
jackknife,
I think demographics contributes to brands used by many as well.

Case is what I grew up with.
Heck, I had a Case Peanut tossed into my dresser drawer crib after the stork dropped me into it. *grin*.

Case was what hardware stores , feed and seed stores and everyone else stocked, and folks really used , from home, farms, ranches , plant jobs, to anything.

Shrade-Walden, then later Shrade was seen and used.
No offense, but a Case was the good knife, and Old Timer the one folks did not care if it got messed up or not.

Camillus was another, as they did the GI Demo knife and with the Military presence near, this was not only used by them, civilians got ahold of one, for all sorts of uses, much like a SAK is today.
Emergency knife, tossed in a truck, or vehicle, or in the storm cellar...

Kabar, again, with Military, Kabar was a normal fixture.

Imperial, was another popular knife, and it served a lot of folks.
Odd, but folks that could not afford a Case, would buy a Imperial, before they would a Old Timer.
Best guess, is some of these ladies and gents wanted a good looking knife, like a imitation pearl , for a lady and Old Timer did not offer anything but the traditional "brown" handles.

Hi-Falutin' knives were Hen & Rooster ( and as time has passed, those knives are more money now!).
Boker was another, as some of the folks I grew up with, went out of the USA, and these Hen & Roosters and Bokers they shared about with us, and would bring back.
This during the Cold War and jackknife understands where I am coming from.

Buck, Remington and some others, I never saw, only reason we knew they existed was magazine ads , or if someone visited from out of town.

SAKs - nobody had one, was interested in one, did not care one iota about one.
Not even those that has been abroad, and actually seen one, even used one.

"It is a red plastic knife with that nasty stainless steel and no way near as tough as a Camillus made GI Demo knife" - is what the shared, and was repeated often, and I was a senior in HS when I saw one and shrugged and showed that fella what a "real" knife was, my Case Slimline Trapper with CV blades.

Buck 110s started showing up.
Seriously, even the Bikers here used Case knives, folding knives like Trappers and Sodbusters.
Now this funny , still true, heck I was did it.

This here "lockback" idear, got talked up.
So a couple of mentors and I got a Case Mako Shark.
Used it once maybe twice, *shrugged* and put them up.

We did not like that Tru-Sharp, or the lock, and liked our CV blades on Case knives, such as Trappers, Stockmans and the Peanut (we had that one always, along with a bigger knife, how raised).

Bikers here got some Case Mako Sharks too, for some reason that one fit hands better.
They too did not like, and put them up and went back to what Case knife they had been doing.

Bunch of Bikers showed up for something or another and had Buck 110s.
"Ya'll must be Yankees, as you ain't got a Case pocket knife" - our Bikers said to them.
It was all good, really funny , but true.

"Ya'll seen Queens?" northern bikers asked.
"No dude, we have Presidents and Generals here in the South, heck didn't ya hear, we broke off from England some years back".
Referring to the Queen of England and the War of Independence.

Case to me, has always offered the patterns I prefer with the steel I prefer, which is CV.
Boker and Hen & Rooster, along with Camillus , and others mentioned are a part of my preference.

Currently, Case and Boker ( with carbon steel) are what I prefer.
Moore Maker, out of Texas, is one that interests me, and when some results are reported back, and I get to mess with one, that brand has potential.

SAK?
I might have a Classic SD, and Solo put back, not sure, would have to look.
Classic is supposed to be in a travel kit, Solo in some bag ( hopefully not lost) with some other gear for emergency , that is out of state.
Pocket Pal, who knows where it ended up, it was a emergency back up, and kept in a vehicle and most likely put to use sometime back.
 
Well, they don't have a slip-joint yet... though one's been rumored for at least 3 years, my brand loyalty knife-wise is for Bark River. They are all I carry and use these days. Made in the USA, excellent customer service, many traditional patterns of course, and a mind boggling number of handle and blade choices for every want and need.
 
As a kid, I had mostly Imperial, Colonial and Vic. Imperials and Colonials were pretty much every where along with Providence Cut Co (If I remember the name correctly). The three best quality pocket knives I owned as a kid and teen were a Case Sodbuster JR, an Imperial stockman (can't remember which line) and a Vic Explorer. When I started buying knives for myself, they were mostly Schrade, till they went under, and Vic. Other than the Sodbuster Jr, I never really got into Case. Bad luck with their knives I guess. Recently, I've mostly bought Queens, but I'm thinking of giving GEC a try.

Leo
 
First knife was an Imperial. Little jackknife. Second was a Frontier medium stockman, with cast black plastic handles made to look saw cut. Neither was much as far as expense was concerned, but they would both take a very keen edge. 1095 steel.

First good knife was a Boker Whittler, with delrin scales. Lost and immediately replaced with an identical knife. Don't have a clue where the second one ended up, but I can still remember the day that the first one walked away. Have a rosewood handled one now, and it's a good one, but the second one was better.

Had a Case Muskrat -- don't remember if it was stainless or CV -- for about a year when I was in High School, lost it, and inherited a Camillus Stockman at about that same time from a Great Uncle. Had that stockman up until a few years ago, when I did a bunch of moves in a short period of time, and I hope that I find it just like I found some other treasured things a few months ago.

Most of my other knives growing up were sheath knives that either I made or my father made.

I have more Victorinox and Case than anything else now. Both are known quantities - good quality, known steels, reasonable price. A nice Case Copperhead was what got me back into just carrying slipjoints. Oh, I do have a Copperlock that I carry a good bit, but it's not a tacticool folder like some of the others I'd been carrying around.
 
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