Regional Pocket Knives

I come from a family of lawyers and professors. The only pocketknives I remember seeing growing up, besides the scout knives we had as kids, were small pen knives. When my grandfather died, I was given a box of odds and ends that had been sitting on his dresser. Among the stuff was a tiny pearl handled knife with a bail that he probably wore on his watch chain at one time. He may have actually used it to trim his fountain pen. There was also a peanut sized jack knife with some kind of sparkly gold plastic covers - I can only imagine he picked it up off the ground somewhere because I just can't imagine him carrying anything like that.

I was hoping this thread would get more international responses. What is the European/Asian/African equivalent of the American traditional patterns? Or is there any?
 
It seems that yeller trappers is king in the south and smaller jacks and such take center stage in the city.
 
I grew up on a cattle farm in the Missouri Ozarks so being around farmers growing up in the 70's and 80's it was stockman's everyone carried.
 
jackknife said:
...In the country, it was not at all uncommon to see a man with a small sheath knife on his belt. In the city though, when most men wore a suit, the small jack was the over whelming choice. Once in a while you saw a SAK, but they were not common until the early 1970's. Before the backpacking craze hit in the late 1960's, SAK's were an expensive novelty item.

After 1964 it all changed. Buck had the 110 folding hunter, and in a few years, that was all you saw on belts everywhere, even in the city where delivery truck drivers, construction workers, tradesmen of all types, carried the black pouch on the hip. That kept up until Tim Leatherman had his brainchild...
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I'm from Southern Louisiana.

Rather than repeat, I'll just agree with Carl's post above especially as it relates to the 110 and its eventual replacement by the Leatherman. His comments are spot-on what I observed growing up down there.
 
Old Hunter said:
...Ps I also remember seeing the colorful display cards in gas stations that contained the inexpensive shell-handled knives for $1.89 or so - usually a few of them were already sold, but I don't remember actually seeing someone buy one of them.
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Lol @ memories. My Uncle owned a gas station in WVa. I worked there one summer. A lot of things came on those cards (knives, screwdrivers, tubes of aspirin, etc.) and when he got a card full of something, the first thing he did was take a couple of the somethings off of the card and put them under the counter. He thought that "sold" items made the remainder more appealing to his customers. :D
 
I see a lot of folk who work on the horse studs here with schrade , boker and buck knives for folders , its not unusual to find a Muela fixed blade , or just victrinox butcher knives of varying descriptions tucked down next to the car seat when Im working on their 4x4s .

There isnt much in the way of locally manufactured knives here that I know of , not mass produced .

My grand dad carried a IXL folder .

In the Kimberly region where I learned tribal law , them horrible green river skinners were all over the place , but a usa made schrade folder , was like more prized than a prized possession .

I grew up on the coast of WA , middle of the wheat belt one shop sold Opinel , the other Okapi .. they both sold excalibur .. I think dam near every shop that sells a knife sells that junk ..

Walked thru Tamworth looking for a knife that was different .. every camping shop , sports shop , dive shop fishing shop has shelves full of excalibur knives , with maybe a couple leathermans on display it seems .

Just what I seen around here tho .
 
Growing up in the Netherlands (still live there :) ) I remember my Dad and Granddad carrying Herder Sodbusters.
I saw a SAK or 2 as well.
I myself got my first Herder from my granndad at about 10 years of age.
Nowadays almost nobody carries a pocket knife anymore over here :(
 
When I was growing up it was Trappers, Stockmans and the Buck 110. Case, Schrade and Buck.
 
From the Netherlands: most people here used to carry some sort of small pocket knife, I think. I don't remember any brand in particular. My father always had a little pocket knife or pen knife lying on his desk. My grandmother carried a cheap little folder in her bag (think: Mary Poppins Bag) with two scratched blades and a corkscrew, which she used to cut an apple on a bicycle trip or a picknick. This knife rests on my mantelpiece next to my grandfathers pocket watch.
I don't think I ever saw fixed knives in sheaths on belts, other than in my younger days in Scouting. Knives are not a part of everyday life here. When I take out my simple sodbuster or a SAK to cut through some tape, I sometimes get weird looks.
 
During deer season a lot of the men around where I was raised carried those Case or Schrade two blade folding hunters.

Some of us boys carried them in our back pockets a lot of the time. I still have a fondness for them.

Those were the days when we could pull out a big folding hunter and stand over the trash can sharpening a pencil in school and nobody cared.

We would carry small Arkansas stones and sit around in class after we got our work done sharpening on those big old blades.

Of course we were in extreme rural northeast Oklahoma.
 
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