The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
I finally finished the old John Primble Display today. The slide in display board was replaced with a steel board and the Primble graphics were printed onto matte heavyweight photo paper. It was then sealed and glued to the steel display. I purchased some Neodymium magnets and the old John Primble knives are all magnetically attached to the display. The first picture is a close up picture of the old knives on the board and the glass removed for clarity:
The second picture is a mid range shot of the display, located in it's new spot in my cupboard:
The third picture shows the display and cupboard with glass back in place, as seen from my hallway:
After it was all finished, I felt such pride in this display and the old knives. I felt like the display was/is in the right hands for now. I feel strongly that this is the same display that I used to see when I was a young boy, fifty years ago. I feel so strong about it being the same that it would take absolute proof for someone to convince me otherwise.
It is now in a special place in my home, which I chose for it. I have since made at least a dozen trips to the end of the hallway to look at the knives and display. I have the little candle light on in there tonight, which produces a soft glow of light to the front of the display. It just looks magnificent to me.
I need to thank many of you for helping me get to this point, with knives gifted, the board graphics, advice on the finishing of the project, and so on. So thank you again Stephen, Duncan, Mark, and Charlie for recommending the steel-magnet type board, which I absolutely love. Also a thank you to Gevo for encouragement and sending me info on the magnets.
I am so proud tonight and every time I look at the display, it takes me back to the days when my love for traditional pocket knives began. I added the original story for some of the persons that may not know the whole story.
THE ORIGINAL STORY:
Primble has been my nickname for the past 51 years. My uncle, a big, tall and soft spoken farmer, gave it to me when I was nine years old.
It all started at a country store that had Primble knives. I was always walking down the dirt road, probably a mile or so down the road from the store, in a quest to see the Primble knives. This would have been in the 1960's.
I recall talking about them all the time.
We moved away from the area when I was around 12 years old, but, often returned to visit our kinfolk.
In my new town, I found that Case knives were king of the hill and I could often be found staring at them at the local hardware stores.
As I aged, I bought mostly Case bone knives, but, the Primble Knife display down at the Caney Fork Store started my interests in pocket knives.
. . . . . and then a rather strange thing happened this spring. I took my mother down to an old antique store, very near the location where that old Caney Fork store once stood. We looked around in the booths for a couple hours. As we were about to depart, I just happened to glance into a booth and saw an old display case sitting in a dark corner. I am pretty certain that I know where it came from, even empty of those beautiful knives. Well . . . needless to say . . . it made the trip home with me.
After I wrote this post and had been thinking back, I recalled those days so clearly.
That old narrow winding, hilly dirt road, the gray weathered fence posts with rusty barbed wire, the abundance of bluebirds singing, the old guy that lived in a little weathered house at that sharp left hand turn, just as the woods began. I believe his name was Mounce and he wore those blue striped overalls and kept a tin of Prince Albert in the bib, occasionally rolling him a cigarette and licking the paper. He was a nice old guy and talked to us kids often, usually offering a bit of "wisdom".
I remember the abundance of " blue racer " snakes that would often scurry out of the weeds and across the dirt road, in front of me. I was afraid of them.
I remember the smell of the wood burning, coming from the chimney of the wood stove heated home on the hill, my aunt and uncle's place, and the sound of the rain hitting the ole tin roof. I can faintly smell the scent of old country hams hanging in their smokehouse.
I recall when the spring rains came and washed gullies in the road and my father's car would fish-tail and sometimes get stuck trying to make it up that one really long and steep hill.
I recall the two old white work horses that we used to harness up and the red fox kits we would usually see every summer.
Today - The store is gone, the knives are gone, the one room school house is empty, the wood stove is gone, the old road widened and paved, the old fence posts have been replaced, the bluebirds are gone. My father, my aunt, my uncle, and my oldest cousin are resting in a family cemetary near there. . . . . . and I wonder.
and the old Primble knife display certainly reminds me of those old days - now gone by.
