Older knives

Gary, you reminded me that I had a knife as a Cub Scout. Nothing fancy like the B. S. A. ones we see posted here. I have no recollection of what I did with it but sure wish I still had it!
 
Interesting you mention that style of knife, that friend at work let me take some quick photos of his,
Frame is about 3 5/8" long and 4 1/4" when measured to the end of the bail, which he removed when I took the knife back to him, he said 'that doesn't look very good, I said yah it was an add on thing some one did, I doubt that was original'

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Never heard of Kent NY City knives...?
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

You can see how thin ground this blade is
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Rugged can opener
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Screwdriver;
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

G2
 
Pocketknives were very common here in eastern NC (small towns and farm country) when I grew up (born in 55, so I remember mostly 1960's when I was a boy). I remember one of my HS teachers saying, "one of you boys give me your pocketknife" and about four or five of us stood up - do that today! My only living Granddad in those days was an electrician and I remember watching him grind his Klein wire-skinning knife on the grinding wheel in the shop over the dirt floor - showering hot sparks like the Fourth of July in that dark/dank/smelly old building. My Dad was a Soldier first when I was younger, then later a businessman by the time I was about ten - he was always frugal; he owned an Imperial M4 bayonet (for camping and hunting) and two Camillus TL-29 pocketknives for everything else - one had brown handles and one had black handles (all from his army days). My first pocketknife was a blue Cub Scout knife I got at about age eight (1963). I still have Dad's old M4, and an Ulster 58OT Stockman that belonged to my Granddad, but both my old Cub Scout and brown handled Boy Scout knives are long gone. We didn't have lots of knives like I own now, but we used the ones we had for everything they were needed for. I think most folks I knew were like that. OH
 
I traded away my Cub Scout knife (bad deal, too, I'm sure). Maybe I just assumed I'd be getting a full-sized BSA knife when I became a boy scout. In the event, they told me I was too young for Webelos and I told them to go whistle. I've tried to replace it: Two Camillus and an Imperial with real bolsters and pins. That one must be fairly old.
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This old Camillus 69 has some nice thin blades.
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(Imgur is working again!)
 
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I can't remember when I didn't carry a pocket knife. As kids back in the 50s, all my friends either lived on farms, or our Dads were carpenters, masons or mechanics. Everybody had a Barlow or electrician's knife, because you could get them in all the feed stores or hardware stores for a couple bucks. We used them for everything from gutting a squirrel, to slicing an apple, to scraping a dried up gasket off a small engine cylinder head....and no, they seldom got washed or disinfected. We didn't even know what that was. Young & old carried knives everywhere, including school. A few kids even had scout knives, but I don't recall anyone having a real Boy Scout branded knife. Nobody had that kind of money to waste.

A few years ago after my Mother died, my brothers & I were cleaning out her house & sorting things before auction. My son came down from the attic with a cigar box. He came over to me, opened it up, and inside were all of the knives that I "lost or misplaced" as a kid. Unknown to me, when Mom would find a knife laying around, she'd confiscate it & put it in that box. That box was almost half full of Barlows & electrician's knives with my initials crudely carved in the handles. We looked at them for a bit, then I gave the whole thing to my son. He'll keep them safe. Besides, I don't need no old knives.:)
 
This was Grandpa's (1887-1965). It was on the workbench after he died, but he carried it a fair amount too, judging by the sweat lines on the outer blades and the general patina. However I remember a fuller spear blade as the one he would produce to settle shove-ha'penny controversies in his favor. And I never mis-remember.
umAl7Wn.jpg

Anyway, I was going to show it as an old knife with thick blades, but I mis-remembered its size. They didn't get six blades on three springs into a package about the size of a standard scout knife by making the blades thick.
9gDQbS3.jpg

No marks on Grandpa's, Kutmaster on the right.
 
Truth be said, I think we've become a society of gear rather than skills. I see the same thing looking through the bushcraft forums...people want the gear first, then they worry about the skills. My grandfather could field dress anything from a rabbit to full size hog. No one cared what knife he used to accomplish this...they only cared that he had the skill. Now people own hunting knives, but don't hunt...survival knives, but never need to survive, fighting knives, but never fight...it's all about the gear. Now I understand this is a gear-based forum, so there is the premise that gear comes before skills, so I'll grant you that logic...

I appreciate the comment about not being able to live in another person's generation when it's not your own. The unfortunate part about that is determining when exactly your generation is, and what skills and equipment define your generation. I'm 55...my generation is caught in middle..for knives, technology, everything. When we were young, we learned from some of the great individuals of the Depression, WWII, and Korea, but now we exist in a world flooded by every conceivable knife design from traditional to modern, and those great individuals of the past are gone. I've traveled the knife-owning road from cheap jackknives and stockman traditionals I got from my grandfather as a kid, to Schrade and Craftsman lockbacks I got as a teenager from my father, to SAKs and modern folders I bought as an adult. I own fixed blades that range from Remington Hunting PALs and old Imperial hunting knives, to modern Moras and Kabars.

In biology, we study the concept of "imprinting"...the strongest memories and associations we have often happen early in our lives and are permanently imprinted in our psyches when we are young. That being said...I bought a Buck 303 stockman today. I'm looking at a Buck 102 or a Case Finn later down the road. Although these knives may not define my generation (whenever that is...) it's what I was imprinted with as a young child sharpening sticks or fishing for trout...traditional pocketknives and small hunting knives. I think I'll sell everything else as useless clutter in life. No matter what memories I've made since, I hope they bury me with an old hunting knife, a single-shot shotgun, a match-safe and pin-on compass, and a wool hunting jacket because those are the imprinted memories of my youth...maybe a cheap fishing pole and a few worms in case there are trout where ever I'm going...
 
Snow Walker said:
Truth be said, I think we've become a society of gear rather than skills. I see the same thing looking through the bushcraft forums...people want the gear first, then they worry about the skills. My grandfather could field dress anything from a rabbit to full size hog. No one cared what knife he used to accomplish this...they only cared that he had the skill. Now people own hunting knives, but don't hunt...survival knives, but never need to survive, fighting knives, but never fight...it's all about the gear. Now I understand this is a gear-based forum, so there is the premise that gear comes before skills, so I'll grant you that logic...

I appreciate the comment about not being able to live in another person's generation when it's not your own. The unfortunate part about that is determining when exactly your generation is, and what skills and equipment define your generation. I'm 55...my generation is caught in middle..for knives, technology, everything. When we were young, we learned from some of the great individuals of the Depression, WWII, and Korea, but now we exist in a world flooded by every conceivable knife design from traditional to modern, and those great individuals of the past are gone. I've traveled the knife-owning road from cheap jackknives and stockman traditionals I got from my grandfather as a kid, to Schrade and Craftsman lockbacks I got as a teenager from my father, to SAKs and modern folders I bought as an adult. I own fixed blades that range from Remington Hunting PALs and old Imperial hunting knives, to modern Moras and Kabars.

In biology, we study the concept of "imprinting"...the strongest memories and associations we have often happen early in our lives and are permanently imprinted in our psyches when we are young. That being said...I bought a Buck 303 stockman today. I'm looking at a Buck 102 or a Case Finn later down the road. Although these knives may not define my generation (whenever that is...) it's what I was imprinted with as a young child sharpening sticks or fishing for trout...traditional pocketknives and small hunting knives. I think I'll sell everything else as useless clutter in life. No matter what memories I've made since, I hope they bury me with an old hunting knife, a single-shot shotgun, a match-safe and pin-on compass, and a wool hunting jacket because those are the imprinted memories of my youth...maybe a cheap fishing pole and a few worms in case there are trout where ever I'm going...
Click to expand...

Touché sir....
 
Snow Walker said:
Truth be said, I think we've become a society of gear rather than skills. I see the same thing looking through the bushcraft forums...people want the gear first, then they worry about the skills. My grandfather could field dress anything from a rabbit to full size hog. No one cared what knife he used to accomplish this...they only cared that he had the skill. Now people own hunting knives, but don't hunt...survival knives, but never need to survive, fighting knives, but never fight...it's all about the gear. Now I understand this is a gear-based forum, so there is the premise that gear comes before skills, so I'll grant you that logic...
Click to expand...

Well said. :thumbsup: I would add that living in this age of material riches and possibilities, the tendency to gather stuff, knives, among others, is aspirational. We use to say that our parents never threw anything away because of their Great Depression experience of deprivation. Now we all have & save tooooo much stuff on the hope/intent that we will be using that soon or that - next year (or before we die) we will go on that great Alaskan expedition and will really need that bowie. :rolleyes: However, too often or more realistically, that expected soon or the realization of the dreams of next year's adventure, just never happens and so our stuff pile keeps piling up. :(

PLUS - knives are for the most part so compelling (an entirely new post is possible just on what moves me about knives - not all of it rational - much of it aspirational). I try to live by the rule that ALL my knives are used :D - yeah right.;)

And yes - I own hunting knives but no longer hunt and whittling knives though I so rarely whittle that they could be called - paper weights. OH WAIT - I hardly use paper anymore now what do I do with my knives? :confused:

... and so it goes.:)

Ray
 
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