Lost and Found. Lets hear your Story

'Lost' my Spyderco UKPK (an anniversay gift) in the spring. Searched high and low for it but could not find it. The truck, the house, work, daysacks etc just could not find it in the summer.
In the autumn I finally found it. The clip had been caught in the elastic loop which hangs free outside of a down jacket, and it was just hanging free. It had obviously not been noticed when I took the jacket off to hang it up after its last use in the spring.
 
The knife pictured below was a prized possession when I was 11 years old. It's a Valor brand lock back. It wasn't my first locking knife, but I regarded it as my first "quality" locking knife, and I carried it everywhere. It was beautiful when I first got it, it originally had mirror polished bolsters, and gleaming white micarta handles held on by polished brass pins. I lost it twice, away from home, but I recovered it both times-

1. Short story, I was sitting in a big cushioned/padded recliner chair at a friends house (the same friend who sold me the knife) and the knife must have slipped out of my pocket and down into the crevices of the chair. When I got home I eventually discovered it wasn't in my pocket. I freaked. I had no idea where it was or where it could be. I was heartbroken for about a week, then my friend called me and told me his dad found it in the chair. I was overjoyed.

The dark part of the story- my friend, who just happened to be in the room when his dad found it, told me that his dad was going to keep the knife, but my friend convinced him to give it back. Good friend, lousy dad.

2. Long story. My sister was in her high school band. Such an activity is expensive. The high school provided each band member with a big wooden box located somewhere in the city for people to discard their old newspapers into. The newspapers were then collected by the band kids and taken to the recycling center for money, which they used to help pay their band expenses. My sisters box was in a large apartment complex next to the trash dumpsters. Each Saturday my dad and I would collect the contents of my sisters box and take the paper to the recycling center. My job was to climb into the box as the level got low and lift the papers out to my dad. How I got stuck with this task instead of my sister is a different matter.

Some of the newspapers were tied up in large bundles with rope or string. I used my little Valor knife to cut the papers free so they could be more easily lifted out of the box. On one occasion, while I was using the knife, I set the knife down on a piece of wood supporting the inside the box. When we finished emptying the box I forgot about my knife. It wasn't until we got home, and I discovered my knife wasn't in my pocket that I realized where I had left it.

I begged my dad to drive me back to get it but he refused. He didn't want to drive across town and back again. So I had to wait an entire week until the next Saturday when we would be going back to that box. Needless to say, it was a rough week for me, thinking of my prized possession just sitting there and me not being able to do anything about it. There was certainly no guarantee the knife would still be there when we went back a week later. After all it was in plain sight, and anyone depositing newspapers in the box could easily see my bright, shiny knife. It would be right in front of them.

The following Saturday, after a LONG week, we arrived at the apartment complex. I opened the car door and ran to the box. I lifted the hinged lid of the box, and there was my knife, right where I left it, just waiting for me. I was overjoyed, and relieved. The box was full of papers, so clearly a lot of people at the complex had opened the box during the week.

Technically, I guess my second story is more of a "separation" than a "loss", since I knew right where the knife was the whole time. I just couldn't get to it for a week.

Eventually the white micarta handles turned an ugly yellow, and the brass pins corroded and leeched green corrosion into the handles, so I replaced the handles with some plastic I had, smooth on one side, textured on the other. I attached them with super glue, and they're still on there tight after all these decades.

I'm 51 now, and I still have the knife. As I think about it, it's the oldest knife I own. The knife saw so much use throughout my youth that the lock wore out, so now it's basically a slip joint.

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Last summer I went out for a motorcycle ride all day and during the ride home on the highway, I just reached down to feel my small carbon fiber scale Sebenza 21 insingo clipped to my pocket and realized it wasn't there. My heart immediately sank and I began patting my thighs to see if it slipped into my pocket. Nothing. I pulled over and checked all my pants pockets and jacket pockets but it wasn't in any of them.

I jumped back on the bike and rode right across the median and retraced every single mile I rode that day, scanning the road from shoulder to shoulder. Stopped at the gas station I fueled up at and checked the area around the pump I used and everywhere else in the parking lot. Thought about going in and asking if anyone turned a knife in but didn't bother. Went back home with a black hole in my stomach. When into my bedroom to hang my gear up and the knife was laying there on the bed. Never brought it with me in the first place...

Ever since that day though I never ride with my knife clipped. Bottom of my pants pocket or zipped in a jacket pocket.
 
I had a Spyderco Merlin that took a few sabbaticals. It spent one winter in the front yard and a year in a client's attic. I lost it for good on a job a few years ago. It wasn't the greatest loss, but it was a Scheiß job and that's what pissed me off. I need to move on.
 
I was carrying a case mini trapper at work one day. That day I was replacing cam followers for a turret and when you do this you lay in the empty oil pan of the machine. The pan is roughly 8'x8' and 3' high. Wore a Tyvek suit going in, so my pockets were not really accessible. When I got home I no longer had the knife on me. 2 years later our plant doubled in size and maintenance was tasked with moving the equipment. Of all 90 machines, my crew got tasked with moving that one. Found my knife while pumping the oil out.
 
I'll add i did look for the knife the next day, but couldn't find it in 60 gallons of oil in the oil pan haha
 
I was out fishing on a boat in Lake McDonough with a buddy. He gut-hooks a huge trout (on his teeny rod) and I reach over to cut the line with my Mora Companion (that I just bought mind you). The fish bitch slaps me and the knife drops in the water. The end.

:(

No, it didnt float...
 
Lost my 2020 forum knife for a few months until I enlisted the help of my son to find it one day.

Son“When/Where was the last time/place you had it?”

Me, simply humoring him ”I guess I took a picture of it on the hood of my truck.”

Son”It’s probably in your truck”

Me”No I really don’t believe I left it in my truck”

It was in my truck, placed back in the box in the glove compartment.
Kids I tell ya.

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I lost this knife about two years ago.

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Had not a clue where. But I was exceptionally fond of it, so I ordered three more to have one to use, one for a spare and one to give away.

About two weeks after getting the new ones, I was walking out to the garden, happened to look down and VOILA! There it was. How I ever saw it in the grass is a near miracle.

It's still my air travel knife. Last trip it went on was to the Keys. It was the only sharp knife anywhere. So it made salads, broke down a bone in 2 bone ribeye into 2 nice thick steaks, sliced limes for drinks, cut sandwiches, basically everything.

I like it enough that I bought the D2 version, though honestly the AUS 8 version shown above has been 100% satisfactory.
 
I have trouble with pocket clips and rubbing against stuff. I once lost a Minigrip at an old job- looked all over, retraced my steps, couldn't find it anywhere.

One day a couple weeks later I looked up at the top shelf of a lumber rack, and there it was, clipped to some 1/4" rope I'd run through the arms to keep stuff from falling out the rack in an earthquake, just hanging there. I'd climbed up to look at something in the rack and brushed my leg against the rope (knife was is the side leg pocket of my work pants).

I've had the same thing happen several times with that orange plastic crash fence/ construction fence stuff, but found the knives a lot sooner. And again climbing around on wrapped pallets.
 
Several years ago. Winter, plenty of snow. When arrived at home I checked my coat right poket for my precious beltrame ( damascus, horn) and it was gone....couple of weeks later, when the snow started to melt, I find my knife stuck in the snow near the left (front door) where I usually park the car. Just few rust spots on the back spring. I still have it :)
 
Not knife related - forgive me -but a great Lost and Found story nonetheless.

I live by the beach and common for us locals to go surf fishing on Sundays. Bait the hook and throw it out in the ocean and just let the rod sit in the sand and we chill on the beach. More of a social gathering than actual fishing.Couple next to us has their rod and reel dragged into the water. Usually when something like that happens it’s typically just a big stingray or occasionally a small shark. They are running to try to get the rod and reel since it was a birthday gift the gentleman received from his wife that day. I got to running towards the surf as well but no luck. The rod and reel disappeared into the ocean.

Five minutes later my rod starts heading in towards the ocean. I grab it and luckily I fight a large stingray and land on the beach. Sure enough, there were two lines coming out of the stingray’s mouth. We traced the other line and we were able to retrieve the gentleman’s brand new rod and reel.

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Ron Sabbagh said:
Not knife related - forgive me -but a great Lost and Found story nonetheless.

I live by the beach and common for us locals to go surf fishing on Sundays. Bait the hook and throw it out in the ocean and just let the rod sit in the sand and we chill on the beach. More of a social gathering than actual fishing.Couple next to us has their rod and reel dragged into the water. Usually when something like that happens it’s typically just a big stingray or occasionally a small shark. They are running to try to get the rod and reel since it was a birthday gift the gentleman received from his wife that day. I got to running towards the surf as well but no luck. The rod and reel disappeared into the ocean.

Five minutes later my rod starts heading in towards the ocean. I grab it and luckily I fight a large stingray and land on the beach. Sure enough, there were two lines coming out of the stingray’s mouth. We traced the other line and we were able to retrieve the gentleman’s brand new rod and reel.

View attachment 1647814
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Nice! Did you split the stingray?

(Can you keep them? Do people eat them? I have no idea.)
 
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