Remember the 1980s?

P.08 said:
I remember, the best years of my life! Still have this one. Compass in the butt still works and has the first aid kit in the handle. The D guard comes off so you can make it into a spear head.
8d7HWgv.jpg
Click to expand...
Damn, I REALLY would have wanted that back then...kind of want one now. :D

Probably cost more than $5 though.
 
knarfeng said:
Better was the early 70's. Army surplus stores were full of military stuff being let go as the war ran down. Bayonets were cheap. So were machetes, ponchos, fatigues, and the like. For a guy on a tight budget making $2.00/hr minimum wage, it was good hunting.
Click to expand...
The army surplus store near me has a very small corner of army issued surplus. The rest of the store became a misc outdoors/hardware store
 
P.08 said:
I don't remember, but I'll bet it wasn't more than $25 or so?
Click to expand...
The Marto Brewer was around $141-160 (MSRP) back then (~1985). It was always a premium knife and would have gone head-to-head with the Aitor Jungle King, Buck 184 BuckMaster, Gerber BMF and similar high end production knives.. Brewer (Charles brewer Carias) was a well known explorer and naturalist who specialized in the amazon jungle; he had persuaded Marto of Spain to make this knife for him. it was one of the better made "survival knives".

n2s
 
not2sharp said:
The Marto Brewer was around $141-160 (MSRP) back then (~1985). It was always a premium knife and would have gone head-to-head with the Aitor Jungle King, Buck 184 BuckMaster, Gerber BMF and similar high end production knives.. Brewer (Charles brewer Carias) was a well known explorer and naturalist who specialized in the amazon jungle; he had persuaded Marto of Spain to make this knife for him. it was one of the better made "survival knives".

n2s
Click to expand...
As a sophomore in High School there would have been no way in hell I would have spent that much on a knife. I was making about $5 an hour back then and was into cars not knives. It may have had a high retail, but I didn't pay it!
 
Old school Rambo knife so many memories unfortunately I didn't have the blessing of owning one. The kid down the street did though and years later we became best friends and he proceeded to break my heart by letting me know it was a piece of crap.
 
I saw one of those cheap survival knives in an antique mall yesterday, it was marked $65.

Back in the 80's my friend bought one and brought it over to my house to sharpen it.
I worked on that thing for over an hour with wet stones and couldn't get an edge on it, cured me of wanting one.

The first knife in the 1980's that I really wanted was the Gerber Bolt action, I waited for it to go on sale in the Smoky Mountain Knife works catalog ($25, down from $29).
And another was the Edgeco special factory order Boker Matic.

gerber.jpg
 
stabman said:
I got one of the original SAK models when I was young too. Felt like I was MacGyver! :D
All us kids had some sort of SAK or clone; most us us had clones, with blades that would bust your finger nail off while trying to open them. ;)
Click to expand...

Im pretty sure Macgyver + boy scouts is the reason I developed a love of cutlery and tools
 
These blades sure look more impressive than the stuff I was buying in the 60s. LOL Mostly folders from the drug store for a buck or less. Fold up on the fingers easily ya might recall. Skinny blades but polished to the max. Don't miss em for sure. Got much better choices these days even though a lot more bucks for quality
 
My knives in the 80's were a SAK clone from K-Mart and one of my Dad's Case belt knives from the 60's. I broke the corkscrew off the SAK, and the tip off the Case. But since I didn't seriously harm my brother, the dog, or myself, around 1991 Dad gave me a Buck 503 Prince, and Grandpa gave me a Buck 110 and a Leatherman! Still probably the best Christmas EVER! Actually, the Buck 110 and Leatherman from Grandpa were probably two back-to-back Christmases. The 110 was first.

As I got older and I realized the magnitude of breaking the tip off Dad's case belt knife back in third grade, I felt terrible about it. I'm pretty sure that was the knife he carried at Philmont in '66. In my 20's I found as close to the same knife new old stock as I could hunting gun shows and gave it to him for Christmas that year. Both still live in his sock drawer.
 
Riz! said:
Im pretty sure Macgyver + boy scouts is the reason I developed a love of cutlery and tools
Click to expand...

It is a valid reason, and certainly influenced many of us. :)

whp said:
I also had a Puma as a teen. My first nice knife after my Boy Scout knife. Don t recall what happened to that knife.
Click to expand...

I think they move through other dimensions or something.
One day I will locate that magical land. :D
 
Probably my two most carried knives of the 1980s were a Parker Balisong, and a camo pattern "Nato" OTF that I paid $10 for at a gun show. That one Desintegrated at some point over the years, but the Parker Bali I still own. I miss that cheap nato knife :)
 
There's a vintage AITOR Bowie on my local Craigslist for $75 and this thread is making me think about it far more than I should. I was a 90s kid but my first survival knife was a Junglee Special Forces my dad ordered me from SMKW. I still have it somewhere.
 
I wasn’t alive until 1990. I grew up watching Rambo, Commando, Predator, and fell in love with knives then. I’d love to be able to get a quality fixed blade survival knife from the 80’s though. Like there was actually some amazing exports from Japan for different USA makers, like SOG, Kershaw. A SOG Bowie made by Ichiro Hattori would amazing to own, they’re quite exquisitely crafted.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top