How did you get your start collecting/accumulating knives?

T. Erdelyi

T. Erdelyi

Joined
Feb 3, 2001
Messages
32,359
I'm not talkin' bout your first knife grandpa gave ya I mean when was you realized you were collectin' knives?

For me it was about 1983 I was workin' as a mechanic in a uniform rental place in Irvington NJ :eek: , you know the kinda place that supplies work clothes for the working man.

Anyway the guys who check the clothes before they wash em usually find all kinds of stuff, jewelry, money drugs and of course, pocket knives.

Well after working there for so many years these guys had more knives than they knew what to do with, so when I started working there they had some one new to give knives to, by the time I left, 6 months later, I had accumulated nearly 50 knives, at least 1/2 were crap POS, 1/4 were broken or ruined by grinders, but 25 of them were nice, Case, Buck, SAK's.

When I quit I had the core of my beginning collection which in 20+ years has grow to 300+ knives.

Where did you get you start?

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My grandfather gave me one of his Smokey Mountain Knife Works catalogs when I was about 12-13 years old. The rest is history. :)

He collected slip joints, Case, Queen, etc. He'd tell me all about them and how they'd go up in value, etc. I got the catalog and I saw all the big Crocodile Dundee kinda knives and accumulated a big pile of junk. :) I think I was supporting Pakistan's economy and Gil Hibben for awhile, until I grew wiser.
 
WadeF said:
... I think I was supporting Pakistan's economy and Gil Hibben for awhile, until I grew wiser.
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I think they/(Pakistan) got about $30 of my money over the course of 20+ years.

Now I mostly collect EDC's and unusual lockers.
 
I've accumulated knives over the years, but it was this place that turned me into a collector.
 
I don't know why, specifically, but knives always fascinated me. My family and parents are basically knife-sheeple. By age 8, I had already tried to (unsuccessfully) forge a blade in the family BBQ. Also started saving $$ from pocket change to buy a SAK. IN my teen years, I was my Scout troop quartermaster, and I spent a lot of time maintaining the edged tools - got a taste for what was good quality and what wasn't.

The collecting really started when I migrated to Australia and discovered the abundance of Military surplus stores and outdoors shops. I first collected lots and lots of factory made folders - the more "special" ones like the custom maker collaborations - eg.- Spyderco / Terzuola Starmate, Viele collaborations . etc. Then lots of EDC's which of course, I "needed." I have well over 100 folders in my collection, most of which have little collector value.

When my wife and I go on trips, we always visit antique shops and also buy old Sheffield-type pocketknives and old razors. Since making knives, I haven't bought many, but I still occasionally, pick up a good deal from up-and-coming knifemakers who are doing very good work. I have earlier pieces from Shawn McIntyre, Steve Filicietti, Bruce Crawley. I recently bought a kitchen knife by Lucas Burnley, who I think will be a force to be reckoned with.

Its a long journey, and I've just started myself. Jason.
 
It is funny how people get started. I remember getting knives in Boy Scouts, but it really started when I worked at Oshman's Sporting Goods store. It was right after College in the early 70's and their was a reccession. I got a whopping $2.25 a hour. Anyway my boss turned me on to Buck knives and I got a bit of a discount.

Now I have about 170 knives, most are traditional wood, bone or stag folders. Buck and Boker are my favorite massed produced knives. I know I have spent at least 5 times as much on knives than I ever made at that store. :rolleyes:
 
One day I relised I had alot more knives than moast people so I decided I better call it a collection, this justified the purchase of lots more knives and stoped me looking like a nutter !
 
dsvirsky said:
I've accumulated knives over the years, but it was this place that turned me into a collector.
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I'm kinda in the same boat. I always had a knife or two (mostly Gerbers and Cases and one Frost that was a gift) until recently when I decided that I wanted the perfect knife for the goofy things I use one for. (Electrical stuff cause I'm running Cat 5 wire a lot more lately) I then started buying production knives at a local dealers looking for that perfect one. I found some I liked but by that time I was kinda hooked on the looking. Then I found the forums and all the talk about sebbies and such and had to have one. One turned into two turned into a lot. But now that I'm calming down a bit I'm gettting rid of some of the sebbies for higher end customs like Hinderers, Bogis, Cuchiaras, Tighes, and such. The Sebbies are the beginning of the end. A great starting spot. Now I collect to collect which is quite a bit different than collecting to use them.

OilMan
 
I found a spydie on the rocks where I was doing an advanced rock climbing course (Willyabrup for you west aussies). At the time I just thought it was sort of cool and didn't think much of it. It was g10, a lock back with a pointy, slightly upswept blade, a Wayne Goddard collaboration I think. I traded it with a bloke I new who collected knives (he was suprisingly gentle, me being a virgin and all) for a Bob T aluminium handled spydie with a sheepsfoot blade (C-15?). I decided at one point that I needed a fixed blade as I was doing some survival type bush walks. I saw a CS SRK in a surplus store and typed 'Cold Steel SRK' into google, which led me here. The rest is history.
 
Years ago I formed an interest in Japanese swords. I bought B.W. Robinson's The Arts of the Japanese Sword and looked longingly at the pictures.

Fast forward to about 12 years ago. A firm called "Cold Steel" made a Japanese-type knife called a "tanto"! I bought the San Mai tanto and was the proverbial pig in poo for some time. Right up to the point where I tried to sharpen it with a basic Lansky setup...

Time passed.

I found the tanto in a cupboard and decided to trade/sell it to buy another knife. But which knife? I now had a computer and typed in "knife + review" (Like there was ever going to be a web site devoted to something like that!) Hmmm! There is! I found a comparison review of a CS Trailmaster vs. a Busse Basic 9. Both looked good, but I'd have to sell a kidney to buy the Busse...

I went to BF and - feeling like a virgin in a knocking shop - typed a request to buy a CS Trailmaster.

That email was answered by the late, lamented Gadi Blilious. His Trailmaster - known to me as Gadi and not for sale - sits six feet from me as I type.

The rest has been a downward spiral.

But what a ride!

maximus otter
 
My fascination with knives started when I was about 8 years old.My grandfather had a 4 blade Kamp King that he used to keep in the top drawer of my grandmother's sewing machine cabinet and it was strictly off limits to me.Well if you were ever 8(and I'm sure most of you who are reading this have been),then you know that bit of information sticks in your memory for about 38 seconds and then it's on to the drawer(when Gramps isn't looking of course!)!
Naturally it was a typical inexpensive knife of that era(early 1950's)and was very hard to open(especially for my fingernails which were pretty soft then)and also very(VERY)sharp!That is when my first experience of having a razor-sharp blade snap closed on a portion of a finger neatly slicing the side!
Not only did my finger hurt but certain parts of my anatomy from feeling the wrath of Gramps!
My next run in with knives was when I was 10 and went to the hardware store with Gramps and saw,"THE KNIFE"! A high carbon steel hunting knife with bone handles cut to look like stag,a brightly polished blade and a leather sheath.I just HAD to have it!
Well it took about three weeks to convince Gramps that I was responsible enough to own such a knife and I went back to the store to purchase it with the money I had saved up for it.
To my dismay,the owner of the store would not let me buy it unless my Gramps was with me and said it was OK.I flew back to the house on my bike and begged him to go to the store with me.He finally agreed and I now owned my first knife!
I really took good care of it and eventually the novelty wore off and it was relegated to the little drawer in the table in my room.
Years passed and I became fascinated with button operated knives(which were still legal to buy then but you had to be eighteen)and I bought and traded a few of them.You could carry a pocketknife to school then but not a switchblade.
In 1964 I enlisted in the Navy(a good thing as I was prone to get into trouble by then)and left for nearly four years.Gramps passed away in 1965 and by the time I got home on leave the house had been sold and all my books and magazines and baseball cards had been tossed out(or so I thought).
It wasn't until 1987 when my mother passed away and I was faced with cleaning out her effects in her apartment(she was a bit of a packrat)that I came across the little table that had been in my room at Gramps house and in the drawer was not only my hunting knife but a couple of Gramps' knives including the one I had cut my finger on so badly when I was eight!
As I sit here typing this,I'm looking at my old hunting knife which is still in the original sheath and if you look REALLY close on the back of the sheath you can still see the price faintly written in pencil: Fifty nine cents!
My collection/accumulation of knives now totals about two thousand but you know which knives are my favorites,right? YOU BET!
Ray Smith
 
Nice story knife7knut. I got my start when I was going to kindergarten I had A little coke knife my dad gave me so I started taking it everywhere, I wasn't supposed to but I did anyway. Eventually I lost it, so I bought A SAK which I lost as well. I went through A dozen or so SAKs before I started carrying A Spyderco Endura which I lost. I've carried Kershaw, Case,Benchmade,CRKT and A few others. I've only had A few knives that I didn't use (damascus custom and An old case), I imagine thats why I lose so many. Now I carry an Emerson commander, Strider GB and A leatherman Wave. I think I've lost all the knives I'm allowed to lose in one lifetime so i'm not worried.
 
Larrin said:
I got in to knives from my daddy, Devin Thomas.
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Yeah, that'll do it.

For me it just grew from a life long love of knives, but mostly it was because I started hanging around this place.
 
My grandfather never did get the chance to give me any of his pocket knives. He died before he could give them to me. However, when he did pass on, my aunt's did not want to give them to me for they were scared that I might not know how to use them. You know what, I just took them all! My grandfather would show them to me and I would delight in the sight of those knives. I loved my gramps alot and knew he would have wanted me to have them for I was his only grandson that would sit and talk with him and ask to see his knives.

Anyhow, that's how I got started.

My first real knife purshase was a LifeKnife Rambo type knife I bought when I was about 12years old. I think it was about $40.00 dollars. I still have the knife.

That's about it.
 
I'm a newbie - well, I've always like knives but got my first decent blade when I was 15, close to 20 years ago. It was a (you wouldn't believe this :eek: ) Wenger SAK.

My uncle gave it to me - I carried it around all my boy scout outings until one day I dropped it into the sea. The thing corroded pretty badly and all the blades were stuck. I never pretty much handled knives again (other than kitchen knives for food prep and machetes for chopping up firewood and gadget-making as a scout) until.....2001.

One day in October 2001, I started surfing around the Net for japanese swords (my favourite and still outa reach) and discovered the Cold Steel website. You could imagine my eyes expanding out of their sockets....(ok, ok, I'm much wiser now... :p ). I promptly ordered the mini-tac and a sog seal pup at close to full retail from some ripoff discount house (I didn't discover newgraham yet)....I was also unsure about shipping and customs but thankfully, no problems there. At about that time, I discovered bladeforums.

That was really the defining moment in my knife knuttiness. Yes, bladeforums was the proverbial watershed moment. Of course, I soon learned about that better steel existed and progressed to spydercos and VG10.

These days, I'm more so a user than a collector (simply cos funds are scarce) but I have more than 2 knives, which is more than what I really really need, which is exactly 2 (one fixed and one folder). I've also handled and experienced Sebbies, Striders as well as customs.

You know I mentioned bladeforums as the turning point? Well, the other turning point for me was discovering the Spyderco sharpmaker (purchased after reading comments here on bladeforums). Once I learnt how to put a shaving sharp edge on knives, I knew there was no turning back.

So, I've never said this before but thank you Bladeforums, Spyderco and all you forumites who helped get me started on my knife collecting hobby ;) .

Now, can someone help me acquire a reasonably priced japanese nihonto tanto, a twohawks or daniel winkler tomahawk and a Neil Blackwood neck ninja please ? :D
 
I'm a gaget / tool kind of guy. If there is a tool out there or some fancy "doohickie" I'm buying it.
Knives are just an extension of that. To me they are tools and are way cool.
I think I really got hooked when I was at the fishing convention in Denver back in about 78.
There was a guy doing a demo in one of those booths.He was sharpening the uglyist knife but dang the thing was so ugly it was "cool" And boy it could cut.
The knife had this funny little hole in the blade so you could open one handed. And a clip so you didnt need a sheath. Now any guy who fishes knows you always got one hand on the rod, So a one hand opener was for me.
And the sharpener, well hell I just had to have me one of them babies. I got lots of hair to shave and newspaper to shred.
To this day, my wife still gets on me about leaving little pieces of cut paper all over the coffee table.
You know the knife and you know the sharpener, and I own a few of them now.
Jack
 
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