First ever knife? How old were you when you got it?

oldmanwilly said:
I was four years old and my Opa handed me a little (no longer than 2.5 inches closed) two-bladed jack pocketknife with a clip-point main and a small pen shaped secondary blade. The handles are stamped steel or aluminum: all the paint was rubbed off and one of handle scales was already missing. I think it was made by Imperial or some similar maker of inexpensive pocketknives from the 1960/70's - no doubt picked from the counter at a feed store. The first thing I tried to cut with it was a pecan shell. The first thing I actually cut was my thumb. It was all downhill from there.

I still have the little knife squirreled away somewhere.
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Lol. There was this one day that I was cutting a box with my first knife and I somehow ended cutting half my thumbnail off!
 
I was 9, Christmas, in the 4th grade. A Buck lockback.

I lost it at recess playing football in the snow and some kid found it on the playground. He brought it in and gave it to our teacher, who held it up in front of the class and asked "Which one of you boys lost his knife?"

I raised my hand and he asked me to come up and get it. He gave it back to me with the pronouncement that "You boys need to keep track of your knives."

Those were the days...
 
oldmanwilly said:
I was four years old and my Opa handed me a little (no longer than 2.5 inches closed) two-bladed jack pocketknife with a clip-point main and a small pen shaped secondary blade. The handles are stamped steel or aluminum: all the paint was rubbed off and one of handle scales was already missing. I think it was made by Imperial or some similar maker of inexpensive pocketknives from the 1960/70's - no doubt picked from the counter at a feed store. The first thing I tried to cut with it was a pecan shell. The first thing I actually cut was my thumb. It was all downhill from there.

I still have the little knife squirreled away somewhere.
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This look familiar ?


I suasusp these shell construction imperials were first knives for a lot of little boys.
 
TRfromMT said:
I was 9, Christmas, in the 4th grade. A Buck lockback.

I lost it at recess playing football in the snow and some kid found it on the playground. He brought it in and gave it to our teacher, who held it up in front of the class and asked "Which one of you boys lost his knife?"

I raised my hand and he asked me to come up and get it. He gave it back to me with the pronouncement that "You boys need to keep track of your knives."

Those were the days...
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since when were knives allowed at school?!?!
 
Your profile says you are 14. A lot of us are much older than you.

My first, that I remember was a Imperial Advertising knife ,it opened like a Christy knife. Grandpa picked it up off the counter of the Blue Seal feed store and handed it to me.

I was 6, so that was in '75.

James Hutson said:
since when were knives allowed at school?!?!
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Wish I still had my first knife, a blue handled offical Cub Scout Knife, bought along with my uniform and Wolf Handbook in maybe 1965, we actually had, used and needed belt hangers for our knives as nothing would stay in the pants pockets, the way we ran around. It was probably a Camillus or maybe Imperial, and I held unto to it, along with my other Cub Scout stuff, stored at my parents house until the mid to late '80's, when it all disappeared. When I rotated back from a German tour, courtesy of the Army, my Scout stuff was gone, to this day I can't figure out where it all went. Mom said she didn't know what happened to any of it, and it was a hectic and tough time for her (Dad passed in 1985) but I always wonder if she just pitched it all in revenge for having to be a Den Mother for a year to about 10 semi-feral boys. Our Den Mom's never lasted more than a year, but the Pack had the same Cubmaster for the duration.
 
My first knife was a rusty old scout knife that I found in my grandfather's basement when I was 5. I don't think I had it very long but it was the first of many.
 
James Hutson said:
since when were knives allowed at school?!?!
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That’s funny. The answer is, not long in the past.

I was in college from 2002-2006. I remember my sophomore year, in 2003 I decided I needed a good fixed blade knife. I went to an online vendor that sells things for “less expensive than soil”, so to speak, and me and a couple friends had some Kabar USMC models and a few retired police batons all shipped to my mail box in the campus mail room in college in Boston.

Everyone knew. We opened the boxes right there in the mail room in full view. Zero shits were given. And that’s post-9/11 era, when people say things were already tightening up.
 
I carried knives in public school, starting in Florida, in about 4th grade (circa 1967). Not every day, but occasionally. I carried much more often in high school, especially grades 9 and 10, in Alabama (early 1970s). Teachers would see our knives frequently. At which point, we were usually told to "put them away" or "put them in your pocket", not because they were considered dangerous, but because they were considered a distraction. I remember one teacher saying "I'm not going to tell you again to put that knife away. If I see it again this week, I'm going to take it, and I'll give it back to your parent, and you can explain to them why they had to come get your knife from me."

James Hutson said:
since when were knives allowed at school?!?!
Click to expand...
 
James Hutson said:
since when were knives allowed at school?!?!
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I carried my knife in school daily from 1969 through 1976. It was widely known and never a problem with the teachers or other students. I don’t know when that changed, but was safely graduated before it did.
 
My first was at age 8 when I became a tiger scout. It was a Wenger SAK, don't remember much about it other than it came from Sears, and wondering WTF I would ever use the corkscrew for.
 
TRfromMT said:
I grew up in a small town in Montana in the 70s and 80s. I made my first fixed blade hunting knife in 8th grade shop class. Sheath and all. Got an A.
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Ah, Jr high metal shop. My favorite in both 8th and 9th grades. I made knives, throwing stars, etc. But also a rock solid free weight bench with pretty amazing arc welds (if I must say). My best friend made a full sized battle axe. The blade was torch cut from over 1/4" plate. It weighed a ton.
 
Four years old in the 1960's. The only way I know this is because I can remember the farm we lived on at the time. Managed to get up on the workbench in the shop and found a couple of old jack knives with broken blades. Both had green handles and I was fascinated by the fact that they had blades that opened and closed. I promptly claimed them as "4-year-old treasures" and stashed them in my treasure-stashing spot. About a week later, I figured out that they could cut things...sticks, paper, dog fur, etc. Unfortunately, the dull blade bounced off a stick and stuck point-first into the base of my thumb. Still have the scar over 50 years later. Didn't matter, though...I was hooked on knives. Told Mom the cat scratched me, but I don't think she believed me...either way, moms weren't quite so concerned in those days.
 
TRfromMT said:
1080 steel I think, maple & walnut laminated handle, hidden tang with a brass guard.

View attachment 877243
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What a cool project!!! and great work! Hell, even now at 33, i'd be thrilled to do a job that came out that nice!

Oh yeah, as for my first knife, I dont rightly know. I had a few knives as a kid. Mostly of the SAK persuasion, but most were Chinese crappy ones and not the real deal. I have a couple.

Not my first, but one of my first was given to me by a very good friend of the family. It's a nice Imperial, Irish made, camper style with the big blade, awl, screwdriver/bottle opener, and a can opener. I still have that and am actually about to send it out to Glennbad to have it rescaled (but shhhhh... he doesn't know that yet..).
 
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