Okay, I know I'm getting into old fart status by being a social security retirie, but I have this take on the issue.
What I always find interesting is how the younger crowd who never handled or used a slip joint makes statements on how they are dangerous, they fold up on you with no warning, and other such nonsense. It comes down to the tool user, not the tool. We live in a society that has taken up the blameless aproach to life; nothing is there fault, it must be the---- (fill in the blank for the cause of the moment)
I also find it intersting on how our grandfathers and thier grandfathers before them all the way back to the 1800's got by with simple slip joint pocket knives. This was back when people lived a rural lifestyle and really did need a knife a dozen times a day. The simple barlow and stockman and two blade jack was what they used. There were lockblades around even back in the 1800's. When John Wilkes Booth was killed at Garrets barn, he had a nice lockblade folding dagger on his person. Yet they were not popular with the common working man who had a job to do, be it farmer, cowboy, railroad engineer, or frieght wagon driver. One has to wonder why?
The person who really did need a one hand knife, didn't use them. The sailor. In the 1800's and even into the early 1900's, the square rigged sailing ship was a means of cargo transport. Climbing aloft in bad weather and hanging on for dear life was a scary experiance. I'm not sure I'd have the cajones for it. Yet the seamens knives were of a distinct pattern; a large slip joint with a sheepsfoot blade and beartrap spring. Some sailors simply used a sheath knife. In our fathers time, what was called the greatest generation, they went and fought a world war on many fronts, with such knives in thier pockets like TL-29's, the MLK knife that was simply an all steel scout knife, and some issue stockmen here and there. Oh they had some one hand knives issued out, they were called Ka-bars and MK1's.
Going to the modern pollitacly correct times we find ourselves living in, how many of us really even need much of a knife to get by. We carry all sorts of knives not out of need, but because we have an obsession about knives because we are knife knuts. Heck, most of our co-workers don't even carry a knife. If some of the non-knife knuts out there realize they do need a cutting tool now and then, they buy the smallest thing to drop in thier pockets that will go un-noticed till needed, like a keychain knife. Victorinox makes 9 million classics a year. 9 million a year. That's a hell of a lot of knives no matter how you cut it. Thats more knives probably than Spyderco and Benchmade put together.
I have always had a sneaking suspicion that this modern knife market is an artificially stimulated market, pushing so called new and better designs for the sole end of getting your money out of your wallet and into the manufacuters hands. The knife magaizines have the young budding knife buyers convinced that they really need the lasted whiz bang out the door, no matter if his lastest knife of the month is just a year old. There's the new steel of the month, blade design of the month, and so on. If I took everything to heart that the knife magazines printed, I just don't see how my grandad got by with a mere stockman. And one made out of a common grade rustable carbon steel at that. Simply amazing.
Hype is hype, no matter how it's packaged. Sure, the new knives are some pretty good knives, but they are not the be all excallibur the makers would have you believe. How hard is it too open mail or a UPS box, or do some light food duty on a hike out in the woods? Real world use, not mall ninja fantacies.
I gave some of the so called modern knives a try a while back. They were okay, exept for thick blade profiles and the lack of any versitility by having just one blade on tap. I guess growing up with knives that had a couple different blades and/or tools on them spoiled me. For 25 years I carried a Buck stockman and loved having a choice of blades on hand. This knife served me while I served in the army engineers on three different continents over 10 years, and later in a machine shop. It was used daily. Sometimes used hard. I never had it fold up on me, or not be enough knife for what I was doing.
Knives are knives, and we like them because of our obsession. But lets not get carried away by thinking the latest knives being pushed by proffit motivated companies are all that better than what our great grandfathers used.
It's the tool user that makes the difference, not the tool. I'd bet money that some run of the mill cave guy with his flake of obsidsidian could out do us skinning that deer, with us using the wonder knife of the month.
:thumbup:
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