What and who got you into knives?

JM2

JM2

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Mar 11, 2013
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For me, it was at about 10. I was given a a schrade old timer 108ot for Christmas. I promptly stabbed my self in the palm trying to open another gift. I remember the feeling that gets in the pit of your stomach when you stab a part of your body. The blood came quickly. I’d say I had 1/8” deep stab that was 1/4” long. I still have the scar after 30 years.

As a boy, knives came and went. A cousin gave me a poor condition camco Barlow. However, I used it and whittled with it many years. The main blade was pretty wobbly and had been shortened by about 1/2”.

Mom had kept one of my dads knives. It was a Jet Aer G96 copy of the buck 110. It took me about 6 or 7 years but I finally persuaded mom to let me have it. It was the only knife I had from him. (Save for a Klein electrician with wire stripping and hawk bill blades. ) It too was wobbly in the blade, and had been sharpened a fair amount. Mom said dad did carry it though.

I ask mom about if dad had other knives and she said he did. I inquired as to what happened to them. She said he probably swapped them for a beer somewhere when he was broke. Sadly, dad was an alcoholic. He was also a felon, so I was left no firearms either.

Well mom had a boyfriend from about my 8th or 10th year until I was about 13 years of age. For the last two, we lived with him. He was a decent guy and helped me develop passions for woodworking, guns, knives, the outdoors and animals. He taught me how to sharpen a knife, and probably game me my first whetstones. He passed away and we moved across town. Sadly, as a few more years would have been great to help me grow into a man.

I remember that man carried a case stockman, probably a 47 pattern. It was large and had round bolsters. It always was sharp and the point of the clip blade was like a needle. Mom used it to dig splinters out.

I remember shooting 22s. A rifle that was probably a marlin 60, and a revolver that was probably a Ruger single six. And we all took turns with my BB gun. He and I set around whittling some. And we fished, and watched the wild game. It was the best times of my childhood.

Anyways, I just thought I’d share with y’all.
 
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In the age or era I was raised, "A man doesn't leave the house without his pocket knife, any more than he would leave without his pants." was still the norm.

At age 5, my uncle Bob, who was home on leave between Vietnam and Germany, gave me his issue "Demo" knife. (It's long gone, vanished in '66 when my parents divorced. I don't know if it was a Camillus, or if it was made by another contractor, such as Colonial and Western.)
I carried it every day including school days (it was legal then. The school expected the boys would have a pocket knife on them (and that a majority of the girls would have a pocket knife or sheathed paring knife, and a pair of scissors in her purse. The paring knife sheath was usually made from a empty breakfast cereal box. So was the scissors sheath, if she used one.) and Church days.

Around age 7 or 8 I acquired my first large stockman from my maternal step grandfather, and an Imperial Barlow, from my maternal Great Grandfather. I don't remember the brand of the stockman. It was most likely made by Camillus, or might have been an Imperial Frontier brand. They too vanished in '66. I don't know for sure who mummy dearest gave them, my bicycle, and 99.8% of my toys to. I have my suspicions, however ...
I bought another Imperial Barlow after the first vanished. A few months later, my maternal grandmother gave me grandpa's stockman when he passed in '66. I carried them both every day.

In 8th or 9th grade ('68 or '69) I somehow got a Buck 110. It must have been a Christmas or birthday present. No clue who gave it to me, other than it weren' my mum.
From that point on until 2020 I had a Demo/SAK/or "official BSA" scout/camp knife from my dad, clipped to a belt loop, the Barlow and stockman in my right front pocket, and a Buck 110 or an Old Timer 7OT/6OT on my belt.
Around '78 I'd switched from the 110 to a 7OT. It took a keener edge, and was easier to sharpen. I didn't get another 110 until 2014/2015.

Between 2015 and 2018 I experimented with other patterns. Mostly Rough Rider, after discovering the brand, and reading the reviews for them here. Practical patterns: Canoe, Sunfish, Moose, and two blade slipjoint folding hunters. 👍
 
I started a paper route at 11, and by 12 convinced my Mother to let me get a real knife so I could cut the bails.
(I do still have a small made in Japan little lock back thats poorly made but was given to me at some point prior to this, but it was useless for cutting anything)
So I got a Case Sodbuster Jr, which I cut myself on by the time we got from the sales counter to the car, a tradition that seems to have persisted as I tend to get bit early by knives I like, lol. At some point I lost it or it rusted away somewhere, but it would be fun to track down a mid 80s Sodbuster Jr someday.

Carried a knife pretty regularly after that, with some on/off periods. Sometime in my 20s a friend bought me a flipper, which was kind of a revelation at that point, and that sent me on a 10+year period of messing around with various modern knives, but I eventually came back to traditionals around 2006/7 and GEC are now most of what I own.
Latest acquisitions below, one of these will probably be my kids first knife someday
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My grandfather worked at Queen in the 70's and early 80's, and after I was 5-6 he used to take me along on road trips to the big NKCA knife shows in Cincinnati, Lexington, Louisville areas. He introduced me to other big names from that time, Bob Cargill, Jim Parker, Jim Sargent, Frank Buster, Adrian Harris, etc. He bought me knives and showed me a lot about what looks for in a knife, and how to talk to others with respect, and not to be shy or impolite. He is 84 now, and still interested in old collectible knives. It's something that is nice to have in common with him that we can talk about.
 
I get jealous of folks here when they speak fondly of their childhood experiences with knives. Being allowed to carry one as a kid, seeing the adults in their lives carrying them and using them on a daily basis, getting cut by one and learning the proper way to be mindful of both the benefits and dangers, getting gifted a knife by a loved one and having them teach you how to maintain and care for one. I for one had never had this experience. As a kid the only time I ever used knives was when I would hang out with the neighbor kid who would sit in his front yard whittling sticks into tiny spears. I'm not sure what attracted me to that but I would hang out with him, he would let me borrow one of his traditional folders, and we would mess around with pointy sticks for a while. I guess after the allure of that wore off I never put thought into knives. No one in my family regularly carried one and my parents were probably on the over-protective side and wouldn't have allowed me one either way.

It wasn't until about a year ago when two things happened to me. First, I found myself constantly needing something to cut with at work and began to get tired of looking for a pair of scissors to use as a blade or a dull and rusted razor blade that gets lost the second you no longer need it. Second, I found myself in a dangerous situation with people I didn't trust in a location I was unfamiliar with and I remember thinking how I wished I had a knife on me in the unlikely event something went down and I needed to protect myself. These two situations sent me down the rabbit hole and now over the course of the last year I bought over a dozen knives. About four before I found a great modern tactical knife that I carry with me when I want to have something quick to deploy, and the rest are a bunch of traditional folders for everything else.

Though I wish I was exposed to the benefits of carrying a knife when I was a child, I'm super happy I stumbled upon it now, and if I ever have a kid I look forward to giving them their first knife out of my small collection.
 
Interesting stories and knives. I appreciate all sharing.
 
Nothing in particular and nobody in particular led me into knives. When I was a kid in the early 1940s, it was just something we did/had. How else would we have played "Chicken", "Mumblety Peg", or whittled or picked a splinter out of our fingers? My Dad bought me my first brand new knife out of Mr. Hollaman's general store in Harrellsville, NC in 1948 but I already had a couple of old hand me down knives before that. Even the girls carried a knife back then and some of them were pretty dang good at Mumblety Peg - better than a lot of the guys.

It might be said that the "Tactical" knife of those days was a Toothpick with a four inch to six inch long blade. Very popular in the Juke Joints and bars in those days.
 
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Had a Victorinox as a teen but my old roommate really got me into it back in my early 20s. He was into tactical knives so I started my journey with a Spyderco Persistence. Got into traditionals, particularly GEC, back in 2015 as I started to notice them being posted more and more on Instagram. Bought 2 GECs that year and for a couple of years, I was content with my collection 😂.
 
In my early thirties I started working as a glacier guide. Alongside the rope, carabiners, slings, F.A kit, spare crampons etc. in your backpack you'd need a knife too. Because I also climb I bought a knife from a company that specializes in climbing gear - an early version of the Petzl Spatha knife. It's a friction folder so I guess it is a traditional (I bet none here would like it though, it is very, very ugly). As I always carried that knife whilst working it pretty much became some sort of EDC outside of work too and I used it for everything.
Fast forward till a few years ago when I stopped as a guide and thus stopped carrying that knife as well. I quickly felt something was off, that I actually needed a knife with me- a good knife, the "perfect" knife.
My search resulted in me purchasing the Gentleman's Pocketknife from Fallkniven. Unfortunately, I received a really bad one and after some emails between the owner of Fallkniven and I, I decided that Fallkniven is not a company that I want to do business with and got a refund. Around this time I had discovered Bladeforums and more importantly the Porch. The knives that I saw pictures of here left me speechless and I decided to purchase a quality traditional folder. However, my lovely wife surprised me by gifting me my very first GEC, namely the 861219 Northfield in Tortoise Shell Acrylic. In many ways this is the "perfect" folder and I could have/should have stopped right there but as you guys know there is just something about GEC that gets you hooked on 'em... So as of now I have a rather modest collection of GEC's, some Sheffield made folders and a few modern yet highly classic folders as well.

I doubt that it won't come as a surprise to you guys that my wife now says she she never should have bought me that darn knife 🤣
 
Was always fascinated by folders since I was about 5 years old. My dad had to peel my face off the knife displays in hardware and sporting goods stores.

My first knife was a stainless Ulster Boy Scout knife my dad gave me when I joined Cub Scouts at 7 years old. I was only allowed to use it under his supervision for the first year or so.

Once I had the knife all to myself, I went into the back yard and started using it to hack off leaves from my mom's fig tree. I think I had cut about 2 or 3 leaves before sinking the blade into the side of my thumb. Hurt like the devil with a scary amount of blood to an 8 year old, but I never told my parents for fear of losing my knife privileges.
 
This question feels almost like asking "when did you get into breathing?" to me. I cannot remember a time that I was not fascinated by knives, and by the time I was six my parents trusted me enough to let me use knives by myself.

The first specific knife I remember craving was my dad's SAK Champ. I remember absconding with it to whittle when I was seven and slicing off a good chunk of the tip of my thumb.

The oldest knife that I have today is a K. Tragbar that my paternal grandfather gave to me. I actually lost it on the tundra for years. Through a frankly unbelievable series of events (I've told the story before, and it happened to me, but it still seems impossible) it came back to me in good shape, and I still have it to pass on to my kids.

The first knife I saved my own money to buy was an Uncle Henry Golden Spike, but I gave that one away to a friend in need decades ago.

Then the event that rekindled my interest in knives about a decade ago was meeting Bill Harsey when he visited the archaeological dig where I was first learning my trade. He showed me some of the knives he had recently developed with Spartan Blades (not real traditional types). It was my first time really learning about high quality modern knives, though it wasn't until a few years later when the cheap beater knife I carried failed me in an emergency situation that I really started actually buying better knives. And that was when I joined Blade Forums.

Here is the aforementioned K. Tragbar. I need to take some new photos so I don't keep posting the same one in all these threads:
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My Dad gave me a Case pen knife when I was 5. Less than 2 days later, I cut myself and Mom took it away. The first knife I bought was a Schrade Jack knife when I was between 8 and 10. I began going to an open air flea market when I was about 12 or 13 mostly during the summer when school was out. I fell in love with knives and began trading with the old men at the flea market. I still love knives today and always have at least 2 in my pockets. It’s a much different time today. Sadly, because knives aren’t allowed in schools, many boys will never grow into men who carry a pocket knife. And those open air flea markets and the old gentlemen who traded knives there are much rarer today.
 
This guy, (my maternal grandfather), who was the last one to get the drop on me, circa 1955.

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He gave me my first few knives by or before the age of six or seven. (He was gone before I turned 9 1/2. I still think of him daily.)

(He also gave me my first taste of beer, Ballantine, at age 3. A debt I can never repay. 😂)
 
When I was a small fellow part of your EDC in those days was a pocket knife. You carried it to school and everywhere you went. Since I was about knee high to my Dad I would shadow or follow him everywhere he went. He would often use his case pocket knife. I would watch and long for the day I could have my first. It wasn’t long before I had a cigar box full of Imperials and others. I remember a lot of what my Dad taught me about knife use and maintenance. Every knife purchase I make I think of those early days with him.
 
My dad gave me my first knife at age 5 in 1971, and kept me well supplied with knives all through my youth - there were 2 independent hardware stores and an independent sporting goods store within walking distance of my house, all with excellent knife selections, and birthdays came around every year…

He was something of a purist in those days. We did a ton of camping, boating, and fishing, but we never had sheath knives, or scout knives, or Swiss Army style knives - he usually carried a large stockman, and usually gave me and my brother medium-size jack knives.
 
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