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In the beginning...

RPM

RPM

Joined
Oct 6, 1998
Messages
31
I thought it would be fun to see what it was that started different peoples intrest in knives...was it a generation thing (father to son), was it occupation?, or did it develop from some other hobby.
Here is my brief story...
I have been a machinist for nearly 20 years and now manage a job shop here in So Cal doing work for the aerospace industry. I have always enjoyed working metal using different machinery, cnc mills, lathes and the like. One day the owner showed me a Benchmade auto he had...I think thats when it clicked, excuse the pun, I have been hooked ever since. I really appreciate the fine work done by all the different makers, production and custom. Thanks in advance for your stories.
 
I guess my interest started about 25 years or so ago.

I was given a pocket knife and for some unknown reason, I was intrigued with it. From then I started looking at more & more knives. I would pick one up here and there when one caught my eye. At that point I think I was hooked.

I got a job which I needed a good knife. SO, the hunt for a perfect knife was born. My first catalog was Smoky Mountain Knife Works. That did it for me. Now I really had the bug.

I started out in the $ 20.00 range and slowly started moving up in price. Now I suppose I am in the hundreds of dollars range. Takes a toll on my wallet!

By the next decade, I was consistantly getting in the mail 6-8 knife mail order catalogs. Then my present distributor stepped in. Now, I have even been purchasing knives through the internet if my distributor doesn't sell them.

I always want to add to my collection for enjoyment as well as always improving my every day carry knife, too.

Still deep down I don't know why I am so intrigued with knives. I guess I will really never know!

< Doug >

Knife collectors are sharp people!


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[This message has been edited by Mark W Douglas (edited 22 December 1998).]
 
My dad had small boats the whole time I was growing up, we went way the hell out to sea (Pacific, near San Francisco) in not enough hull all the time.

Knives for fish is a natural, but cutting lines in an emergency first caused my interest in "cultery speed-draw". That turned tactical only later...

Jim March
 
Though I am only recently getting interested in Knives in a serious way, I was started a long time ago.

My father was a police officer, wehn I was about 6 or 7 he was assigned to an OSI and was tasked with working with the DEA. He worked undercover and went on a lot of raids. He would frequently bring me home "souvenirs" from the BGs. I still have a machete in a very ornate leather sheath he brought me when I was about 10, along with countless other pocket knives and fixed blades, mostly cheap junk.
My mom hated my knife collection, but I thought it was pretty cool.
Obviously, to LEOs out there, this was a long time ago, when the rules about procedure and evidence were a little looser.

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-Essayons
 
My first knife came when I was 6 or 7. It was a yellow scaled "trout" knife. "If you are old enough to catch fish then you can sure clean them" was my dad's statement at the time, and the knife came from him.
That knife taught me that a blade was a working tool and not a toy.
A year or so later I was visiting my uncle Paul and we built a knife from scratch.
He lived on an old gold mine in Climax Colorado, where he had an old-fashioned shop, forge and all the metal around that you could want. My knife started as an old drill rod which was used to bore the dynamite holes. I ran the bellows (crank blower) while he beat the impurities out of the glowing metal until it wouldn't spark anymore. When the knife was glowing, he would speak of its soul just as it were alive.
I spent weeks with a file shaping the knife under his supervision (hey, it kept me away from the tunnel). Then I selected some natural spruce tree core and carved the grips. Then it was ground by him, heated one last time and hot blued.
After assembly, we stoned the edge razor sharp.
Later that fall, I took my first buck with uncle Paul, and used my knife to butcher it.
I think I hunted 3 or 4 more falls and always used my knife, then he was gone.
The scabbard for this knife is fabricated out of an old blasting cap tin wrapped in deer hide.
I still have this knife and am very proud of it.

I continued to seek out knives before I could drive as I remember riding the bus downtown to the pawn shops to buy "top secret switchblades".
I quit knives when I could buy guns, and also gathered a good collection of them. I lived in the woods and could shoot anytime on my own property.
When the girls were born, my priorities shifted to more urgent things. I quit buying knives and guns for other things.
I'm now a city dweller with a lot of locked away guns that seldom get used. I'd get them out from time to time and clean and play with them. That was a bit distressing to the girls, so that even tapered off.
About 3 years ago I stumbled upon an Italian switchblade page and was hooked again.
Two years ago I discovered domestic autos and coil springs, and a year ago I discovered one-hand folders.
That's my story in a nutshell.
Later, Bill

 
With me it is the phallic thing.....sort of compensating.

Nah, just joking.
Actually, my first recollection of lusting after a knife was when I was about five years of age and saw my first Tarzan movie (starring the REAL Tarzan...Johnny Weismuller). I can remember swinging on (and breaking) a wet-weather clothes-line in the lean-to laundry. I was lucky I did not impale myself on the table knife in the belt.
My first proper knife was a small ,two-blade pen knife with tortoise scales....I was probably about six and a neighbour lady with an antique shop gave it to me. I lost it very quickly. I have come to suspect, though, that my parents actually "lost" it for my own good. Must ask my mother if she remembers.
Geez.....that was over 50 years ,a couple of hundred knives and a bucket of blood ago !


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Brian W E
ICQ #21525343


 
I can't really tell you why I love knives so much. I mean, I have always admired a nice knife and I would always check them out in any store I would visit. I have always had a knife but until I got hooked I would never indulge in more than one of them. I would pick up a new Kershaw about every year.

At first glance I would probably be the last person someone would expect to be a Knife Knut; I never made one, I'm not very mechanically inclined, I work in an office and I don't hunt. I do fish and can fillet large Alaskan salmon with the best of them.

I also was in school forever and have been so busy with my job that I didn't allow myself a hobby....then I saw this 20 year old Kershaw Trooper in a pawn shop and bought it for $175. Just like that. Very unlike me and I felt something well up in me and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

You know you're hooked on knives when you watch a movie like "The Edge" and you completely ignore Elle McPherson so you can concentrate on that great knife Anthony Hopkins was using. My wife asked me if I was staring at Elle. "Nope, I'm trying to figure out what knife that is."

Does anybody know what knife that was, BTW?

I'm hooked
Regards,

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Greg Mete
Kodiak Alaska
KnifeKnutt@aol.com

[This message has been edited by Kodiak PA (edited 22 December 1998).]
 
I guess I'm the exception here... I've been interested in firearms for about a decade now. I was at a gun/knife show this past August checking out the latest gun stuff when my father-in-law said that he wanted to check out a knife booth. He had lost an old Gerber folder that he had for a few years and wanted to replace it. He ended up getting a Spyderco Delica. I bought a small Smith & Wesson SWAT folder myself. Now $1300 worth of knives later... The rest is history.

I bought a BM Leopard Cub and a Leatherman Micra for the pop-in-law for Christmas. I'm gonna do everything in my power to get him hooked on knives. I figure since he's the one who started this mad disease that I have, he deserves to part with a little of his own money too.
wink.gif


Kelly
 
I remember what got me hooked. My dad gave me a copy of a Buck 110 he had made when I was in the 8th grade. I carried it wherever I went, including school. You`d be expelled forever nowadays. Sadly, in my youthful exuberence I broke 1/10 of an in. off the end of the lock & ruined it. Dad never got around to fixing my 1st knife , but if I close my eyes I can still hear it. Snap! Snap! Snap!

[This message has been edited by Carver (edited 22 December 1998).]
 
When I was 10 or 11 I was with my grandfather in his woodworking shop. I found a small box with 7 or 8 knives in it. When my grandfather saw what I had he told me to go ahead and pick one out for myself. I remember picking a slim two blade slip joint folder. I thought that knife was so cool. I carried it with me all the time. Wish I knew what happened to it. Maybe it'll show up again some day. Hope so.

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Ciao

MM
 
I became a knife nut when I was in my early teens. I bought a Buck fixed blade to take on Boy Scout outings. This was my first exposure to quality cutlery, and at the time I didn't know there was anything better. Certainly none of my friends had anything better, and I soon acquired a reputation for having the sharpest knife around. I enjoyed this respect very much, and I enjoyed the special feeling of preparedness that comes from knowing you have more knife than you are likely to ever need. Eventually I became interested in military history, and my interest in knives moved in the direction of replica Fairbairn-Sykes commando daggers, brass knuckle trench knives, K-Bar F/U's and that sort of thing. Then I discovered the Gerber Mark I and Mark II. Expensive stuff on my yard work earnings and embezzled lunch money. Then I went away to college, leaving the bulk of my knife collection home in a drawer at my parents' house. I was never without a knife in my pocket or on my belt, and my primary daily carry blade throughout the 1980's was a Gerber FS2, and then a LST. After a fifteen-year hiatus from this craziness I discovered multi-tools and began exploring the rec.knives newsgroup and other internet sources to learn more about them. I kept seeing references to the AFCK (whatever that is!) and Endura and Delica, and my, how things have changed! I got hooked all over again and here I am, practically living in here with a guy named Mike Turber and his pal Spark, who, contrary to what you might believe, is not the family dog.

I need help.

David Rock

[This message has been edited by David Rock (edited 23 December 1998).]
 
I have had a lifelong affair with knives. Up here is is not the best idea to not have a knife, and as a child, my family was constantly camping and fishing, and later on, hunting.

My first knife was a three bladed Case folder that was given to me by my step-dad's father. After an incident in which my knife folded up on my fingers, and gave me a nasty scar that I wear proudly to this day, my Step-Dad decided that I'd better get a lockback.

I got a buck Prince. That knife served me well into the eighth grade, when I gave it to a friend as a gift. Various fixed blades kept me pointy until the late eighties, until the Spyderco craze move north. I found that I liked, no..LOVED pocket clips ..but all I could afford was a gerber LST..Probably the best $26.99 that I ever spent..I still have that knife...worn to a nub, and Dremeled beyond recognition...but lovely as ever.

For the past three years or so I have carried a SOG Autoclip, heavily modified to suit me, but it has been one helluva knife. I must have snapped it open a million times, and it has developed play, but no more than many knives have from the factory. I came to here in search of a replacement for this veteran, but to no avail. Lately I have been carrying a VG to which I have attached a pocket clip. It carries well, but I feel that a smaller knife is more suitable for day to day use..

Oh well, I am babbling again..but I am having FUN!


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Off in search of Knirvana....yek



 
Hello every one!! What started my interest in knives?? -i was born... Have a nice X-mas"!!
Later, 2Sharp

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Stay sharp, ride hard, watch six, Keeps ya´alive!!




 
I got interested with knives through my co-worker Mark (Doug), thanks a lot ^(*#.

Now it seems I am always broke! Every time he gets a new knife, he shows it off to me so much that I get envious and have to have one, too. At least I only buy one at a time, not like him buying 3 at a time!

I too can't figure out what my fasination is with knives. I guess I am always in search of the perfect knife. Just about the time I think I have found it, out comes another knife to buy. Man, I hate it when that happens!

Steele

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one of the many things about my mexican-american culture that i am proud of is the knife-carrying ways of many mexican-american men. when my immediate family and i went to south texas (rio grande valley) to visit, i would always become enamored with my grandfather's and other male relative's knives. not a day went by where my grandfather did not sit out on the porch and whittle with his pocketknife. with them, it wasn't so much the type of knife you had - but that you had a knife, that mattered. it wasn't long before i would start to get case and boker pocket knives, not to mention many pocketknives from mexico. it was always the highlight of my visits to sit out on the porch with my grandfather and whittle with him. he passed away a while back. i was talking with my uncle the other day (my grandfather's son) and he said that the next time i came down, he would give me my grandfather's old knife collection. i could not possibly be prouder!
now i have moved on to tactical folders and fixed blades. i always wonder what my grandfather would think if he saw an AFCK or any such knife. since he spoke no english, he was kind of in his own world in this country. he never drove a car, and didn't get out much after he retired from the vaquero (cowboy) life. he never even knew these kinds of things (big, tactical folders) existed. i learned my lesson well from him. he never actually told me, but i got the message - always have a knife with you.

marco
 
It is very simle and straight forward.

IT'S A GUY THING!!

I have never met a guy who did not have at least a passing interest in knives. We just happen to be more affected than most.

Happy Holidays.

Derek

[This message has been edited by Derek (edited 23 December 1998).]
 
I always liked knives and the like...but wasnt really into them...until I got my first *quality* knife. The rest is history.

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Mouse Assassins inc.

 
I first got interested in knives when i was maybe 9 or 10, my best friends dad use to take us night fishing every other weekend during the summer,anyway he always had a cool Case knife that he would let us mess with,Cleaned many a catfish in those days,brings back good memorys!

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It all started when I was maybe 6 (or something like that, can't remember for sure) and The Talk among my group of friends were "Rambo-knives". They were just survival knives with a hollow handle and a compass in the pommel and I HAD to have one. And finally, after weeks of begging, my mother bought me one and I felt like the king of the world.
smile.gif
I got some more knives as gifts after that, but I decided to start collecting about two years ago, when I walked past a knife store and looked at all the knives in the window.

Jani
 
I didn't actually start being interested in knives - for me it was more of a societal thing. I grew up in the South immediately after WWII, and if you were male, you carried a knife. So I carried a knife through grammar school, various ones because they had a tendency to get lost. When I was in High School in the 50s, I'd guess 75% of the males carried a knife, and I NEVER saw a knife used in an agressive fashion - that would have been as bad as hitting a girl, and you'd NEVER live it down! Generally we'd carry little 2 or 3 blade Cases or Sears knives.
Except for short, unusual periods thereafter (basic training, for example), I've carried a pocket-knife ever since. Also alway carried a short fixed-blade when camping/hunting. It was just the thing to do - I'd have as soon left my rifle at home as my knife when deer hunting.
A few years ago, my son went to a knife and gun show and purchased a hand-made knife. He paid OVER $100 FOR THAT KNIFE! Well, I knew that was WAY too much to pay for a KNIFE, but I didn't say anything - I just went to the next show with him, to 'protect' him from those avaracious knife sellers. Unfortunately, several of them had some REALLY good looking knives . . .
Started talking to some of the makers at the shows. They showed remarkable patience with one who thought the peak of the knife-maker's art was a Buck or Gerber. Got some books. Found out that there were better materials than 'genuine surgical steel'. Went to a 'real' knife show. Oops - that way lies madness. Major infection.
Went to the Knifemaker's Guild show. BAAAAAD move. Got a nice little one-hander from A. T. Barr (he made ma a deal I couldn't refuse). This is NOT the perfect knife, but I'm still looking for one that's better as an everyday carry piece.
I now feel that a $100 knife is a 'nice little throwaway', and I may even carry one part-time since I don't really care much what happens to it. Discovered damascus. Developed methods of secreting money that my wife doesn't know about, to feed my habit. By the way, does anyone know of some sort of '5 step' program toward recovery?
Now using Delorme AAA Map-n-Go mapping software to find a cheap place to stay next July in New Orleans, so I can spend less on housing and more on knives at the next Knifemaker's Guild show.

"Hi. My name's Marvin, and I am a knife-a-holic".

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