By way of a sort of introduction, I thought I would share a little story about how I kind of came to Becker Knives.
I will see if I can pull this off, and maybe folks will find it entertaining.
Bear with me, and I will try and keep this short….
I think I first started seeing adds for Becker knives in the early/mid 90’s in the Cutlery Shoppe catalogs, and reviews in Fighting Knives Magazine.
Being in school I had limited funds, but that didn’t keep me from reading about and pondering them.
IMG_2658 by ursidae8, on Flickr
I had an early love for outdoor/bush knives, but for some reason, although I was highly attracted to kukri’s and their shape, I could not wrap my head around the Machax shape at the time (I mean no disrespect-I have never used one, and now I hope to someday). I love smooth curves, and for some reason I could not get past the distinct angle from the handle to blade.
(Of course, I have since warmed up to it, and am now trying to find one!)
Then I saw the Reinhardt Kukri and was in love!
And the Fisk designed Magnum Camp was very attractive.
But again, funds limited my actions.
Eventually when I had more pocket money, I got very into Cold Steel’s work knives, and picked up several on the secondary market, finding they worked well during my field work, and recreation and outdoor teaching.
I kind of forgot about Becker knives.
There were moments of reminders.
Like when I saw a Reinhardt Kukri, well used, on Steve Dick's table at my local OKCA show pilgrimage sometime around 2015; but stupidly set it down on the table and another patron snagged it.
To back up a bit, a little about my childhood….
Over my life I have had an almost deep passion about the outdoors and all thing related to it. When I was young, I didn’t know it as a passion, it is just where I spent all of my free time; I didn’t know anything different.
I was blessed with a childhood that was limited in “stuff”, etc., but with ample opportunity to spend time out of doors. A lot of time.
With over 40 acres of Cascade foothills land (mixed forest of late seral stage, or older growth), plus another 30ish of bottomland, and many fewer enforced rules about private land back then, there weren’t many boundaries I had to follow on my wanderings.
And being (sort of) homeschooled for all of my “elementary” years, outside is where I spent most of my time, until I was a teenager.
And it decreased only slightly when I started public school.
Our homestead was a bit over 8 miles from the nearest small town.
Probably my only close friends as a younger person was a family who lived a few miles further up the road, who were members of what now is officially called the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians.
The days I was not in the woods, creeks, hills and hollows by myself, or with my younger brother, I was out with one or usually several of their seven kids, bumming around.
I kind of idolized the oldest male child. He was about 5 years older than I, well over 6 ft tall, always carried 5 or 6 knives. I had once watched him stitch up his hand with a needle and sewing thread after being attacked by a feral dog.
Oh, the stories I could tell.
Ok, getting a little off track here.
Anyway, books were a big part of my childhood as well (no tv in the house).
I made good use of the local library. I read a lot of science fiction (Vern, Wells, Shaw) and outdoors authors (London, Paulson, Rawls, Kjelgaard).
My most treasured books included a Dover edition of Two Little Savages by Seton (as I got older I realized more than a few issues with this book, but those were unknown to the young me).
IMG_2660 by ursidae8, on Flickr
I also greatly treasured The Education of Little Tree by Forest Carter (another book, and author, I learned had a “complicated history” as I got older; aaah, the innocence of youth!).
As I got older I would look for more outdoor related books, ones that imparted skills, either in a fictional context, or a manual context.
The elder of the family I mentioned above gave me a 1959 copy of the Boy Scout handbook. It had lots of drawings in it describing outdoor skills as well as plant and animal identification.
At used bookstores, I found early editions of London’s Cruise of the Snark, the Sea Wolf, and Lost Face (one of my favorite collections that includes To Build a Fire), etc. W. B. Hunts books on early American crafts and skills. Eric Sloan’s books.
Mini Golden Nature Guide (field books) to birds, rocks, fossils, etc.
I soon found Olson’s book and other older outdoor camping books by Ellsworth Jaeger and Beard.
So, while I learned much about the outdoors, and skills related to being in the outdoors, just by spending time there, and from those adults and friends around me, I enjoyed reading and learning from books as well.
(and amazingly enough, I still have many of them!)
Concurrently, I had another growing (unhealthy?) “obsession” with knives, as tools.
When reading a book, or magazine article, if a knife was mentioned, I would wonder what kind of knife they were using. I would scour the pages for any descriptive info on the knife.
If there was photo (basically never, except in magazines), I would look really close to see if I could figure what it was, or who made it.
I had this odd need to know what type of knife a person preferred to use in the outdoors.
One day I read an article in some outdoor magazine (Outdoor Life, maybe?) and the author mentioned Kephart and Nessmuk. I was interested, but could not seem to find their books. Later I finally found a copy of Nessmuk's book (another Dover reproduction), and low and behold he had a picture of his knives, right there.
As the internet became more common, I would, upon hearing about or reading about a person mentioning a knife in the outdoors, search with the name of the author or character and the word “knife”; to see if anyone else had said anything about it, or if there was any more info about it.
A little more recently, this was the case with Kephart.
I learned some folks had a pretty good idea of his knife, and had recreated it.
I got a reproduction of Camping and Woodcraft from 1917, but it just showed an image of the Woodcaft knife he carried in later years, a respectable field knife, but not the one he designed.
Then one day, google leads me to an article on the Truth About Knives website (I think) that reported a knife very like his had “appeared” and this Becker fella () had a lot to do with it. And he was letting people look at it, and touch it!
And there was rumor that he was going to try to facilitate a factory version of it, as close to the original as possible.
I was amazed. It just seemed like a very nice thing to do for the knife and outdoor community. Not to mention those interested in history.
And it was possible I could get to use the closest idea of the knife Kephart designed, and used.
More online looking and I found photos of the knife Kephart actually carried, the Knife Magazine article, etc.
And to the Becker page here.
Not sure why it took me so long to get here; I have been on Bladeforums for a while, but mostly in the Knifemaking and Outdoor areas.
And I don’t know why it took so long to come back to Becker blades.
I have quickly learned that this Becker group kind of combines two of the things I spent a lot of time involved with: the outdoors, and knives.
Seems like a good fit to me.
Anyway, I purchased a BK 62 (which ended up having some issues, but I am sure that will all get resolved eventually)
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bk-62-tang-cracks.1649724/
IMG_2462 by ursidae8, on Flickr
Soon after was lucky enough to find one of the old BK&T Reinhardt Kukris, which I have been enjoying, but now really want to know what it would be like in 1095 (Yep, I see a BK- 21 down the road
)!
IMG_2479 by ursidae8, on Flickr
And excited to see what is next.
Anyway, I hope I didn’t bore you (or weird anyone out with my childhood stories!). And if you are a glutton for punishment, you can read more about me, me and knives, etc., on my website.
Most importantly, I hope you will share your “Becker story”.
Brome
I will see if I can pull this off, and maybe folks will find it entertaining.
Bear with me, and I will try and keep this short….
I think I first started seeing adds for Becker knives in the early/mid 90’s in the Cutlery Shoppe catalogs, and reviews in Fighting Knives Magazine.
Being in school I had limited funds, but that didn’t keep me from reading about and pondering them.
IMG_2658 by ursidae8, on FlickrI had an early love for outdoor/bush knives, but for some reason, although I was highly attracted to kukri’s and their shape, I could not wrap my head around the Machax shape at the time (I mean no disrespect-I have never used one, and now I hope to someday). I love smooth curves, and for some reason I could not get past the distinct angle from the handle to blade.
(Of course, I have since warmed up to it, and am now trying to find one!)
Then I saw the Reinhardt Kukri and was in love!
And the Fisk designed Magnum Camp was very attractive.
But again, funds limited my actions.
Eventually when I had more pocket money, I got very into Cold Steel’s work knives, and picked up several on the secondary market, finding they worked well during my field work, and recreation and outdoor teaching.
I kind of forgot about Becker knives.
There were moments of reminders.
Like when I saw a Reinhardt Kukri, well used, on Steve Dick's table at my local OKCA show pilgrimage sometime around 2015; but stupidly set it down on the table and another patron snagged it.
To back up a bit, a little about my childhood….
Over my life I have had an almost deep passion about the outdoors and all thing related to it. When I was young, I didn’t know it as a passion, it is just where I spent all of my free time; I didn’t know anything different.
I was blessed with a childhood that was limited in “stuff”, etc., but with ample opportunity to spend time out of doors. A lot of time.
With over 40 acres of Cascade foothills land (mixed forest of late seral stage, or older growth), plus another 30ish of bottomland, and many fewer enforced rules about private land back then, there weren’t many boundaries I had to follow on my wanderings.
And being (sort of) homeschooled for all of my “elementary” years, outside is where I spent most of my time, until I was a teenager.
And it decreased only slightly when I started public school.
Our homestead was a bit over 8 miles from the nearest small town.
Probably my only close friends as a younger person was a family who lived a few miles further up the road, who were members of what now is officially called the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians.
The days I was not in the woods, creeks, hills and hollows by myself, or with my younger brother, I was out with one or usually several of their seven kids, bumming around.
I kind of idolized the oldest male child. He was about 5 years older than I, well over 6 ft tall, always carried 5 or 6 knives. I had once watched him stitch up his hand with a needle and sewing thread after being attacked by a feral dog.
Oh, the stories I could tell.
Ok, getting a little off track here.
Anyway, books were a big part of my childhood as well (no tv in the house).
I made good use of the local library. I read a lot of science fiction (Vern, Wells, Shaw) and outdoors authors (London, Paulson, Rawls, Kjelgaard).
My most treasured books included a Dover edition of Two Little Savages by Seton (as I got older I realized more than a few issues with this book, but those were unknown to the young me).
IMG_2660 by ursidae8, on FlickrI also greatly treasured The Education of Little Tree by Forest Carter (another book, and author, I learned had a “complicated history” as I got older; aaah, the innocence of youth!).
As I got older I would look for more outdoor related books, ones that imparted skills, either in a fictional context, or a manual context.
The elder of the family I mentioned above gave me a 1959 copy of the Boy Scout handbook. It had lots of drawings in it describing outdoor skills as well as plant and animal identification.
At used bookstores, I found early editions of London’s Cruise of the Snark, the Sea Wolf, and Lost Face (one of my favorite collections that includes To Build a Fire), etc. W. B. Hunts books on early American crafts and skills. Eric Sloan’s books.
Mini Golden Nature Guide (field books) to birds, rocks, fossils, etc.
I soon found Olson’s book and other older outdoor camping books by Ellsworth Jaeger and Beard.
So, while I learned much about the outdoors, and skills related to being in the outdoors, just by spending time there, and from those adults and friends around me, I enjoyed reading and learning from books as well.
(and amazingly enough, I still have many of them!)
Concurrently, I had another growing (unhealthy?) “obsession” with knives, as tools.
When reading a book, or magazine article, if a knife was mentioned, I would wonder what kind of knife they were using. I would scour the pages for any descriptive info on the knife.
If there was photo (basically never, except in magazines), I would look really close to see if I could figure what it was, or who made it.
I had this odd need to know what type of knife a person preferred to use in the outdoors.
One day I read an article in some outdoor magazine (Outdoor Life, maybe?) and the author mentioned Kephart and Nessmuk. I was interested, but could not seem to find their books. Later I finally found a copy of Nessmuk's book (another Dover reproduction), and low and behold he had a picture of his knives, right there.
As the internet became more common, I would, upon hearing about or reading about a person mentioning a knife in the outdoors, search with the name of the author or character and the word “knife”; to see if anyone else had said anything about it, or if there was any more info about it.
A little more recently, this was the case with Kephart.
I learned some folks had a pretty good idea of his knife, and had recreated it.
I got a reproduction of Camping and Woodcraft from 1917, but it just showed an image of the Woodcaft knife he carried in later years, a respectable field knife, but not the one he designed.
Then one day, google leads me to an article on the Truth About Knives website (I think) that reported a knife very like his had “appeared” and this Becker fella (
) had a lot to do with it. And he was letting people look at it, and touch it!And there was rumor that he was going to try to facilitate a factory version of it, as close to the original as possible.
I was amazed. It just seemed like a very nice thing to do for the knife and outdoor community. Not to mention those interested in history.
And it was possible I could get to use the closest idea of the knife Kephart designed, and used.
More online looking and I found photos of the knife Kephart actually carried, the Knife Magazine article, etc.
And to the Becker page here.
Not sure why it took me so long to get here; I have been on Bladeforums for a while, but mostly in the Knifemaking and Outdoor areas.
And I don’t know why it took so long to come back to Becker blades.
I have quickly learned that this Becker group kind of combines two of the things I spent a lot of time involved with: the outdoors, and knives.
Seems like a good fit to me.
Anyway, I purchased a BK 62 (which ended up having some issues, but I am sure that will all get resolved eventually)
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bk-62-tang-cracks.1649724/
IMG_2462 by ursidae8, on FlickrSoon after was lucky enough to find one of the old BK&T Reinhardt Kukris, which I have been enjoying, but now really want to know what it would be like in 1095 (Yep, I see a BK- 21 down the road
)!IMG_2479 by ursidae8, on FlickrAnd excited to see what is next.
Anyway, I hope I didn’t bore you (or weird anyone out with my childhood stories!). And if you are a glutton for punishment, you can read more about me, me and knives, etc., on my website.
Most importantly, I hope you will share your “Becker story”.
Brome
Thanks for posting it up.
