The More Things Change...

ddavis

ddavis

Joined
Jan 17, 2018
Messages
237
... the more they stay the same.
Knives on the left were mine as a kid, elementary and middle school in the late 1980s through mid-90s. Knives on the right I purchased within the last 18 months (except the black jack, it's a little older).
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I realized how much my tastes haven't really changed over 25+ years. SAKs for camping, 2-blade jacks for EDC, sawcut mini single blades for the watch pocket. I had written the Schrades off, but back in November I found them buried in my parents basement, stuck in a cigar box. Kind of fun to see them again and realize how much I loved and carried those Old Timers, fishing with my grandpa in Missouri and hiking through the woods in Connecticut.

Anyone else still have their first knives?
 
Rainy day, stuck inside most of the day. I got to pondering how using just those four knives over the past 25 years would have saved me so much time and money.
Then again, I was telling my wife it's a hobby and I really enjoy not just the knives, but I enjoy the hunt and lately I've really enjoyed the community and discussions more than anything. Plus my foray into modern folders, fixed blades, collecting (and letting collections go) is all part of the journey.
 
My taste changed and then kind of reverted back. I had a SAK as a kid along with a fixed blade camping knife. I went modern only for awhile before getting back into traditionals again a few years back. Then I discovered vintage knives and my bank account hasn’t been the same since!! I wish I had a picture of my original SAK but it is long gone.
 
Ernie1980 said:
My taste changed and then kind of reverted back. I had a SAK as a kid along with a fixed blade camping knife. I went modern only for awhile before getting back into traditionals again a few years back. Then I discovered vintage knives and my bank account hasn’t been the same since!! I wish I had a picture of my original SAK but it is long gone.
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I'm right there with you - I went modern in the early 2000s but didn't go in too overboard with them, luckily. Couldn't afford but a few of them.
When my wife got me that black Case medium jack a few years back, it felt like coming home. I know I had a red SAK with a wine bottle opener as one of my first knives, but it is certainly gone. Lots of catch and releases lately, but I still have most of the knives I've carried through the years.
I've been looking at the vintage knives threads lately - my bank account thanks me that I'm not into them. Yet...
 
I had to smile when ddavis ddavis said; "...........................as a kid, elementary and middle school in the late 1980s through mid-90s.". I had retired from the U.S. Navy in 1989 and was well on the way with another career in the 1990s. I either forget or don't realize how young some of you guys/gals are.

Nice knives ddavis ddavis .
 
In the 60's we went to the Pyrénées for summer holidays and we spent a day in the Spanish enclave of Livia and I got a small acrylic green navaja for souvenir, but I think my parents realized it was quite dangerous with that ring lock for a 10 year old boy and the knife disappeared and never made surface. :rolleyes:
Had to wait till I'm 14 to buy mi first (and lost) Opinel.
 
My Father didn't like knives and would confiscate them when he found them. I remember he'd keep them in a shoe box in the closet and I'd steal them back once in a while. When he eventually found out that I was taking them back, he threw out that shoe box full of knives. I wish he would have saved that shoe box, just think of the treasures that would be in there. I still have a few of the knives I bought back in high school, I keep them in a steamer trunk with some other memories. Just a couple of Schrade stockman and jack knives, nothing note-worthy but still memories none-the-less.

After high school I switched to modern one-handed knives because that's what was used on the ranches I worked for. You needed to be able to access your knife quickly to cut rope in emergencies. I once had to cut a horse loose from a pack string and watch it tumble down the side of the mountain, or he may have taken the whole string of horses with him. That was a traumatic experience but a good representation of why we needed fast access to our knives. The old guys would carry fixed blades, but us young bucks mostly had Spyderco knives and such.

After returning to college I stuck with the modern knives because I guess I was used to having one. They were mostly the cheap(er) Spyderco knives. I didn't need anything fancy because they were just tools to me. Once I graduated and started working as a teacher, I switched back to the traditional knives of my childhood because they were a lot more friendly to the general public, especially other teachers who seem to be very sensitive to knives. It's an environment where a knife is viewed only as a weapon.

I'm glad I switched back to traditionals because they bring out a feeling of nostalgia that those modern knives just can't duplicate. I don't need fast access any more and prefer to just take my time and enjoy the experience of using the knife. Then I found this forum and my knife drawer swelled from a handful... to a drawer FULL! You all are such bad influences :D
 
I'm glad you have those early knives of yours, ddavis ddavis , and the pic comparing them to recent acquisitions is very cool! :thumbsup::cool::cool: I've often thought about starting a thread about how much our first knives influence our later tastes.

My first knife was a Colonial Forest-Master scout knife I got about 1960. I still have it:
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It was in my pocket 24/7 from 1960 to September 1969 while I was growing up on a dairy farm. But when I went off to college, I stopped carrying it and mostly kept it in a desk drawer until I got interested in knives again in January 2014 when my wife gave me a little Imperial jack her dad used to carry and had given her when he got a new knife. The Forest-Master is still very usable, even though it has some side-to-side blade play due to a bent spring (probably bent during some youthful indiscretion on my part), and the original bail disappeared somewhere.

I still like scout knives, especially SAKs, and a spearpoint blade is my overall favorite. My Forest-Master had "fake stag" plastic covers, and real stag is probably my favorite cover material. I definitely favor multi-blade knives over single-blade models, and I still like knives with bails or some kind of lanyard attachment point.

- GT
 
5K Qs said:
My Forest-Master had "fake stag" plastic covers, and real stag is probably my favorite cover material. I definitely favor multi-blade knives over single-blade models, and I still like knives with bails or some kind of lanyard attachment point.
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Funny you mention the fake-stag covers. Last fall I was looking at some stag knives and thought to myself "if only the stag were as beautiful as my old Uncle Henry knife I had when I was a kid." Of course when I found it again, I quickly realized it was plastic. Had me fooled for all these years...

Beautiful Colonial Forest Master. I really believe that knives look the best once used and have a story to tell. That Colonial looks perfect to my eyes, glad you still have it too.
 
JohnDF said:
My Father didn't like knives and would confiscate them when he found them.
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Haha! I had one extremely large fixed blade I bought while at Walmart with my Grandpa that my Aunt quickly confiscated from me. She gave it to my mom, who promptly threw it out. My grandpa just kinda chuckled. I was so sad, I remember the price exactly - $17 completely gone. I know the feeling!

JohnDF said:
I'm glad I switched back to traditionals because they bring out a feeling of nostalgia that those modern knives just can't duplicate. I don't need fast access any more and prefer to just take my time and enjoy the experience of using the knife. Then I found this forum and my knife drawer swelled from a handful... to a drawer FULL! You all are such bad influences :D
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Amen!
 
Still have the first knife (given to me when I was 7 y.o) - a Queen single blade barlow which he had well used. It got me started on knives. I've had all types, but at 75 I've been back to my first SAK for many years.
Rich
 
I still have the first knife I ever owned, an Ulster scout knife from the early 1960s.
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I rarely carried my scout, but used it quite a bit around the house. I began hunting at age 8 in 1963, and we always used my dad's Imperial fixed blade to clean the rabbits and pheasants we shot on my grandpa's farm. When my dad passed in 1984, I got the knife and still have it.
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The first knife I ever bought for myself was a Gerber Silver Knight lockback I got in the early '70s. I carried it for about 15 years until I lost it some time in the mid to late '80s. A forum member was kind enough to gift me this one as a very close replacement.
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After losing my Gerber, I replaced it with a BuckLite #424 with the Valox handle. I broke the tip off it using it as a screwdriver, then some years later when I got a belt sander I reshaped the tip. Still got this one too!
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I didn't really start collecting knives until around 2008. I think the first fixed blade I bought at this time was a ram's horn handled H&R skinner, which I still have.
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And the first folder I bought when I started seriously knifing was this ACSB Queen #06L linerlock.
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Not long after this I started buying, selling, trading and collecting GECs, and I've been doomed ever since! ;)
My first GEC, the #54 Big Jack in burnt grizzly cut bone.
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This I also posted in another thread.
I still have 4 of the first 5 knives of mine. The 1st one is a used pen knife given to me by my Grandpap it’s a small 2 blade pen knife when I was 7 or 8, it saw a lot of pocket time between him and me. I can’t remember the make and even with a 10x glass I can’t make it out. My 2nd I got a few years later on a camping trip it is if I remember correctly it’s a Colonial Cut Barlow, the clip blade is broken off but this is still my desk knife. The 3rd and 4th knives I received on my 12 birthday one is a Ideal Products small game knife and the other one was a Sharade Sharpfinger which I promptly lost the 2nd day of deer season that year hence the 5th knife once again given to me by my Grandpap is a used Queen Cutlery fixed blade knife to replace the lost Sharpfinger. These knives are cherished by me and bring back a lot of memories.
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My first knife as a kid was purchased for me by my father. It was a Diamond Edge scout knife, made by Imperial. Not the DE shell knife that you often see, but something a bit nicer, and as I've found out, far more rare. But being a kid, of course I lost it.

After many, many years of searching, I finally found one on auction. It's the only other one I've ever seen.

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That first knife was wonderful. It had the Diamond Edge logo on the blade, and I was absolutely sure that it actually had diamonds in the edge. After all, it said so on the blade!

I did my first whilling with that knife. I got my first bad cut with that knife. :eek::eek::eek: I was cutting towards myself while whittling a stick, and ended up cutting deeply into my left thumb. My dad patched me back up and just said, "I bet you'll never do that again." The lesson was learned.

I still carry a scout knife every day, almost 45 years alater.

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chuck4570 said:
I just received this today from a coworker, haven’t even cleaned it up yet. He picked it up at a yard sale, there was 2 of them, he kept one of them. Solid scout knife for sure. Any ideas on age?
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Regarding age, you might find this link interesting:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/colonial-knife-co-providence-r-i.1393295/page-2#post-16067473
The whole thread is pretty cool, but posts 27, 35, and 41 have some info relevant to age of Forest-Masters.

- GT
 
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