To the old farts of the knife world, how have you seen the world of knives change?

I think people cared about steel back in the day. i remember when Chrome Vanadium made people weak in the knees, and "drop forged" made a knife sound like a very serious tool.

My first pocketknives were given to me by my grandfather back in the late 50's. Imperials, Uticas and the like.

The romance simply blossomed from those days onward.

Kit Carson made my first custom knife and decided to make it with CPM 420V (S90V). That was my first intro into the maelstrom of searching for the ultimate steel. It's been madness ever since. (In a good way.)
 
Speaking for myself, and the people I knew growing up...

The Buck 110 was a marvel of quality and engineering. It was the King of folding knives. All other folding knives were measured by it.

There were only two types of steel- stainless, and "gets rusty". Beyond that we had no idea what steel our blades were made of, and we didn't care. Then came "surgical stainless", which really impressed us kids, just like "aircraft-grade aluminum".

As a kid I could only dream of a folder that I could open with one hand. And the idea of a pocket clip never even occurred to me.

Today I'm constantly amazed at the near infinite variety and availability of knives. Unfortunately a lot of them are cheap junk out of China. But I will occasionally look at a cheap, one-hand opening liner lock, with low-grade stainless steel, G10 handles, and a pocket clip, like the Walmart Ozark Trails line, or the cheap folders sold by Harbor Freight, something so light you can barely notice it, and I think about how my friends and I would have looked upon them with awe and wonder, and how thrilled we would have been to have one. Today I probably wouldn't take one for free, but back then, even with a Buck 110 on my belt, one of those cheap folders would have been a prize possession.

Kids today, they don't know how good they've got it 😁 .
 
Over the years the knife world has become duller. Most everything seems rough finished, low polish or sand blasted. Gone are the days when most knives wore a high levels of mirror polish. We have also lost many of the classic handles materials and shapes. Ivory or exotic bone or wood are no more, as are intricate cross guards, inlays, wire wraps and finished pommels. About 80-90% of our knives are just slabs of metal with plastic handle scales. The same has happen to firearms where the beautiful hunting arms of old have yielded to stamped out plastic and sheet metal tacticals. Even the leather work has gone to be replaced by yet more plastic. I enjoy modern knives and guns and appreciate their technical perfection, especially the folders. But the aesthetics are becoming as rare as the classic hunter who aspired to spend time at a lodge with his friends while ogling the deep dark beauty of their guns and knives; and swapping tales of the big one that got away as they plan on an early morning hike to that hushed hill or breezy valley where the monster bucks are rumored to roam. You can almost smell the gun oil on those stocks again.

Today technology pounds us at the pace rate of a modern video game. It is hard to look at a knife or firearm without some pounding musical melody instantly popping into your head. It is all about the latest steels, calibers and bolt-on gadgets. The classic African big game hunting safari fades to be replaced by thoughts of a world infested by hordes of zombies or other extraterrestrial manifestations.

Things change, and I hope we can appreciate the various fantasies while resisting the urge to allow the latest fads from driving our history away from us.

n2s
 
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im not that old but i do remember when this knife was considered high end for a folder
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With folders i find the knives of today to be much better made when it comes to factory knives and mid techs, way more options. Now with kitchen knives I find that many of the old hand crafted Japanese knives of the past are better than many of those today. The only exception might be the ones useing modern super steels that were not around in the past. With that said I still prefer the classic old school hand made Japanese kitchen knives in carbon steels.
 
I didn't start any serious "accumulation " until the early 80's . Before that , they were mostly just tools to cut stuff .

IIRC , the idea that guys would buy knives primarily to just open and close them repeatedly , or take pictures on a hanky for "likes" , would not have been even comprehensible . :p

So , I think a large part of the knives marketed these days are not designed as simply the best cutting instrument .
 
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DocJD said:
the idea that guys would buy knives primarily to just open and close them repeatedly , or take pictures on a hanky for "likes" , would not have been even comprehensible . :p
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For the digital native generations who grew up since this became normal, from the laws of evolution they are about a different species of human from those generations where this was not even comprehensible.

Those poor bassids aren't even sure what a man or a woman is.....feels good being an old fart sometimes.
 
Houlahound said:
For the digital native generations who grew up since this became normal, from the laws of evolution they are about a different species of human from those generations where this was not even comprehensible.

Those poor bassids aren't even sure what a man or a woman is.....feels good being an old fart sometimes.
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I remember when just sporting a "Beatle" hairstyle was enough to get comments like , " Hey , are you a girl or a boy ? " . :rolleyes:

Life was simpler and knives certainly more basic in function .

Much less stigma attached to carrying and using a knife in public . Unless you acted stupid aggressive or careless .
 
Funny you mention music, in my area you had the wrong band t-shirt or the wrong haircut you were in a fist fight.

As far as carrying knives, we carried ,22 cal's slung across our shoulders as we rode 3 speed dragster bicycles thru the suburbs to the swimming hole (a former mine site that flooded) to shoot tin cans stacked on a big rock
 
Houlahound said:
Funny you mention music, in my area you had the wrong band t-shirt or the wrong haircut you were in a fist fight.

As far as carrying knives, we carried ,22 cal's slung across our shoulders as we rode 3 speed dragster bicycles thru the suburbs to the swimming hole (a former mine site that flooded) to shoot tin cans stacked on a big rock
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Knives have evolved from basic carbon steel cutting tools to today's wonderful variety of light weight, CNC-manufactured blades featuring complex steels. Locking mechanisms have gone from the simple springs to genius designs like the Axis lock and many other variations. And it just keeps on getting better.
 
KenHash said:
Indeed. I remember having or seeing Surgical Stainless, Surgical Steel, Rostfrei, Inox, 400 Series, 440 Stainless.
Back then Knife Companies marketed on the belief that the exact steel type was above the average knife buyers'
intellectual level.
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So, Interestingly, that's my impression as well. I'm not an old fart, so I can't weigh in with a whole lot of gravitas, but there seems to be an impression that there weren't as many steels back "in the day." Obviously we can remove all the modern particle metallurgy steels, but aside from those, I bet there were plenty of steels already in use, but they just weren't advertised. My impression is that nobody knew or cared if the "carbon steel" being advertised was 1095, or O1, or 5160, etc... etc... and there was no pressure on knife companies to disclose that information.

The part where I go further out on a limb:

I'd also add that there were a lot of companies making knives under other company's names. Cammillus, Schrade, Buck, Case... all making for one another, and perhaps the actual knife steel was changing depending on which vendor each company was contracting with, so you just call it "carbon steel" and it saves the hassle of changing the marketing info when your vendor switches and they use a different steel?

Any and all old farts, please feel free to correct me if my impressions are incorrect. I'm happy to be edjumacated.
 
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