Ever Want to go Back?

BK14 said:
Wow, excellent story! I have spent many an hour reading some of your stories in the traditional knife forum, and really appreciate your response to my thread! I find my needs all met by one of my SAKs as well, but just can't yet bring myself to give up other knives as you did for the most part. I am still pretty young however and new to the hobby, and could definitely see myself downsizing as you and others have in the future. Thank you for the reply!
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Thanks BK, I'm glad you like the stories.

I think it takes some years to get where I got to. I was 60 when I did my first big downsize. I've found out that as I got older, things changed. Things that meant a great deal to me in my "younger days" now didn't mean that much to me at all. Perspective on life changed a great deal. I cared way less about inanimate objects, and 'things'. My gun collection, car collection, knife collection, faded in importance compared to my family. I took the money from selling off a lot of it, and my better half and I took a big month long counter clockwise trip around the country with the money. Camped out in the Badlands, Yellowstone, Bryce, Grand Canyon Arches and Cabyonlands and Mesa Verde. Have memories that will last a lifetime. Nothing like laying in your sleeping bag listening to the sound of a buffalo munching grass just outside your tent in the night. Or feeling the silence of the Grand Canyon with someone you love.

In the end, things and just things. Take that money and go live life. Travel. You'll remember priceless moments in your life more than things.
 
BK14 said:
....I find my needs all met by one of my SAKs as well, but just can't yet bring myself to give up other knives as you did for the most part. I am still pretty young however and new to the hobby, and could definitely see myself downsizing as you and others have in the future.
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If we like knives, most of us go through a progression as we explore our interests. On the SAK thing, I have found that a SAK does in fact "meet my needs" and it becomes a question of how much stuff I want to carry with me routinely. Explore your interests and enjoy. You appear to have a lot of time to do so.
 
jackknife said:
Thanks BK, I'm glad you like the stories.

I think it takes some years to get where I got to. I was 60 when I did my first big downsize. I've found out that as I got older, things changed. Things that meant a great deal to me in my "younger days" now didn't mean that much to me at all. Perspective on life changed a great deal. I cared way less about inanimate objects, and 'things'. My gun collection, car collection, knife collection, faded in importance compared to my family. I took the money from selling off a lot of it, and my better half and I took a big month long counter clockwise trip around the country with the money. Camped out in the Badlands, Yellowstone, Bryce, Grand Canyon Arches and Cabyonlands and Mesa Verde. Have memories that will last a lifetime. Nothing like laying in your sleeping bag listening to the sound of a buffalo munching grass just outside your tent in the night. Or feeling the silence of the Grand Canyon with someone you love.

In the end, things and just things. Take that money and go live life. Travel. You'll remember priceless moments in your life more than things.
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Sage words! Those definitely ring true, and I appreciate the sharing of experience gained :)
 
22-rimfire said:
If we like knives, most of us go through a progression as we explore our interests. On the SAK thing, I have found that a SAK does in fact "meet my needs" and it becomes a question of how much stuff I want to carry with me routinely. Explore your interests and enjoy. You appear to have a lot of time to do so.
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Also good advice! I am lucky, as I am still in school. Which does not give me much disposable funds for knives, but gives me plenty of time to enjoy what I have and use everything around our small horse farm.
 
Dadpool said:
My most-carried knife in the "before time" (great phrase!) was a keychain-sized, partially serrated $5 Spyderco knock-off I picked out of a bowl at the local army surplus store. Right after I got it, I started a landscaping job.

For the next couple of years, I beat the crap out of that knife in every conceivable way: ripped open burlap bags, pried things open, cut everything from rope to plastic to branches, jabbed it into the root-balls of trees while prepping them for planting, etc. It survived until I quit that job, though by the end it was on its last legs.

Best $5 I've ever spent, and I still look back fondly on that POS beater knife 20 years later. Before that knife, I'd only carried a knife while camping. I credit that knife with opening my eyes to the advantages of always having a small knife on me.
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I used to buy those exact little frost cutlery knives for 1$ and give them away when someone needed to cut something.
 
jackknife said:
Thanks BK, I'm glad you like the stories.

I think it takes some years to get where I got to. I was 60 when I did my first big downsize. I've found out that as I got older, things changed. Things that meant a great deal to me in my "younger days" now didn't mean that much to me at all. Perspective on life changed a great deal. I cared way less about inanimate objects, and 'things'. My gun collection, car collection, knife collection, faded in importance compared to my family. I took the money from selling off a lot of it, and my better half and I took a big month long counter clockwise trip around the country with the money. Camped out in the Badlands, Yellowstone, Bryce, Grand Canyon Arches and Cabyonlands and Mesa Verde. Have memories that will last a lifetime. Nothing like laying in your sleeping bag listening to the sound of a buffalo munching grass just outside your tent in the night. Or feeling the silence of the Grand Canyon with someone you love.

In the end, things and just things. Take that money and go live life. Travel. You'll remember priceless moments in your life more than things.
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Fantastic post. Thanks for sharing.

Interestingly I have a young family and since my son was born my priorities have adjusted! Still have 50+ blades and fondle them occasionally but I'm thinking of downsizing.

I suspect when the boy is older we may well enjoy them together so I'll make sure we have enough in stock.

Oh and for me... Gerber EZ out.
 
Far back as I can remember I've always had at least a Case or Boker slipjoint in my pocket...My first one was a 4 bladed Boker Congress my Dad passed down to me that the shield fell off it, one broke pen blade, but nice steel and the 3 remaining blades could really walk & talk...yup, still got it. :)

Got into Spyderco almost from the ground floor with a ats55 SE Delica in the early 90's, maybe late 80's.

The pocketclip and Spyderhole really rocked my world. It made knives a HECK of a lot more functional <and addictive :eek:> for me.
 



I got this on '99 and still using it. It doesn't have pocket clip so now it rides in the pocket of my BK15/BK16 sheath.
 
BK14 said:
Wow! That is insane. If you got that as a gift, maybe I need better friends;) I assume that model is very hard to come by those these days, but I will definitely have to seek out some more information just for the sake of knowledge.
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BE JEALOUS!!!

Kidding, I had two of these and they felt all of the abuse you'd expect from a boy age 8-16. Both tips were snapped, both thrown countless times at various targets, both died about 10 years ago.
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The knife that started this hobby was a Kershaw Blur. Then I got another Blur because I thought I lost the first one. Back then, I thought it was the best knife ever. I had no idea knives could be any more than $100. Once I found places like this and Reddit, the addiction kicked in. After I bought that first sebenza, the flood gates opened. I had this weird logic kick in where I would think "oh, that is a bargain since it is less than a sebbie," or "oh, that is only a couple hundred more than a sebbie."
 
I am 57 but started when I was really young.I guss having a folder was always in my blood. I had a few pearly handle trditionals I picked up at the local dimestore in Brentwood Ca. This was before I was 7 and then when I turned 7 my parents took me to Austria and I got a really large Victorinox from my aunt who lived in Austria. After that I was shopping for knives all over Austria and swizterland looking in knife shops and perousing the knives . This was back in the 60's.

I remember my favorite knife was a really thin SS folding blade I purchased in a small town near Graz Austria. Blades were rock solid (no play) and really slim with SS grips. Lost it once outside and found it a year later (I was still about 13 or 14 at that time)

Later on in the 80's I picked up a SS Spyderco hunter in Santa Monica, Calif.
 
I'm loving the replies guys! Keep them coming. Colubrid, that is such a cool story of how you got into knives!
 
abbazaba said:
In high school I carried a $10 folder that had a liner lock and probably a 2" blade. I had a whole collection of $10 knives from the local sport shop, the best being a Buck Crosslock with a plastic handle and padded rubber insert (which I regrettably sold in college). I bought a Benchmade 350 at a gun show around junior year, but never really carried it much. When I graduated someone gave me a Benchmade 330, and that lived in my pocket as my only EDC for over a decade. I bought a couple knives in that time period (literally like two a decade), but none of them worked as well as an EDC. Years back I bought a Dragonfly and it went downhill from there. I can't imagine carrying one knife for a decade now.

I actually still carry the 330 occasionally. Its a perfectly awesome office carry, and still checks all my boxes for most tasks. Opened a lot of beers in college with the butt end...

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Oh hey, good timing with the review.

I recently managed to scoop up one of those for beans. Kinda. It's not the 330 I got, but the BM332AGR which I wasn't even aware about either 330/332 until offer. Being a spearpoint with ti handles made by BM, I just couldn't resist, seeing the only other alternative would be a gold class 531 in titanium, which costs a pretty penny.

Not in my hands yet, but I'm excited now. Wonder what's the relationship/deal with the 330 being an Pardue whilst the 332 is an AG Russell (special?).. they're the same though, different grind/scale shape. Not much info on the model so it's nice to read some feedback. Good, good.

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I like that it also has thin ti scales much like the Urban Trapper.

jackknife said:
The knife habit is mostly broken now, and I stop by the forum to just window shop, and see what's going on.

After owning all kinds of knives, I feel very content to be back carrying a SAK like I did in 1969.
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Everything.

Nothing.

New design, new mats, still just a knife? :)
 
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For me it was a Kamp King. My original is long gone but I had to go find another.
 
greetings all,
here goes. my first good knife was an imperial stockman bought at woolworths for a grand total of $1.00. 1962. I then stepped up to an imperial hunter [you guys remember those] black plastic handles, flimsy sheath etc but was I a proud 12 year old. graduated to the bucks in the late 60's and to a randall 14 in the service in 1969. always had a small case, schrade, queen in my left pocket as of today. since then I couldn't begin to remember what I owned, traded, sold, gave away. great memories we all have. best regards to all.
mike
 
Not sure I ever changed the style I carried. When I was in school back in the 1960's I had a 4 blade "Official Boy Scouts" knife in my pocket. (it was legal when I was in school to have a knife - it was even expected that the boys (and most of the girls) had a pocket knife on them beginning about the 2nd or 3rd grade) Around 1970 or so, I added a Schrade 6OT or 70T to my belt, (moved up to a Buck 110 last year) These days, I never leave home without the Buck 110, a scout/camp knife, and either a stockman, canoe, or jack knife in my pocket.
I tried the OHO and pocket clips, but never really got into them. Gave them all away, to be honest. However, I am thinking of trying out the Ontario RAT 1.
 
My father bought me a SAK when I turned 13. Carried it for years without any thought of upgrading. I was at Wisconsin State Fair a few years back and discovered Chris Reeve Knives at a random knife table. Now I own 12 CRKs. Just recently got into Shirogorov.

I'll always cherish my SAK, even more so now that my dad has passed, but I never carry it anymore. Maybe I'll hand it down to my son someday, but I don't wish I could go back. My wife probably does, though. :)
 
Back in my divemaster days in high-school I had this great titanium knife. I have no idea what brand it was, that's how little I was paying attention. I saw it sitting on the shelf by the BCD's forever and asked the shop owner if I could borrow it to tap on my tank since I didn't have a shaker (the little noisemaker you use to get divers' attention.) He said some divers had forgotten it in the shop years before and just gave it to me.

I took that knife on 2000 some dives, strapped right to my arm next to a fossil watch and an old Aladdin dive computer. Mostly all I used it for was tapping on my tank to get peoples' attention and ask how much air they had left. I repaired a couple mooring lines with it and once pulled it out in self defense. Some idiot snuck a baggie of roast beef to feed morays and, predictably,got one all frenzied and got bit pretty badly. I just remember how goofy it felt trying to get to the guy in the slow motion way you do everything under water, holding this blunt tip dive knife while the moray twisted and flailed in a big green cloud of blood. It's not like I was going to stab the moray- that guy deserved every bit of that lesson- but fortunately the moray let go and swam off and I got a big tip for "coming to the rescue"

I have no idea what happened to that knife. It must be buried in a box somewhere with old dive gear. Now that your post reminded me about it I think I'm on a mission to dig it back up!:thumbup:
 
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