"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

We have "the little library" system in our town, small boxes on front lawns, where anyone is welcome to take or leave a book, in fact encouraged to do so. I was quite lucky to obtain an early, if not first, printing of "the Silmarillion" via this system. :D (actually my wife found it, looking for children's books) Anycase, it still had the fold out map of what middle-earth looked like before the wars with Morgoth, or Melchior, caused such an upheaval it changed everything.
I would be a little surprised if he didn't have several pocket knives, since he was an officer, as well as a lover of history, author, and family man. The lobster pattern makes much sense, maybe even something elaborate as some of the incredible grooms knives Sheffield made in its heyday. A pen knife would make sense too(can't you picture him trying at least once a feathered quill?). I don't precisely know what was typical for English officers in WWI to carry. I have a feeling they may have been expected to provide their own, and that it would depend on what one could afford,as well as the branch of service you were in. Can anyone provide that info?, because I don't know, or even know if I ever knew. It might help in narrowing things down.
Thanks, Neal
Ps SHS-yeah!! Agreed about all, ummm, including "Scar-Jo" ;)
 
Here is my Tolkien story. I first saw lotr on HBO in the summer of seventh grade going to eighth. My english teacher Mr.Carter was a great lover of books and had some of the best works of sci - fi and fantasy including a LOTR boxed set. Those books were devoured voraciously! But what always got me was the ring! Here are a few examples of mine, http://imgur.com/hhTWZJX,unTIEXK,IsSagut http://i.imgur.com/af1ffCj.jpg and http://imgur.com/a/Vhdf5 I suppose none of those are related, maybe he carried a ring!
 
Tolkien is certainly right up there with any other fantasy writer I know of, and I've read many of them. Having read The Hobbit, Trilogy and Silmarillion over many, many times, I am more haunted by the memory of the Silmarillion than all the others. The old days and the old ways are always best, even in fiction. my guess is that Tolkien would have carried a pearl handled pen knife, just the thing for opening letters and cleaning out his pipe: perhaps the Sheffield version of this old tip bolstered Robeson.

IMG_0419_zpsjzvprxub.jpg~original
 
I tend to think that Tolkien was actually a rather austere, ascetic character who was not much interested in luxuries or materialism. He disliked modern industrial consumer society for instance. So, I think his knife tastes would've been disarmingly simple and it is true that men of his era carried knives, regardless of class or status.. I'd imagine a small and unfussy Penknife in bone or perhaps a smallish wood handled single-blade, a Barlow is not impossible either.
 
Something like this?
(Elvish characters picked for appearance and have no meaning.)

Thank you for starting this thread sir. I need to find his biography at the library. I've read of his life a bit, and seen things in documentaries. Interesting man this Beren. and his wife Luthien.
Gravestone.jpg

I went to a Tolkien seminar(?) at a local library and the speaker said that Tolkien wrote the "Lay Of Luthien" the day he got home from WW1 while he was in the living room resting and his wife was in the kitchen making him dinner.

Have you read "Smith Of Wooton Minor"?

I think his pocket knife would have had to be something which could ream a pipe well for sure.

Thanks for that link DocT
 
My son is reading The Silmarillion at the moment.
Now if we are lucky enough and I can get roorly technogical.
I have a number of mp3 files that I digitised from an LP (remember them?) of Tolkein himself reading excerpts from LOTR and The Hobbit.
It was in a crate of LPs which I rescued from the dust and cobwebs of a mates garage in return for a uteload of firewood.
The recordings were made prior to the publication of LOTR.
JRR was visiting a friend in Lancashire in the 1950s- He'd taken 14 years to write LOTR and couldn't get it published. So in order to cheer him up the friend suggested he use his new "tape recorder"
The latest thing -reel to reel- to tell the stories as they should be. It is amazing to hear .
There are apparently 3 or maybe 4 such LPs -they can still be found. Three are JRR and one is Christopher -reading.
The one I have is songs and riddles and 10-30 second long snippets.
OK I've just finished trying to put the mp3 on youtube to post but that didn't want to play -I now feel like playing a game of Balrog with the PC and whipping it into an abyss with a fire whip.
PM email sent Silenthunterstudios:)

Beat me to it Paul:D
 
A nice birthday card arrived in the mail, from the UK!!
Happy%20Birthday%20from%20Jack_zpsvyrm5alp.jpg

A postcard of an astounding :eek: Ivory carving of a Chinese astrologer from centuries past, and a pair of sixpence cufflinks from Jack Black!!
Thank you my friend!! I had a wonderful birthday - made better by your nice presents!!:thumbup:
 
Paul, first editions! Wow! :eek:

meako, that photo is fantastic! :D

I've always been fond of literature (my degree is in English). Like many, Tolkien was my introduction to fantasy. I first read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in junior high, and the LOTR films came out when I was in high school. It would certainly be fascinating to get some insight into what kind of pocket knife Tolkien carried. I would also guess an unassuming pen knife of some sort, but who knows.
 
Copy%20of%20File_000.jpeg

Most of my Tolkien collection, plus a few knives. Unfortunately no first editions. My Tolkien obsession is almost as old as my knife obsession, I purchased my first knife (a Schrade 12OT) when I was six or seven years old, and my older brother read The Hobbit to me and began reading LotR when I was eight. I quickly became impatient with the pace and finished reading the books myself, and then read The Silmarillion immediately afterwards.

DocT said:
I found this, but it does not say what kind of knife, nor where the quote came from. http://newboards.theonering.net/for...st_view_printable;post=256862;guest=128332311
Click to expand...

Unfortunately not actually a Tolkien quote, though still a great one; it comes from an essay by G. K. Chesterton titled 'A Piece of Chalk', the second in the collection Tremendous Trifles, below the handle of the Bark River Bravo in my photo.

I can't recall any reference in what I've read as to what kind of knife Tolkien carried. Unfortunately it's not the sort of thing that gets listed in indexes, and rapid skimming has yet to turn anything up.
 
One of my father's friends and employees, whom I called Uncle Joe, gave me a first edition of the Silmarillion. I still have it somewhere, unfortunately, my golden retriever beast ate part of it. My fault for not stashing it somewhere, it must have smelled like me or some such because my golden, Gus, decided it would be quite tasty. I was distraught. Oh well, I wish I had old Gus instead. This dog was the Terminator of dogs. All muscle, his paws were the size of my hands, and I've got huge hands. He hated pretty much all animals, including my old pup Beau, a yellow lab who passed last year at 15. When Beau was a puppy, he idolized Gus, while Gus tried to eat him. Before Gus died, he and Beau had gotten to an understanding, he would play with Beau to an extent. Beau always freaked out and acted like a fool whenever he saw a golden, I know that dogs are color blind, but he never went nuts for any other breed, I know it's anthropomorphisation to put human emotions on dogs, but maybe he thought it was his buddy.

My sister gave me a paperback copy of the Silmarillion. Maybe dogs like good literature, but one of them ate that copy too. Either Remington, my late Dock, or baby Huey, Mack. Mack eats my laundry, why shouldn't he eat my books too? I have books laying all over the house, and had to secret them away, he would nibble on some from time to time.

I'd rather have every dog back though, I'd take them over a first edition of LOTR, Hobbit and Silmarillion any day.
 
waynorth said:
A nice birthday card arrived in the mail, from the UK!!
Happy%20Birthday%20from%20Jack_zpsvyrm5alp.jpg

A postcard of an astounding :eek: Ivory carving of a Chinese astrologer from centuries past, and a pair of sixpence cufflinks from Jack Black!!
Thank you my friend!! I had a wonderful birthday - made better by your nice presents!!:thumbup:
Click to expand...

I'm glad that the package made it Charlie, and that you had a wonderful birthday my friend. I hope you saw all the well-wishes in the EDC thread :) :thumbup:
 
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