Since I grew up with a knife in my pocket, I never thought of having them as anything much other than a necessary tool. I like and admire nice knives, and have always been interested in them. For many years though, my knife buying was to buy a nice knife that had great utility value to me. So I bought full sized stockmans and their like on rare occasion (hard to wear out those old CASE and Boker knives) when one caught my eye or something happened to the one I was using.
Got a little more money, then I bought knives I didn't carry every day. Bought some smaller knives since I was in an office from time to time. Now I had all the EDC knives I needed for any occasion.
I would guess that I went about 15 years or so without buying a knife. Then my job situation changed and I went back into a more hands on role in construction and I wanted a new knife I could beat the daylights out of and not worry about tearing up my traditionals. I was looking around to see what was out there, what was the going trend in quality beater knives, then the awful thing happened... I found this site!
I have bought more knives in the last 7 years than I bought or was gifted in my previous 50! No kidding, it is this site's fault!
After cleaning out my folk's house after Dad's passing, I realized that I have more knives sitting in my drawer than my father and grandfather owned together, maybe over their lifetimes. Both of them considered themselves "knife guys" because they both had about 10-12 knives at the end.
I took a look at how many of the knives I have that I use. Not that many. Favorites have emerged, old knives have stayed in the rotation, and I am back on utility value. I don't need fancy knives and other than looking at them I don't have any use for them. I feel bad that I have knives now that I bought because they were great knives (some of the Queen traditionals were irresistible) but have had them now for years and don't carry or use them. It came to me almost like an epiphany.... I will never, ever wear out a knife in my lifetime at this stage of my life, so why do I have so many?
I have shifted gears. Economics and common sense have taken hold and unless there is something I see that I want as a birthday or Christmas wish there won't be any more knives for a while. As mentioned above, I like gifting knives because in today's society the gift of a knife is pretty unusual. I have bought several Rough Rider knives in attempts to get folks interested in traditional patterns, and a couple of seeds have taken hold.
I will always appreciate a good knife, and I really like reading some of the forums here. But my old common sense, economics driven upbringing is coming back to haunt me. I simply don't need any more knives, and I need to use and appreciate the knives I have more. Last time this spell lasted 15 years, and no telling how long this will last. I have been happy using the knives I have for several months now, the only purchase being another good hard work knife so I won't tear up the traditional in my pocket.
The reason I put all this out there is that I have a couple of friends that love knives and have a box full of hunting knives. They are both in the same frame of mind! No more knives, and one of them has gone back to the knives he bought decades ago, just because he likes the knife and enjoys using it.
Robert
