The every now and again knife sharing situation that always gives me a smile...

PocketKnifeJimmy

PocketKnifeJimmy

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Aug 4, 2013
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We've had some summer time help at my employment for the past few months. They've not only been great help, they all seem to be great kids, (college aged).
Anyhow, one of these kids has been under my wing for almost the entire time. Since I knew he was going back to school soon, I wanted to gift him a little token of my appreciation.
Well, I have a bunch of knives in my collection, and every now and again I will pick one out and gift them to someone that I feel will appreciate it.
My pick this time around was a new/unused carbon steel Otter Messer Mercator K55 knife.
I wanted to give him something that he would likely not purchase for himself, but that I felt he would find pretty cool if the model's history were also shared with him.
I gave him the knife and a quick rundown of their history. I also gave him a link to a youtube video that would totally give him the full scoop of what they were & are.
I believe the video was done by one of Bladeforum's own, (Humppa), and it could not have been better done :)


The young man loved the Mercator knife, and he also loved the history that came with the model.
This, of course, made me smile too! 😊
 
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Very nice choice. The mercator knife is one of my favorite traditionals. Great useful pattern, I bring it out pretty often for some food prep. Can't go wrong with the cat knife.
 
Thanks, guys!
I did have to add a little bit of explanation on the steel, what can more easily rust, (carbon steel), and what is more resistant to rust, (stainless steel). With my having given him a carbon steel blade knife, I knew it would likely turn into a rust bucket in no time if I had not explained this to him, (he really had no concept of what difference there was).
He also needed to have a little 101 on using some oil to not only keep the bare steel from rusting, but also to keep the knife's smooth operation, and to lessen wear in the knifes pivoting area.
I guess it's easy for us knife enthusiasts to take all that for granted, thinking everybody knows and understands these simple maintenance steps on such things... But, no, he had no knowledge of this basic information, and so the basics were passed along to him when I gifted him the knife yesterday.
I remember him asking me about the rivets, and how surprised he was when he heard on the Mercator video about rivets being what held everything together on the knife, (as to basically say that the rivets seemed a bit mickey mousey). It's hard to explain a lot of things to some of the younger generations about something so commonly known to most of us slightly older folks. I mean, when I think of old school rivets, I think pretty positively about them. Like those huge rivets used to hold together all sorts of historic bridges, skyscrapers, planes, and all sorts of hard core military equipment.
The only experience he had had with rivets, was with light duty pop rivets, (which even those usually prove to be fairly robust).
It's amazing how much learning we do during our lives, and how easy it is to believe that what we know is obviously known by most other people as well.
So, my little knife gifting needed a lot more information sharing than I first thought would be required.
That only added to my smiling about it all, since I knew that even if the knife was to be lost or somehow wind up out of his hands, some of the info I shared would likely forever be kept with him 👍
 
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PocketKnifeJimmy said:
Thanks, guys!
I did have to add a little bit of explanation on the steel, what can more easily rust, (carbon steel), and what is more resistant to rust, (stainless steel). With my having given him a carbon steel blade knife, I knew it would likely turn into a rust bucket in no time if I had not explained this to him, (he really had no concept of what difference there was).
He also needed to have a little 101 on using some oil to not only keep the bare steel from rusting, but also to keep the knife's smooth operation, and to lessen wear in the knifes pivoting area.
I guess it's easy for us knife enthusiasts to take all that for granted, thinking everybody knows and understands these simple maintenance steps on such things... But, no, he had no knowledge of this basic information, and so the basics were passed along to him when I gifted him the knife yesterday.
I remember him asking me about the rivets, and how surprised he was when he heard on the Mercator video about rivets being what held everything together on the knife, (as to basically say that the rivets seemed a bit mickey mousey). It's hard to explain a lot of things to some of the younger generations about something so commonly known to most of us slightly older folks. I mean, when I think of old school rivets, I think pretty positively about them. Like those huge rivets used to hold together all sorts of historic bridges, skyscrapers, planes, and all sorts of hard core military equipment.
The only experience he had had with rivets, was with light duty pop rivets, (which even usually prove to be pretty robust).
It's amazing how much learning we do during our lives, and how easy it is to believe that what we know is obviously known by most other people as well.
So, my little knife gifting needed a lot more information sharing than I first thought would be required.
That only added to my smiling about it all, since I knew that even if the knife was to be lost or somehow wind up out of his hands, some of the info I shared would likely forever be kept with him 👍
Click to expand...
That was a great thing to do.... Well done!
 
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