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

[afishhunter]

5 or 6, I think. I got my first .22 rifle (Ithica Model 49 Saddlegun) at the same time.

 

[GregNYC]

I was 8 or 9 yrs old. It was the early 1960’s and I found a Philippine butterfly knife in the bushes at a schoolyard by my house. Brass bolsters and clasp, wooden scales, about a 2 1/2” blade. Too small to flip, so I opened it like a regular pocket-knife. I figured it was brought back from the Philippines by a serviceman.... the knife is long gone.

 

[bt93]

I was 9 yo when my Uncle gave me a little two blade novelty knife shaped like a bowling pin. Don't know what brand it was but recall a little 'Made in USA' on the main blade. It was small, and after 3-4 months it was lost. It did start my interest in knives.

 

[A.L.]

Reindeer antler handled mini-puukko. I was so young that the memory is shady. I remember that my dad got it on a family road trip (in Lapland most likely) and I cut myself right away when I started whittling with it.

 

[BronzeBak]

^ CRKT Ichi assisted open i bought from a gunshow 10 years ago...the start of my EDC collection.
Really enjoying this thread.... growing up times were tough and i remember around age 8 i cried on my birthday when i realized my struggling parents hadn't got me a present. I remember the crushed look on my mom's face when i started crying and the look she gave my dad that basically said "i don't care if we lose the house or the car, go out and don't come back without a present". Later dad comes back from a nearby K-mart with my first ever pocket knife, a small gerber linerlock that was probably $7 and probably set my loving parents back who knows how far or which bill didn't get paid that month so i could have something on my bday. I later lost that gerber knife, as most 8 yr olds would, but the real gift was the admiration and feeling of sheer independence a 8 yr old feels with his first knife, and the sacrifice my parents made to give it to me. Crazy that 25 years later I'm remembering this story and retelling it on bladeforums.com....Amazing thread going here!!

 

[colubrid]

^ CRKT Ichi assisted open i bought from a gunshow 10 years ago...the start of my EDC collection.
Really enjoying this thread.... growing up times were tough and i remember around age 8 i cried on my birthday when i realized my struggling parents hadn't got me a present. I remember the crushed look on my mom's face when i started crying and the look she gave my dad that basically said "i don't care if we lose the house or the car, go out and don't come back without a present". Later dad comes back from a nearby K-mart with my first ever pocket knife, a small gerber linerlock that was probably $7 and probably set my loving parents back who knows how far or which bill didn't get paid that month so i could have something on my bday. I later lost that gerber knife, as most 8 yr olds would, but the real gift was the admiration and feeling of sheer independence a 8 yr old feels with his first knife, and the sacrifice my parents made to give it to me. Crazy that 25 years later I'm remembering this story and retelling it on bladeforums.com....Amazing thread going here!!

Gotta vote this post up. Really cool story brother.

Just curious. What type of knives or brands do you carry now?

 

[JBoone]

Small old timer around age 7 or 8. Cut my thumb whittling a stick towards myself but put a bandaid on and hid it from my folks.

I had talked my mom into a small nail file blade combo from drugstore counter a year or so previous that was quickly confiscated after a small cut so I did not want to have the old timer impounded.

 

[BronzeBak]

Gotta vote this post up. Really cool story brother.

Just curious. What type of knives or brands do you carry now?

Thanks man, glad i finally joined the forum.
Earlier in a different thread i posted pictures and thoughts on the Hogue Microswitch A01 that I've been EDCing lately. It has been a great alternative to the Benchmade Mini Grip that i sometimes carry. I also carry a Benchmade 915 Triage if wardrobe allows. My most recent purchase, and first non-black knife I've bought in a while, was a Lionsteel SR-22 with orange handle. And that's mostly been my 2018 rotation. My fishing hobby and occasional handgun purchase forced upon me a $199 cap on all knife purchases. i constantly flirt with the idea of splurging on something VERY high end but i stop myself.

 

[TonySal]

I was somewhere between eight and ten, and I got a scout/hobo knife with the fork and spoon. Unfortunately, either I lost it or it grew legs on its own. My folks refused to replace it as a reminder that I needed to be more responsible (thanks Mom). I then saved every bit of change I could for months, and that plus the spending money my folks gave me for a week long scout camp (probably $5 I was supposed to spend on other things) was enough to get this Kamp King, the first knife I ever bought myself:

I used it for several years, but when I entered high school, I had to stop carrying it since there were "issues" in the area we lived at the time (issues like "hit the dirt, its a drive-by", but that's another story).
After I got my first car (with an 8-track player), I kept it in my car's took kit. I "found" it again last year (after reading a thread here) after a few decades and cleaned it up. I even carry it occasionally in my pocket instead of my Vic Farmer.

Enjoy

I still have my Kamp King from @50 years ago. But not scouts, Sea Cadets, for annual Camp Out (someone owned property upstate).
The store is still there, now a 2 gun neighborhood! The guy behind the counter looks exactly like dad when it was an old Jewish neighborhood. And, he remembered dad outfitting us, neat, sad reunion!

 

[Methuselah]

This honking hobo for my 5th birthday.

That's so crazy! I just saw one of these like an hour ago. I'm almost sure it was the same model. So I remember they called it Japanese Camp knife.
While I'm on the subject my first knife was in the early 70s one of my dad's friends was staying with us Craig Potts, he had some switchblades he was trying to fix one and gave it to me to try to fix it had a dragon in the plastic scales but I couldn't get it back together and I ended up with a mother of pearl Imperial two blade. Wish I still had it, it was Barlow Style.
I think I was seven or eight.
Interestingly though, I already had an axe, and I did chop down a huge dead tree in the back behind the barn thing.

 

[DocJD]

My first knife was some kind of Boy Scout with a Spoon and Fork . However old you had to be to join up ?

This thread dredged up memories not considered for 50 or 60 yrs . For the cub scout camping , Pap got me the whole kit of official scout approved equipment . Backpack , mess kit , canteen etc - the works . I can remember some of that clearer than yesterday .

 

[Mecha]

My first knife was a fully-serrated one I made from a piece of the metal cutting strip from a tin foil box when I was about 4, which was promptly upgraded to a utility razor blade with a custom wooden handle made from a small stick, prison-style.

Then I got ahold of a ring knife, which the fishermen used when rigging gear. Found it on the ground near the docks, and wore it all over town for a year:

After that I was gifted a small slipjoint knife of some kind, and next year at age 8-ish, I finally got every kid's holy grail: A genuine Swiss army knife!

At that age, a Swiss army knife is like a Rockstead.

 

[Filoso]

I bought my first knife when I was 10 years old. My grandmother gave me some money during my vacation with her and I spent it in an “estilete”, a large and narrow kind of navaja.

Sadly when I returned home from my vacation my dad discovered the knife and confiscated it, so I never saw it again... I asked my dad a few times where did he put it, but he doesn’t remember...

I don’t have any pic of the knife but I’ve found one on the internet, I picked one like the second from the bottom of these....