Knife you disliked but ended up liking

L

LostCause

Joined
Apr 1, 2022
Messages
840
My dream knife used to be Warcraft Tanto, especially after seeing the "car hang" video.

However, the price was always steep and they were unavailable in my country...

I wanted 3V Recon Tanto but that got discontinued pretty fast, checked for 3V SRK's but they are sold out all the time...

One 3V knife that I really didn't want at all was 3V AK-47. The name, the handle, the tip... was all repulsive to me.

Anyways one AK47 knife appeared for good price as someone returned it over small dots of corrosion it came with... and as soon as I held it in my hand - I liked it. So I bought it.

It's my favorite knife to this day, I even went for custom sheath for it.


So I wonder if any of you have similar story 😄
 
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I remember quite a few years back when two private firms joined forces to buy an old Royal Palace in Nepal that had been converted into a Nepalese government military armory. The stockpile of obsolete weapons had been stored in that building for a century or two.
Anyhow, both of those firms that acquired that armory, had placed the antique Kukri knives that were in that armory up for sale.
At that time, I had no interest in adding one of them into my collection.
But, fast forward 20 or so years later, and I noticed they still had some! At that point I was ecstatic about getting a specimen and adding it to my collection. In fact, I wound up buying two complete kukri knives from them, (two different variants), and one "blade only" specimen, (missing it's handle).
I didn't care to get them a couple decades before, (they simply did not call out to me back then), but I'm very happy that I had a chance to rectify that decision 👍😁👍

20220514_135253.jpg20220514_132850_(1).jpg20220514_133001_(1).jpg

Btw, that old Royal Palace turned Arsenal was totally leveled during that awful earthquake that Nation had some years back.

The thing is, although it's contents had been totally neglected and many items were starting to deteriorate, the buying of those contents by the two firms, actually saved that history that had been stored within those walls. The items would have all been destroyed in that earthquake that made rubble of that building.
The irony is that many in Nepal made a big stink about those "National Treasures" being sold to the two firms from outside countries. But, the likelihood that Nepal would have done anything with those items before that major earthquake hit, was pretty much nil.
So, again, those Nepalese "National Treasures" being sold when they were, is likely the only reason that those treasures still exist.
Those contents may no longer be in Nepal, but they do exist in the hands of private and public museums, and in the hands of thousands of collectors throughout the world 😁
 
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PocketKnifeJimmy said:
I remember quite a few years back when two private firms joined forces to buy a Palace in Nepal that had been converted into a Nepalese government military armory. The stockpile of obsolete weapons had been stored in that building for a century or two.
Anyhow, both of those firms that acquired that armory, had placed the antique Kukri knives that were in that armory up for sale.
At that time, I had no interest in adding one of them into my collection.
But, fast forward 20 or so years later, and I noticed they still had some! At that point I was ecstatic about getting a specimen and adding it to my collection. In fact, I wound up buying two complete kukri knives from them, (two different variants), and one "blade only" specimen, (missing it's handle).
I didn't care to get them a couple decades before, (they simply did not call out to me back then), but I'm very happy that I had a chance to rectify that decision 👍😁👍

View attachment 1818084View attachment 1818085View attachment 1818086

Btw, that old Royal Palace turned Arsenal was totally leveled during that awful earthquake that Nation had some years back.

The thing is, although it's contents had been totally neglected and many items were starting to deteriorate, the buying of those contents by the two firms, actually saved that history that had been stored within those walls. The items would have all been destroyed in that earthquake that made rubble of that building.
The irony is that many in Nepal made a big stink about those "National Treasures" being sold to the two firms from outside countries. But, the likelihood that Nepal would have done anything with those items before that major earthquake hit, was pretty much nil.
So, again, those Nepalese "National Treasures" being sold when they were, is likely the only reason that those treasures still exist.
Those contents may no longer be in Nepal, but they do exist in the hands of private and public museums, and in the hands of thousands of collectors throughout the world 😁
Click to expand...
Man, those kukris are just awesome 😍
 
My current EDC came to dominate my pocket via a roundabout route. I got my first Okapi in a small sundries shop in the Horn of Africa in 1990 or 1991. I didn’t like the cheap-sounding noise the ring made, and wound some thread around it to try to dampen the noise. It didn’t have a country of origin stamped on it (must have been made soon after the move to South Africa in the late 1980s), and I always wondered about it. I kept it as a curiosity but never carried it, and it was stolen during a break-in in 2003.

In about 2016 I finally overcame my fear of online shopping and ordered another one from a seller in South Africa. Then I found that the plastic-handled versions (and some other models as well) were available VERY cheaply from various online dealers here in the US%**. I started buying them and making my own wooden handles for them, and replaced the hated ring with a leather strip. I rotated through these re-handled ones for my EDC until maybe the middle of 2020 when I started mostly just carrying the original moon-and-stars version. At some point I decided that I didn’t mind the noise the ring made after all, and it made it easy to close one-handed, so now I am back to essentially the same knife I started with some 30 years ago.

**Edit:
Sadly, the only ones you can get now are either fakes, or ridiculously overpriced…
 
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Spyderco folders. When I first saw them, they looked ugly and I disliked them very much. After I got the first, more followed. Today, the ones with the big hump on the spine (Police 4 is a good example) still looks not very appealing to me, but as users they are mostly great.
 
The Ontario Rat 1. I thought it was ugly and the blade/handle ratio sucked. It was also very cheap looking.

But then I saw a coworker use one to pry open crates and break apart pallets and things like that. The knife actually held up to the abuse and was still in good shape after everything he put it through. So I ended up getting one and I like it a lot.

Mine is in AUS8, but it must have a great heat treatment because I could swear it performs closer to 154CM or vg10 or something like that.
 
I didn't care for Rick Hinderer's XM series until I had one in my hand. Now I own many.

RUVLS6X.jpg
 
My little SOG Tenascious...
When I first got it: the action was uninspiring, and there seemed to be too many rough edges.

But it has smoothed out enough to count as being pretty good. I've also figured out the best way to grab that little sucker!
 
sharp_edge said:
Spyderco folders. When I first saw them, they looked ugly and I disliked them very much. After I got the first, more followed. Today, the ones with the big hump on the spine (Police 4 is a good example) still looks not very appealing to me, but as users they are mostly great.
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Same story.
I thought they all looked the same and all hype.

A exclusive manix 2 looked nice to me and I bought it.
Now I can't seem to put anything else in my pocket. Seems i only carry knives with a spyder emblem.
u2DhUvA.jpeg
 
Skar said:
Same story.
I thought they all looked the same and all hype.

A exclusive manix 2 looked nice to me and I bought it.
Now I can't seem to put anything else in my pocket. Seems i only carry knives with a spyder emblem.
u2DhUvA.jpeg
Click to expand...
Same here, Spyderco is far and away the most knives I own. I have... 29 Spyderco knives, the next up is Cold Steel with 7 knives.
 
The RAT 1 and 2 as well as any Spyderco. Simply the RATs looked weird with the way the blade meets the frame, and the Spyderco hole with its strange triangular shaped blade.

I had the RAT 1 as a back up blade when camping and the RAT 2 as backup to my EDC that stays with my bag.

I only started to really use the RAT2 when I misplaced my Elementum. I fell in love with the action, size and weight.

I gave into buying a Spyderco because it met almost all my requirements for a work folder while exposed to wet and dirty conditions. And honestly, I love the spydie flick.
 
The only one I can think of are Spyderco knives in general, they were always kind on ugly to me, but I now appreciate how good a knife they are at doing what one wants a knife to do. Funny thing though is I own 6 now with no two in the same steel, which one of things I like best about them now is the quality of their steel and their willingness to try different types.
 
I don't think there's a knife I bought that I hated and later liked because I've never bought a knife that I didn't like at the outset.

So, I have the opposite problem of buying a knife that I "thought" I liked but later ended up selling it because I found out that I didn't.

Quite a few of those . . .
 
one word...fugly
that bugged me.
grows on you though.
a proverbial "don't judge
a book by its cover".
admittedly it works great
for what its cut out for.
a sure favorite choice for certain now!

The Cricket™ Stainless shown open and closed
 
Cold Steel in general.

I’d long considered them a cheap brand and even subconsciously turned my nose up to the tri-ad lock when it first came out, assuming it was just another lock gimmick.

Fast forward a few years to 2015 and I’d read more positive reviews, saw some of the spine-whack/weight tests on the triad, and was able to handle a few, and finally decided to try one out.

I got a Tuff Lite and it changed my opinion of Cold Steel quite a bit. I began thinking of them more as an affordable brand than a cheap brand, and even started to see Lynn as less obnoxious and more genuine and charming.

Since then I’ve bought multiple CS knives for myself, family and friends.

Not recently though as I’m still waiting to see where the new owners take the company. Not super hopeful. 😔
 
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