Looking for simpler times?

It's strange how I've grow up with all males carrying a knife of some sort, but it seems that on the rare occasion I see someone with a knife, it's typically a cheap flipper or a utility knife. It's sad how we've become a "throw away" nation. Our forebears hung onto things, maintained them, and used them until there was nothing left to use.
On that note, here's a hundred year old Barlow. Still functional, and shaving sharp.

 
My brother and friend tease me all the time because I have a mini griptillian and a paramilitary 2 that get passed up daily for my GEC 38 whittler. I'm 27 and I think it does remind me of being a kid. My dad and grandpas always did and still do carry a slipjoint. Maybe it's got to do with my respect for all three of them and wanting to emulate them. Maybe it's also that I don't think modern knives can match the beauty of a traditional. Watch guys will always say mechanicals have a "soul" unlike quartz watches. I find the argument similar. You can get super steels that rarely dull for the same price as many GEC knives in 1095. But something about the traditional patterns draw me in. I guess I find them to be more of a "mans" knife. Just my perspective on the topic, anyway.
 
trevora32 said:
...Maybe it's also that I don't think modern knives can match the beauty of a traditional. Watch guys will always say mechanicals have a "soul" unlike quartz watches. I find the argument similar. You can get super steels that rarely dull for the same price as many GEC knives in 1095...
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The watch analogy rings true for me as well. I wear mechanicals, one of which requires daily winding. The morning ritual of winding it while organizing my thoughts about the coming day, its tactile and satisfying presence through daily operations, the memories of all the highs and lows it has seen me through all bring me a more "relationship" versus ownership experience.

Traditional knives bring me into the same mindset, a kind of friendship versus ownership if you will. Always there for you and always ready to pitch in.

Too sappy? 😋 It's difficult to express.
O
 
Ocellatus said:
The watch analogy rings true for me as well. I wear mechanicals, one of which requires daily winding. The morning ritual of winding it while organizing my thoughts about the coming day, its tactile and satisfying presence through daily operations, the memories of all the highs and lows it has seen me through all bring me a more "relationship" versus ownership experience.

Traditional knives bring me into the same mindset, a kind of friendship versus ownership if you will. Always there for you and always ready to pitch in.

Too sappy? [emoji39] It's difficult to express.
O
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I wear an automatic, so it's cheating a bit, I know. But yes, I don't mind that it's not as accurate as a Quartz, just in the same way I don't mind that my 1095 isn't a super steel: it will patina, it will dull faster, BUT I can sharpen them easier [emoji23]
 
I think slipjoints appear to be gaining interest because I hang out here on the porch and the knives and ones that love them are before me everyday. Even though I live in the Appalachian Mountains here in the south I am finding it harder and harder to find good slipjoints locally. Only a few places still carry them and they have very limited stock of mostly Case and some Buck. When I was young and even in my 30's back in the 80's seems like they were everywhere with a great selection of both patterns and brands. I think that is because the market for them has and is grown smaller. There will always be collectors but I don't feel as the market for slippies is growing at all but rather the opposite.
 
How is it that something called "social" media could keep us from actually being social?
I think it's a change in the mentality of people as a collective group that has left us traditional knife carriers a dying breed. The average knife carrier I know has either a cheap plastic lockback that they got out of a bucket for $1.99 at the big box store, or a modern one handed knife that some dude used in an action movie and at this point I'm tickled just to see that. As someone who used a modern folder for a time, the advantages of "one handed" opening does not justify the thick blades that don't cut, in my own personal opinion. After a few months of carrying one of those modern folders the only "soul" it had earned from use was merely a faded finish.

Now, I romanticize every aspect of a traditional pocket knife so everything I say is jaded...
When I find myself at a campfire on a chilly fall evening, I'll pull out one of my knives that I've carried for years. I'll trace the scales with my thumb, the stag that has mellowed and softened with age after hours and miles of carry. I'll look at the well earned patina from hunting season after hunting season and I'll see the blade holding those memories with it's dark greyish, black hues. I'll find comfort in that knife as a worry stone, as I age, so does it. One day there will be a lot less blade left and what is left might be bent a little, but I'm sure at that point the years will have bent me too.

Will we one day call a tanto bladed, pocket clip adorned, souless black folder a grampa knife?
I hope not.
 
johnny twoshoes said:
How is it that something called "social" media could keep us from actually being social?
I think it's a change in the mentality of people as a collective group that has left us traditional knife carriers a dying breed. The average knife carrier I know has either a cheap plastic lockback that they got out of a bucket for $1.99 at the big box store, or a modern one handed knife that some dude used in an action movie and at this point I'm tickled just to see that. As someone who used a modern folder for a time, the advantages of "one handed" opening does not justify the thick blades that don't cut, in my own personal opinion. After a few months of carrying one of those modern folders the only "soul" it had earned from use was merely a faded finish.

Now, I romanticize every aspect of a traditional pocket knife so everything I say is jaded...
When I find myself at a campfire on a chilly fall evening, I'll pull out one of my knives that I've carried for years. I'll trace the scales with my thumb, the stag that has mellowed and softened with age after hours and miles of carry. I'll look at the well earned patina from hunting season after hunting season and I'll see the blade holding those memories with it's dark greyish, black hues. I'll find comfort in that knife as a worry stone, as I age, so does it. One day there will be a lot less blade left and what is left might be bent a little, but I'm sure at that point the years will have bent me too.

Will we one day call a tanto bladed, pocket clip adorned, souless black folder a grampa knife?
I hope not.
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Very well put, everyone here has really had some good things to say.

Myself, I find that for every reason I might want a modern knife, theres a traditional that fits the bill. Yes I get 1095 primarily, but I like it because it's quick and easy to sharpen. I don't mind stropping at the end of the day, it's relaxing. Some say that flicking open and closed a modern knife is therapeutic, but I think of it as more neurotic and a way to focus energy, not a way to calm down and relax like a worrystone provides.

Connor
 
I carry traditional patterns because they work better for the cutting jobs for which I carry a knife. Nostalgia has nothing to do with it.
 
I think with me, it's a mixture between being an admirer of simpler times, and sheer practicality.

Of course, since most of you have read the stories I write, you know on one level I am a hopeless romantic. Growing up reading Louis LaAmore and Raymond Chandler novels, and having lived in two different worlds of the Maryland Eastern shore and Washington D.C. I got to know first hand some interesting people. They were a huge influence on how I grew up thinking and doing things.

Then theres the sheer practical. Growing up carrying pocket knives with multiple blades, I got spoiled. When the Buck knife craze hit, I was probably the only man on the planet that looked att he Buck 110 with disbelief. Why in the good lords name would anyone want to carry a large heavy knife that weighted what a small boat anchor did, with only one single blade to boot?:eek: To my way of thinking, and those men of the liars circle that were outlaw heroes to me, not to mention Mr. Van who was a living god to the boys of the scout troop, a proper pocket knife had at least two blades or three, unless it was a scout knife, then it had four. And SAK's bring a whole bunch of sheet practicality into the picture with addd tools that really work at their intended task.

So with maybe a 50/50 mixture of romantic memories of past (and maybe better?) times, with the other 50% being as much utility that could packed into a small pocket sized bundle, my love of the traditional pocket knife like Bill Harding, Mr. Van. my dad all carried is what my choice is. To me the modern knife with it's fast one hand opening, and blade locks that can supper the weight of an Brinks armored car, is more sales gimmick than practical real world pocket knife. In my whole life I have never been in a quick draw situation with my pocket knife, nor had to pry up the hatch of a enemy tank. My knife is a cutting tool, that's all I need from it.

Hey, I'm old and stuck in the past, so that's my story. I'm traditional all the way.
 
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btmccutcheon said:
It's strange how I've grow up with all males carrying a knife of some sort, but it seems that on the rare occasion I see someone with a knife, it's typically a cheap flipper or a utility knife. It's sad how we've become a "throw away" nation. Our forebears hung onto things, maintained them, and used them until there was nothing left to use.
On that note, here's a hundred year old Barlow. Still functional, and shaving sharp.

Click to expand...

That old Barlow is beauteous! :thumbup:
 
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