Ever stopped someone and asked what they're carrying?

Last year I was working in a pizza place in downtown Nashville during night shift. We got a lot of policemen, more or less regulars every night. Once I asked from one of them about his knife and he showed a Benchmade auto Stryker, as far as I remember, well used. And I pulled my mini Bench Griptailian. Not much of a conversation actually, just a friendly gesture.
 
augostos said:
Last year I was working in a pizza place in downtown Nashville during night shift. We got a lot of policemen, more or less regulars every night. Once I asked from one of them about his knife and he showed a Benchmade auto Stryker, as far as I remember, well used. And I pulled my mini Bench Griptailian. Not much of a conversation actually, just a friendly gesture.
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Thats a cool little story. Friendly gestures count, too.

The Logical One said:
Random guy: Hey mang... wutchoo carrying?
Me: .... you checking out my piece homeslice???
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Haha that reminded me of Transformers. "You eyeballing my piece, 50 cent?"
 
If you ever want to see true knife knuts carrying high end knives, just go to Plaza Cutlery in Costa Mesa. Everytime I go, I always see a couple of knife knuts chatting with the owner Dan or the employees about knives. I also see that they have some killer customs in their pocket.

I guarantee that anytime you go to Plaza Cutlery you will find at least one knife enthusiast shopping or just visiting. The owner Dan loves it when people just come by to talk knives. He's a cool dude. I've talked to him a couple of times before. He was even nice enough to let me handle a couple of his personal knives straight out of his pocket once.
 
Back when I was in high school I saw some cholo scumbag gangbanger type carrying a knife in his back pocket.

I asked him what kind of knife it was and he rudely responded: "It's a whoodoo knife, that's all you need to know." Worthless greaseball maggot. :rolleyes:

But can anyone tell me what the Hell is a whoodoo knife?
 
I deal with customers daily as I work in retail. I always use my knife for different things. Some customers act as if they have never seen a knife before and others just stay quiet. However I occasionally get a customer every now and then that ask what I'm carrying. As of recent I was cutting a small box and a sheriff had asked me what I was carrying and told him my mini grip. He showed me ZT and said he carries this when he's off duty (which he was at the time) and carries a BM Stryker when he's on duty. It turns out he makes his own blades and showed me a few pics of beautiful Damascus fixed blades he was making and we both went on our way.

I, on the other hand, tend to ask people what knife they're carrying when Im out and about but try to keep it to a 3 min convo. I don't like to drag on a convo and tend to avoid talking to people longer than 5 min. Though there are exceptions.

Recently I asked an HEB stocker (a grocery store here in Texas) about his knife and how come he wasn't using a box cutter. He was carrying an ugly Keshaw that needed to be retired and had the tip broken off. It was extremely dirty and black. He said he had the knife for 8 years and always wanted to hold onto it. Never like box cutters either.

Some people, I tell you..
 
Yes! the photographer on my aunt wedding have a wire clip on his pants (he stands beside me in the church) so I greeted him at the end of the church thing and ask about his UKPK, and he amused that I can guess it from the clip. we had a long talk about knives.
 
I was at one of my kids swim meets. One of the guys I was working with there had a small pen knife clipped to his shirt. I recognized the clip and commented "Nice William Henry." He was shocked that I knew that it was a WH without seeing the whole knife, let alone knowing the maker was. We got talking knives and he ended up giving me a CRKT folder that had lost one of the screws or stand offs.

Ric
 
68Charger said:
Recently I asked an HEB stocker (a grocery store here in Texas) about his knife and how come he wasn't using a box cutter. He was carrying an ugly Keshaw that needed to be retired and had the tip broken off. It was extremely dirty and black. He said he had the knife for 8 years and always wanted to hold onto it. Never like box cutters either.
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Haha what's good, SA? I started the thread because of a very similar experience.
 
SouthEast said:
Yes! the photographer on my aunt wedding have a wire clip on his pants (he stands beside me in the church) so I greeted him at the end of the church thing and ask about his UKPK, and he amused that I can guess it from the clip. we had a long talk about knives.
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Phydeaux said:
I was at one of my kids swim meets. One of the guys I was working with there had a small pen knife clipped to his shirt. I recognized the clip and commented "Nice William Henry." He was shocked that I knew that it was a WH without seeing the whole knife, let alone knowing the maker was. We got talking knives and he ended up giving me a CRKT folder that had lost one of the screws or stand offs.

Ric
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You guys rule for that. I'm getting better at recognizing the model by the clip.
 
My story isn't so much asking the fella what he was carrying / more than being shocked by what it was.

About a week ago we had a wicked ice storm overnight so the roads were all ice in the morning. People were trying to drive and it wasn't working out well for anyone. I had to take the lady-wife up to the mall for her cellphone nightmare so we piled into my truck and went up the hill. For reference, from our home to our destination is about 4 miles and 700 feet in elevation - so a bunch of hills. On ice. And we live in this world where no one knows how to drive.

Anyway....

I pulled up behind an older gentleman in a van that was struggled to make it over a slight hill. Everytime he would gain any momentum the tires would just start spinning. It was just a 2WD old, old, old van. With an old, old, old man trying his damnedest to make it up this hill. I parked near him and walked over to see if I could help. Unfortunately I didn't have my tow straps with me or I would have pulled him over the rise onto flat ground and all would have been grand. I did remember that I had about 350 lbs of sand in the bed of my truck for added traction (times like this). So I offered the old fella a sand bag to help get him some grit down on the ice to clear a launch pad for his bald van tires.

He was very happy, and then did something entirely unexpected. He says, "I have a knife, I'll just open it up and sprinkle it around here...." and pulls out this BEHEMOTH MALL NINJA BLACK TACTICAL WARRIOR BLADE. I mean, like a 4.5" blade on the thing! I had my ZT 0550 in my pocket, I didn't take it out because he damn near chainsawed the sandbag with that folding katana he pulled out of his old-timer pants.

Mind blown. Didn't even ask what kind of blade it was, I was speechless. All I could do was throw sand and nod after that.
 
I did once .

A kid offsiding for an electrician , I kinda regretted it , he carried a blunt bunt blunt safety version of a spyderco knife .. safety cos no way it could cut anything or anyone . It kinda seemed to set the kid off tho .. I think he could have written editorials for knife magazines .. maybe more urban ninja warrior .. he knew designers names , brand names , rattled off steels and specs ...

To get away from him I offered to sharpen his knife .. gave it back shaving sharp and it kinda was as if he had just witnessed a miracle ..

He tested the blade on his finger and sliced it pretty good , put the knife away , wrapped his wound up in electrician tape and was strangely silent for the rest of his time .

I dont go asking others any more .. its scarey to do that .
 
K.O.D. said:
Lol just got back from Houston. Native Texan living in hell frozen over that is Chicago. I've asked a few people round here about what they're packin, but always cautiously. An acquaintance of mine I ran into the other day is a firefighter and carries a recon 1. Only other "uncommon" knife I've seen was an Emerson. Most everything else has been a gas station cheapo or something you'd find at your friendly neighborhood sporting goods store. My sng always gets cautious looks. Btw, what are the knife restrictions in SA? I'm going there for a conference in April and dont want to bring anything illegal.
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grownstar said:
Haha good to hear from another Texan! Yeah, I have some family in Chicago and my wife jokes that she would die of hypothermia up there :rolleyes:

Anyways, that's a really good question. I'm not familiar with SA law but last I heard supposedly any locking folding knife is illegal, but you can carry a fixed blade. Weird, but I could be totally wrong. Can we get 91wm6 in to sound off on this topic? I know he mentioned how ridiculous knife restrictions are in San Antonio. Let's see what he says...
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I'm in SA (about to graduate from UTSA and get my ass back to Austin) and it is true that all locking blades are illegal (not that that stops me from carrying :rolleyes:). However I had a conversation with someone a while back and it seems that a city ordinance does outlaw locking blades, but has no effect on the state law of carrying fixed blades. Kinda weird but you can't carry a 2in locking folder but you can carry a 5.5in fixed per state law. I think the ordinance was put into effect to combat "gang violence" or other questionable carrying of a blade.

On topic, I see knives all the time, the situation dictates if I inquire about them or not. One notable story was going over to a friend/classmate's apartment to study for an exam. This dude is the last person I would expect to carry a knife but when I go into his room there sitting on his desk is a BM940! I was like DUDE nice knife! turns out his dad is a collector and got it for him right before he left for college. Every time I see that guy on campus I check his pockets and that BM clip is always there:thumbup:
 
I will ask fellow workers... But have never asked another out and about. I do try and figure out what they're carrying by the pocket clip. I almost asked at a restaurant the other night. Cause it did look like a nicer knife, so it got me wondering... But I figured I would have been out of place....
 
I have only asked one person what they were carrying. I was in a local sporting goods store and there were these two men in suits walking around checking out all the knives and making some interesting comments. So I just happened to ask them what they were carrying. One of them was not carrying a knife but the other gentleman ended up showing me his folder. After a few minutes of conversation about steel and brands the man identified himself as the GM of Camillus Canada. Apparently he was there doing product research. I offered him my services as a product tester if he wanted to send me any samples ;) he took my business card but never heard anything from him.

I do get asked all the time what I am carrying. I work in a warehouse and interact with drivers from all over North America. Many of them are surprised that up in Canada I EDC my BK2 on my hip (I'm sure most of us get the normal sheeple responses). Even when asking them what they carry to this day I have only once come in contact with one person that actually knew something about knives. I guess in a population of close to a billion people in North America use knife nuts are few and far between.

On the job recently I ran into one guy that works on the floor who noticed my knives and asked me for more information about his. Turns out it was a Spyderco Native. He had owned it for 4 years and never sharpened it and gave it some really hard use. The blade had some major chips / chunks and was duller then some of the butter knives in my kitchen. I offered him a temporary exchange so I could fix it for him. He gladly accepted and I will see him on Tuesday to give him his freshly polished and chip free blade. Makes me wonder how much longer he would of used it in its messy condition. Non knife people really spark my OCD when they produce well loved/ damaged blades.
 
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