Is the fascination with patina a built-in human condition?

Macchina

Macchina

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One of the things that drew me from modern folders to slip joints years ago was the look and soft feel that slipjoints take on over the years. Modern folders can certainly look beautiful after some use (I think of my Sebenzas that have the chamfer edges worn smooth) but most synthetic materials wear till they are worn out and thrown out. Most anything coated or painted loses value as it wears. The natural and oxidizing materials found on more traditional knives (slipjoints and fixed blades) tend to wear in a wear in a way that we can seldom describe but often makes they more personal and desirable to the owner. Things that are monolithic throughout can become more interesting as they wear: wood gets a groove, brass will have its edges worn off, and steel will pit and darken revealing a depth it didn’t have before but remain just as sharp at new steel.


Lately a lot of people force these patinas and this bothered me at first (like torn jeans do) but I started thinking the desire for a patina on something made of natural materials is possibly more built into our brains than we may think at first glance. I have been known to not rinse a knife immediately after cutting an apple from time to time... We only have to look at the Japanese term Wabi (the acceptance of natural beauty or imperfections from something handmade) Sabi (the rustic traits an item takes on over time) to see it is an old idea. Many old books include a description of a person’s knife as being heavily worn, because it communicates a lot about the person carrying the knife. Moving beyond knives: I recently toured an old log cabin museum from about 100 years ago and everything in this place was very clear that the owners of the objects appreciated something worn more than something new. This was a rather well-off man’s house and he choose to build things from tree roots and repeatedly use them for the sake of liking something natural over something you could buy. Things like a worn pipe, old carving tools he would pull the handles off of and replace with worn antlers, and of course his well-used knives. He could have replaced any of these things or built new ones but instead he would retain a handle from a carving tool (and replace the blade when worn down) because the handle was worn from his hand.


I wonder if this nostalgia for the natural wear of items goes back through all of history? The term Wabi Sabi is certainly older than American history. I understand most people in history used a couple tools their whole lives because they had to, but do you think these people appreciated the wear on their tools? The wear they put there or even their ancestors put there? Did ancient natives get a bit of joy seeing the worn groove in their long-bows from many arrows being shot or would an ancient hunter use the bone leather flesher his father gave him because it was worn smooth even though he was surrounded by new animal bones? What do you think?


Scout and Gransfors.jpeg
 
I think it may well be something in our genes that draws us to the older and used things.
Most people like antiques, and highly value them, even if they were not handed down in the family for generations.
When we use thm, they may remind us of our grandparents or great-great grandparents, because they used something like it, of not the same one.
(one of my cast iron skillets I inherited from my grandmother, who inherited it from her grandmother. (yes, I did get to meet and know my great-great grandmother. I beleive I was 5 or 6 when she passed.)) It is one of my most used skillets.
There is just something special about using something that is well used and cared for.
A knife, axe, saw, hammer, or whatever, that we have used for years, or perhaps that we both remember our parents or grandparents using for every day tasks, and that we have been using for years, bring back memories.
I don't believe our inborn desire to connect with our past or history, if you will, is a new phenomenon.
Natural materials draw us to them. They may wear or become weathered, but they have a warmth synthetic materials can never match. I think in the long term, a natural material also remains more pleasing to the eye. As they wear, they wear to fit us. The hickory axe or hammer handle you've used for decades, for example, feels better in your hands than one with a new handle.
I think those that used the same two or three tools their entire lives, may have done so because they were more comfortable with them than they would have been with a new one, even if they could afford to get a new one. Just look at all the pocket knives that had their blades sharpened down to "toothpicks", after years of use. :)
 
There is something natural about putting your personal mark on something over a period of time, something that makes it more personal and more special. Every mark tells a story, and those memories are fun to pass along to others.
 
While old, patina-ed tools look great, the best patina is the one you create as you use a tool.
A tool will break in, according to your hands on it, and you in turn get to know what to expect from that tool, when you use it.
The patina on tools belonging to others, reminds us of how reliable our own broken-in tools are, and I think therein is the main attraction!
 
I don't know know why I love it but I do.

Here's a tool handle that was new a couple years ago, but now has patina and wear from my use.

And here's some brass and leather that was once new.

I think one thing I like about patina is that once it's there it tends to hide wear, especially if it was there when I got it.
I can use something without worrying, plus in general it just looks good so I can't wait for my knife...ect to start looking good.
 
I think for me a part of the appeal is that I have developed certain signs of natural wear over the years, but am still working (nearly) as well as I did new. I find that tools that reflect my state of being have become more appealing as I age. I am also even more impressed by tools that pre-date me by some years.

The thread brings to mind my grand dad saying to me with a wink and a smile, at every birthday I shared with him, "Bet you can't imagine being this old." I realize each time I handle the old knife he left me, that the smile was for the little kid I was at the time, but that wink was for the old guy I am becoming....
 
I do like the looks of an old, well-used and well-maintained tool. However, only if the item in question earned its appearance over time. If someone takes a new hammer and "antiques" it, then no. Same with the pre-distressed jeans. It's like stolen valor. If you want your jeans to look all worn out and ripped up, buy them new and blue, wear them for a couple of years and lay your motorcycle down on a gravel road a couple of times.
 
I am still a greenhorn with this hobby. Still, I am finding traditional patterns made with modern SS more to my taste. Not necessarily the latest super steel, but a proven steel with a good HT. It's not necessarily the patina, which can be quite pleasing, but the way it can turn to rust seemingly in the blink of an eye, that's a turn off.
 
Patina carries no special appeal to me. My first knife, which I adopted sometime around the age of 6-8 was a carbon steel bladed knife which was older than I by quite a good deal.
But my second knife, given to me on my 12th birthday in 1964, was a little Schrade stockman with stainless blades. I never looked back.

One of my specialties at work is corrosion and its prevention in aircraft.
To me, patina is just another form of rust. Something to be avoided.

If some folks like it, it's fine by me as long as they don't blindly assume that everyone has to love it.
 
I guess I can appreciate the patina on old tools or a knife ... like the first I was ever given ... it was mine and I carried it for years and once in awhile I still will but I baby it now out of sentimental reasons.

But I know with the few exceptions of something like that which had been used before me ... I find I don't feel the need to force a patina but I do find it appealing to watch as a new knife wears and developes its own character and all the memories formed making that patina or wear on them.
 
I realized I didn't post pictures of any carbon steel with patina.

This imperial Barlow had most of the patina when I got it

This peanut was new old stock and did not

This imperial H6 had this patina when I got it.

The Barlow only saw light use, so it doesn't have many stories to tell that aren't with me .

The peanut has no stories to tell other than how good the chicken was I've cut with it :D

And the h6 belt knife has many many stories to tell that I can only dream about.
How many memories we're made by the kid who owned it, camping with their father or grandfather, maybe when they got it being their first fixed blade, or maybe even skinning their first game.
Plus the story I could tell about how I had to replace the scales because I dropped it on the shop floor breaking them.
I've also got my great grandfathers axe which has many dings and gouges in the steel that I'm sure each have a specific story to tell that I'll never be able to hear.
 
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Natural materials and carbon steel age like live things. And as live beings, a bit of care during lifetime brings them strenght and "maturity". They are able to ripening through time, while sintetics & stainless steel won't get worst, neither get BETTER ;)

Of course brand new objects of a beautiful design, fit and finish, are tought stuff to start getting scuffed with no regrets, and that's why modern materials appeal to people as well.
 
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Macchina said:
One of the things that drew me from modern folders to slip joints years ago was the look and soft feel that slipjoints take on over the years. Modern folders can certainly look beautiful after some use (I think of my Sebenzas that have the chamfer edges worn smooth) but most synthetic materials wear till they are worn out and thrown out. Most anything coated or painted loses value as it wears. The natural and oxidizing materials found on more traditional knives (slipjoints and fixed blades) tend to wear in a wear in a way that we can seldom describe but often makes they more personal and desirable to the owner. Things that are monolithic throughout can become more interesting as they wear: wood gets a groove, brass will have its edges worn off, and steel will pit and darken revealing a depth it didn’t have before but remain just as sharp at new steel.


Lately a lot of people force these patinas and this bothered me at first (like torn jeans do) but I started thinking the desire for a patina on something made of natural materials is possibly more built into our brains than we may think at first glance. I have been known to not rinse a knife immediately after cutting an apple from time to time... We only have to look at the Japanese term Wabi (the acceptance of natural beauty or imperfections from something handmade) Sabi (the rustic traits an item takes on over time) to see it is an old idea. Many old books include a description of a person’s knife as being heavily worn, because it communicates a lot about the person carrying the knife. Moving beyond knives: I recently toured an old log cabin museum from about 100 years ago and everything in this place was very clear that the owners of the objects appreciated something worn more than something new. This was a rather well-off man’s house and he choose to build things from tree roots and repeatedly use them for the sake of liking something natural over something you could buy. Things like a worn pipe, old carving tools he would pull the handles off of and replace with worn antlers, and of course his well-used knives. He could have replaced any of these things or built new ones but instead he would retain a handle from a carving tool (and replace the blade when worn down) because the handle was worn from his hand.


I wonder if this nostalgia for the natural wear of items goes back through all of history? The term Wabi Sabi is certainly older than American history. I understand most people in history used a couple tools their whole lives because they had to, but do you think these people appreciated the wear on their tools? The wear they put there or even their ancestors put there? Did ancient natives get a bit of joy seeing the worn groove in their long-bows from many arrows being shot or would an ancient hunter use the bone leather flesher his father gave him because it was worn smooth even though he was surrounded by new animal bones? What do you think?


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I will add that children, including myself as a child generally do not appreciate older well worn things because they have no reference to what that wear means.

That said, some things wear handomely and some don't. The Liberty Bell crackis an example often cited imperfection that gives the object its value.
 
All I see with patina is an unwillingness to care for your equipment. As far as worn in look, I have been carrying the same SAK for a few years. The main blade no longer has a mirror finish, scratches whirl around it and a comfortable dullness that says this knife is being used. Only on stainless. On carbon steel patina appears on safe queens in high humid climates. I'll take dull used stainless look over patina any day.
Maybe dull isn't the right word, the blade still shines but you wouldn't use it for a mirror like when it was brand new.
 
bt93 said:
All I see with patina is an unwillingness to care for your equipment. As far as worn in look, I have been carrying the same SAK for a few years. The main blade no longer has a mirror finish, scratches whirl around it and a comfortable dullness that says this knife is being used. Only on stainless. On carbon steel patina appears on safe queens in high humid climates. I'll take dull used stainless look over patina any day.
Maybe dull isn't the right word, the blade still shines but you wouldn't use it for a mirror like when it was brand new.
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I think it's the mirror polish that throws me off with knives. With carbon blades, the patina will cover the mirror polish. Seeing an 80 year old SS knife with beautifully worn handles and a mirror polished (scratched or not) blade looks unfitting to me. I wish more makers would leave the "As Ground" look to their blades.
 
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