OH THIS IS PAINFULL!
The first great knife I had was a Gerber BMF some time in the first couple of years of high school i believe. i kept seeing these in the gun mags i read and my friends talked about the "Big Mother F&(ker".
Well, I got my mom to order me one of these $100 beauties and justified it as a b-day gift. It was gorgeous.
Unfortunately when it arrived in the mail, my dad saw it first, we didn't tell him about this since we know he would have said no. HE WAS PISSED, more because i did it behind his back than the fact i got a huge knife that was WAY more than i'd ever need.
Eventually i went on a church youth camping trip and was excited to finally really use my survival knife. even if it was just cutting rope, it means more when you're camping in the mountains than doing it in your suburban back yard ;-)
Well, some fellow christians wanted to borrow it to cut some wood so I let them. I was doing my own thing for a while, then a friend came up to me and said those kids were totaly thrashing my knife.
i went to go check it out and saw that they were hammering it into a flat tree stump (with an actuall hammer hitting the back). They were doing this along the edge, but still too far in from the bark, and when they would get the knife a quarter in they would pull from the handle to try and bust out a peice of wood FROM THE SIDE OF A TREE STUMP! Before this, when the geniuses were using the knife just a bit more appropriately, they were batoning pre cut pieces of wood to make slimmer ones for the campfire. but in their mind batoning means to strike the top spine of the knife with a hammer, ALONG THE SAWTEETH!
Needless to say i got the knife back in horrible condition, busted sawteeth and a bent tip and a dented up butcap.
Looking back i should have got into a major fight with them, sometimes even good christian kids need to learn the lesson of respecting others property BY THE WRATH OF GOD ;-)
I remember their attitude was "so much for your fancy expensive knife". I remember being furious but didnt do anything about it and probably played it off like yeah "knives are meant to be used and i can afford to use my expensive knife", and their flat out ABuse of the knife may have been from jealousy more than anything.
But i remember it bugged me for a real long time, more than anything about their lack of respect for my property. Yeah they may have been too young to know how to properly use a knife or the value of a good knife or what 100 bucks was worth at the time, but i never forgave them. They never even offered to repay me for the damage.
If I was a youth leader and saw this, i would have taken the opportunity to teach all the kids about respect for others property more than actuall knife care or value. It was christian outing and a proper theme. and i would have tried to mediate some sort of restitution.
But this is what happens when there's no "knife people" around and you're just a young spry knife nut in the makeing and totally on your own.
I know its christian to forgive, but its useless when no lesson is learned on the forgivens part.
I kept the knife for years and when i worked at a gunstore that sold knives yeas later, i showed it to my boss and he had a good laugh. I remember he tried to see if he could get me warrenty replacement or something of similar value from his gerber distributor as a "favor" but after he described the knife and the tip, the guy on the phone said "just use it as a fillet knife now".
My boss did offer me $50 store credit for it, and just put it out on the display. Eventually someone wanted to "rescue" it and it ended up being sold.
Sometimes i wish i kept it as a symbol of my youth, good times and the stupidity of youth and life lessons that need to be learned. But i remember more than anything how "valuable" those old gerbers were seen as and became, even before the popularity of ebay and a better idea of its vintage value could be had.
An 80's Gerber BMF from my youth in my typical "lightly used condition" would be quite a personal trophy.
It realy bothers me at times that even though i've bought and sold knives WAY more rare/valueable/collectible (that i should have held on to of course), than this early gerber BMF. THIS is the one i regret letting go of the most (well, other than my handground Brend / woodard #2 auto).
Thanks for letting me vent in this little therapy session. This is a great thread.
And yes, NEVER LOAN OUT YOUR KNIVES !!!
