Tradiotionals have kept their hold on me

[silenthunterstudios]

I recently sent a money order for a Benchmade 710, and I'm buying a large micarata Sebenza next month, but I found a Case amber bone medium stockman with CV steel yesterday at the local True Value hardware store. Bought the display knife too. I've been buying modern designs (won't call a non tactical knife tactical), and have realized that I like the old stuff too. I have three traditional knives right now, and two I consider traditional but they could be considered modern.

Case amber bone medium stockman CV
Queen medium stockman D2 cocobolo
Queen Mountain Man cocobolo

Spyderco mini Dyad with micarta scales and Kershaw Splinter with quince wood scales.

I'm looking for the following designs which I have liked since I was a little kid, from Queen with cocobolo scales.

large Cattleman
small Cattleman
small Congress
large Stockman
large Trapper
small Whittler

I really like my Queen stockman and MM, and prefer their quality, but still like Buck, Case, the original Schrade/Uncle Henry/Imperial and Boker. I've had the 110, but it wasn't me, although I liked the custom 110 I had. I've owned the Cave Bear Old Timers. Most of the other designs, like the saddlehorn, canoe and barlow are neat, but I like the above multi blade folders. What designs do you like, and do you find yourself treating your traditionals better than you do your moderns?

 

[sodak]

I usually carry a modern pocket clip in my left front pocket, and a traditional in my right front. Currently, I'm carrying a Spyderco Caly 3, although I carry a variety of Spydercos and Cold Steel Trailguides for moderns.

For the traditionals, I like the stockman pattern, sometimes the trapper. I'm really starting to enjoy the Queen canoe, but haven't yet warmed up to the Congress (2 blade). I have mainly Case, Queen, and Cold Steel Stockmans and Trappers in almost all the usual sizes. I have a Queen small stockman in mother of pearl that's almost too nice to use, I'm currently looking for Queen's 2 bladed pen knife in MOP. As soon as they're back in stock....

 

[jackknife]

What designs do you like, and do you find yourself treating your traditionals better than you do your moderns?

Easy question to answear, as I don't have any "modern" knives anymore. The only folders I have now, and have had for many years now are all traditional patterns. I guess I have to admit I'm old enough to remember when a mans pocket knife was something like a two blade jack, a Barlow, a stockman or such. When I was a kid, nobody even saw a locking blade knife. When Buck unleashed the 110 folding hunter in 1963, it changed the knife world.

I tried the "modern" stuff in the 1970's and 80's, but I just never could bond with a single blade knife of questionable design. By 1990 I was giving away my "other" stuff and going back to what I grew up with- slip joints. Theres no way a a knife with a single blade can come close to matching the cutting versitility of a stockman with its selection of different blades. In 1952 I became a Boy Scout and Dad gave me a Official scout knife. That spoiled me. I got used to having a screwdriver, bottle opener, awl, let alone a nice wide flat ground knife blade that got sharper than any wedgy thick bladed trend knife. And the natural bone handles got a nice brown patina with the years, as did the carbon steel blade.

If someone has both traditional as well as modern, I think the traditionals will be better treated. They will be valued more in time as the owner uses it because its easy to get attached to something that has a certain feel, let alone flat out works better because of better design. Traditional knives date thier designs back to when people really used knives. They had to work at specific cutting tasks, vs the modern tacticle knife that only has to fill the Hollywood fantacies of young male readers of Soldier Of Fortune. Hard working people like profesional ranchers, carpenters, farmers, or like my own family Chesapeake Bay watermen, rarely get into a fast draw contest with thier knives, or engage in combat with ninjas. But when a line has to be cut, or a box opened, or something just needs the a use of a sharp cutting tool, a good knife is a valued work companion. And in time when the natural handle material like bone, stag, or a nice grained wood developes a darker charater as does the blade, the traditional knife becomes something that the zytel and wonder stainless never becomes.

I don't think many of the young and up coming knife knuts will appreatiate the undefinable something that happens when you've had a good knife or gun that has aged with you. It developes something. I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandalier so I can't put it into words, but I think you have to experiance it. no modern tactical thing is ever going to have "it".

Maybe its the link to our grandads and the grandads before him that does it. Using a knife just like one that my old granddad would instantly recognize. When I hold a stockman I can't help but to think of my own granddad who took me hunting with him when I was 10. Mom did not like me to go because she thought I'd be corupted by his rough cronies who smoked pipes and cigars like chimneys and cussed pretty good. I watched him sit on a log and pluck and fillet the quail breast with his old grey bladed stockman. Later the same day that knife would cut a corned beef sandwich in half for lunch and he always said the same thing- "here ya go sprout". Priceless memories. Now his old George Schrade stockman sits in a place of honnor on my pipe rack.

Maybe it's all about that-memories and heritage. I don't think tacticals will make it in the long run, thier just too soulless. No charater. Like a modern plasitic stocked alluminum recievered parkerized thing that shoots, or a liquid smooth Mauser action rifle with a deep blue that has such a deep luster that you can fall in, mounted on a walnut stock with sharp hand cut checkering and a soft oil finish. One is just a tool that shoots, the other is a rifle you would be pround of.

 

[moonwilson]

I've been totally bitten by the traditional bug. I have been heavily into collecting the modern folder category (I agree with the statement above about the "tactical folder" nomenclature) for many years, but I recently got a Manix, which I feel is almost perfect and makes further purchases in that category sort of redundant (for now at least).

I was kind of unhappy at first, until I wandered into ACE hardware and came across their Case display. I'd never really seen Case knives before, at least I'd never paid attention to them. Some of them are really quite beautiful. I bought an amber bone Trapper and enjoyed it so much I went back the next day and bought a pocket-worn old red bone Stockman. The next day I ordered a catalog from Shepherd Hills Cutlery, which just arrived today, and I can't stop looking through it. That catalog is dangerous, I'm telling you. My bank account started screaming the minute it arrived.

Traditional folders are beautiful, and you can carry and use them anywhere you want (except on a plane) and nobody will give you a hard time. There are so many different patterns, variations and makers that they just scream to be collected. I just bought another Buck 301 and that thing's really nice as well. In collecting, when one door closes, another opens.

 

[rosconey2]

if its not a framelock its a slipjoint for me-
the mammoth ivory muskrat i bought last week is a looker-
last few months-
canal st muskrat and sm stockman and 2 ringknives in the bf buy-

a s&m sm texas toothpick and the fightin bull mammoth muskrat

 

[Amos Iron Wolf]

For me, traditional folders and fixed blades were just part of growing up in the country. However, I never really got into them for collecting. I knew that Case, Buck, and Old Timer were good knives and standards. Over the years I would dabble a little here and there with some tradtionals. Along the way, which included over a decade in the Army, and messing with guns a lot on my own, I picked up and traded various knives, Al Mar, a Randall I really wish I still had, a SOG or two, a variety of Cold Steel knives from the Trailmaster on down (another one I wish I still had). I did manage to hold on to my old SRK. Well, actually I traded it to my Dad who used it for years, then I finally traded it back out of him this year, finally.

Along the way, especially while working in a gun shop in Alaska part-time while stationed there, I picked up a few Remington Bullet knives, with posters, and a bone handled Renington Musket-1 Daddy Barlow, which I still have. (I've since picked up another bone and a delrin of these.) But still, tinkering.

At one point in the early 90s a large SAK became my edc in a sheath on my belt. A few years later a Swiss Champ replaced that one in the sheath. And that was always on my belt for quite a while. A few years back my standard carry became a Kershaw Ken Onion 1550 Blackout. I still have it and it has been a good user that still shaves.

This past year traditionals kinda pounced back on me with a vengence. Maybe cause I'm getting older and the traditionals take me back to a time and way of life I liked a lot better, when people were relatively responsible, frivilous lawsuits were few and far between, and when someone saw a man with a gun or a knife, they usually struck up a conversation about guns, knives, and hunting. But I've come to really appreciate the beauty of the patterns, their histories, the different materials, so many things about them. A well made, traditional knife is a thing of beauty as well as a tool, a tool that was developed to different tasks, but always a companion to a man as he went about each day. The traditional knife was man's tool of self-reliance and sometimes identity.

I just passed my 100th knife mark in my collection the past few weeks. Not all are traditionals and not all are primo pieces, but they're my collection. Small taters compared to a lot of these fellows who have been at it for years. But the pleasures from tradtionals have been many. The comraderie on here is of course a high point. Learning about different aspects of the knives - steels, jigging patterns, handles, blade styles, patterns (though I did know my basic patterns and basic blades years ago), makers beyond Case, Buck, Old Timer, and KaBar. The histories and intertwinings of the old cutlery companies has been fascinating in itself.

Yeah, I tend to treat my tradtionals a bit better. After all, moderns and tacticals give a sense of being meant to be used hard and kicked around with only minimal care. Right or wrong, that is just the character they project to me. My traditionals, on the other hand, exude and endear a more intimate sense of personal extension. They seem to invite you to spend more time with them. Examining, testing, and at times just admiring.

Some of our past threads on here would indicate that as a number of us embrace more tradtional patterns, we also seem to embrace more traditional attitudes, often seeking to simplify parts of our lives and to take more pleasure in simple things like frying an egg just right in a cast iron skillet.

Moderns and tacticals might be characterised as you being on, forgive the pun, edge. While traditionals are more of a sit down and peel an apple, take your time kind of thing.

Welcome to the knuttery. Warning, tradtional knives can become VERY addicting. You have been warned. Now go buy something out of that Shepherd Hills catalog. I got that one recently too. Droooll!

 

[rifon2]

I keep a nice slipjoint on my desk - a different one every day - to open envelopes, Tyvex packages, boxes etc.

Case, Boker, Schatt & Morgan, Queen...

They look great, feel great, work great, and they
don't freak out the visitors...

(Well maybe those 5" toothpicks )

One particular favorite is the small Queen Abalone Stockman in D2,
a little jewel of a knife.

 

[Casares]

"take more pleasure in simple things like frying an egg just right in a cast iron skillet."


Amos, you are so right.

This is what appeals to me about traditional knives.

I just like things that are simple and that work well.

I suppose, as I get older, this applies more and more to everything in life.

I love carbon steel, because it does what it is designed to do - it cuts, smoothly and quickly. It may not look pretty, and you might have to rub some oil on it now and again, but so what ?

if it works, it works...

The traditional knives just sit right in the hand, fit in your palm and do not weigh down your pockets too much.

Neither do they wear big holes in your pockets, they just lie there comfortably.

The traditional patterns have been tried and tested for years and they have withstood a lot of fashions coming and going.....celluloid handles, lots of different stainless steels looking for a place in history...etc.

But once you get a nice barlow or stockman or a sweet, slim canoe in your jeans pocket, everything just feels right.

I have tried liner locks...hate them, tried high tech steels, hate them, tried frame locks, hate them.

Comfort and fitness for purpose are the most important thnigs in my opinion, whether it is your favourite skillet of your favourite pocket knife.

 

[jackknife]

"take more pleasure in simple things like frying an egg just right in a cast iron skillet."

And fry up the bacon in the same skillet before the eggs, and leave some of the bacon grease to fry up the eggs. There's nothing like eggs fried up in real bacon grease to taste right.:thumbup: Now they have nonstick pans and "egg beater fake egg stuff!:thumbup:

Give me the old time food with the real stuff in it! So I die a few years sooner, I'm going to enjoy my one ride on this merry-go-round!

 

[rbmcmjr]

As I find myself rushing headlong into middle age, I find my tastes are coming full circle. I started my knife-owning with a large Camillus Stockman that I found while on a hike with my scout troop. From there, it went Buck 112, SAK, "tacticool" liner lock, modern automatic (Benchmade 3100), modern framelock. About two months ago, I felt some nostalgia for my old Stockman (Dad still has it) and looked to replace it. I bought one of the Case bone-stag 6375 patterns and it was like coming home again.

Since that purchase, I've picked up three of the Schatt & Morgan F&W series (English Jack, Toothpick, and Wildcat Driller), one of the Queen #44 pattern Copperhead Hunters in D2, and my EDC Queen Canoe in 1095. The clip knives are still here, just never seeing any carry time.

I'm eagerly awaiting my first custom slippie, a Jeff Claiborne Elephant Toe in 52100. It should arrive within the next few days from Vintage Knives. I can't wait.

 

[cerulean]

I got really into traditional slip-joints just this year.

For awhile, I tried carrying a slip-joint as my sole EDC. They were usually bigger knives: File & Wire English Jack, large Eye Brand Sodbuster, Case large Copperhead, and a 4.25 inch Eye Brand Stockman.

Now though, I like to carry a smaller traditional paired with a good sized locking folder. My current slip-joint is a Case medium stockman, but I also use a Queen single blade Copperhead and small Eye Brand Sodbuster in that role.

The locking folders that see time in my EDC rotation don't necessarily have to be modern; I've been carrying a Buck 110 recently and I also like my Opinel No. 9. For one-hand opening folders with a pocket clip, it's usually a Spyderco Chinook I, Scorpius, or a large decorated regular Sebenza.

Stereotypical tactical folders don't hold my interest for very long these days. They have their uses and I won't denigrate them, but I just can't buy another knife with black G-10 handles or whatever. It's hard for me to get excited about them anymore.