What and who got you into knives?

There are some real good stories here.
The only knife I ever considered using was an Opinel because that’s what my dad carried. When I was a young man I got myself a #9 then a #10, cause bigger is better, but my dad carried a #7 or 8 (I’ve settled on 9). He’s gone now but my sister just came to visit with her family and she was rocking a #8 inox.

I have the knife bug now, but I think the Opinel is the knife that all other knives are compared to for me.
 
It was my dad.

One day when I was 5 my dad showed me this " DEFENDER " Bowie knife he had in the toolbox in his truck, and it made a big impact on me.
The big mirror polished blade with it's aggressive upswept clip point was very impressive to 5 year old me, and from there knives were officially cool.
I had a little interest before, but that was the first knife to really awe me.
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When I was 7 he got me a dollar store Victorinox knockoff for my first knife and from there would give me any unwanted cheap knives he find in the junk drawer or box of crap in the garage.
My love of relatively small pocket knives came from my grandfather and his yellow Victorinox classic, he died when I was 7 but I watched him accomplish a lot with just a Victorinox classic in the few years I did have with him.
 
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For me it wasn’t who or what but simply the culture and times. I was very young, maybe 4 in 1963 and some of my earliest recollections involved knives. I grew up on a farm and ranch and many chores and tasks employed cutting tools of some sort. Butchering our own beef, hogs, chickens, and wild game, hunting and fishing and camping with various fixed blade knives. We used corn knives and machetes in the fields, stockman pocket knives for working cattle, castrating, whittling sticks, in the vegetable garden . My grandpa had a stockman and grandma had a small pen knife she kept in her apron pocket. Just about everyone I knew carried a pocket knife and many men also carried a fixed blade especially during hunting season.
I was 5 yo when my dad got me a cheap Barlow as my first knife and it failed me soon after and he told me from then on I had to earn and pay for my own pocket knife. I guess my dad got me started off but then left to me to decide about my knife.
 
My grandfather was a poor Welsh / German PA farm boy that served in the Navy in WW2. He was a crew Master Chief that overhauled engines and hydraulic system on Corsairs, Wild / Hellcats, Dauntlesses and Helldivers. Sometimes they'd come back with someone mutilated or dead and the cockpit awash in blood. He was 24 and known as "the old man" and he'd send all his young guys off duty, rope off the plane and clean it himself (I found this out later from one of the guys who was in one of the squadrons he rotated through) . For him grabbing a knife was like grabbing your keys. He'd always eat apples and cheese right off his Barlow. My uncle took after him and I took after them both. My uncle would always whip out a folder or old leverlock auto at the dinner table and eat with it. Even at a restaurant in NJ (where autos are illegal) and it didn't matter if it was a high end steakhouse or a sawdust bar.
 
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It was just a natural progression for me. My dad always carried a pocketknife, it seems like every adult I knew carried a knife. We were all outdoorsmen. I was a Scout, I was a big fan of Westerns.

I worked one way or another since I was fourteen. There was a gun shop an easy bike ride from home that carried some good stuff. A Gerber Mark I, a Mark I Presentation, a Woodswalker, a Sting, Gerber Folding Sportsmans, my first 110 and 112. Still have them.
 
Watching my paternal grand father use his knife daily really got me into knives. I should start this off saying that I am a little less "experienced" than some of you at 25 years old.

I remember being 5 or 6 seeing him do something with his cheap tradtional knife (no doubt bought for a dollar at a yard sale knowing him) and "save the day". So naturally as a "man" i needed to be able to save the day too. He gave me knives my entire life from SAKs he was given at work or his latest yardsale find fixed blade. I carried one everyday against my parents wishes and even allegedly I had one in my pocket every day from grade 4 onward. (This is in the 2000s so a big no no) I remember saving money at 15 to buy a ESEE Zancudo and Ontario Rat 1. I bought a Benchmade gripptilian at 17 and was scared to carry it because it was too nice LOL... How times have changed. I was into modern knives up until a year ago and now I've been slowly piecing together a small GEC collection as the scalpers... I mean flippers see fit to give me a decent price on.

My grand father is still with us at 67 years old, he retired in 2019 after working 49 years for the same large heavy Civil construction company I turn wrenches for today.
 
I found that knife which my dad eventually gave me as a teenager, the plating is worn off the cast pot metal handle and the rubber grips are gone, but the blade is still cool looking.
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I could never get it to take a good edge, but boy it always impressed my friends because the blade is shinier than the cheap stuff available to us from the local flea market at the time.
 
I liked guns and knives as far back as I remember but it was my Grandpa Dud Chase that gave me my first real knife; a Kamp King. I was about 10 or 11 years old and used it until the backspring broke.

This is a replacement to remind me

 
For me its easy, it was a Buck 103 that my dad always had on him when we were hunting or camping. I was enamored by that knife. Rambo didn't help either. I will always remember when I was 7 years old I had one thing on my christmas list. A Rambo knife 😆 🤣 😂. I didn't get a Rambo knife but I did get a Buck 103 identical to my dads. It was a great gift that initiated my love for knives. It also represented my love for my dad and me wanting to be just like him.

Right before my Dad left to Desert Storm I told him to take mine because his was so beat up. He ended up taking it and gave it back to me when he returned.

I keep that knife with my hunting rifles and gear in Wisconsin. Every six months or so I go up there to hunt with my dad. That knife is always on my hip during hunts and camping with him and my three boys.

Went through a long phase of modern folding knives. Early this year started reminiscing about the Old Timer stockman knife that my dad has carried forever and decided to try traditionals. I joined Blade Forums shortly after and have been hooked ever since.

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My dad moved us to a small farming town in the state of Chihuahua Mexico where everybody, and I mean everybody carried a knife with a belt sheath, mostly Case and Old Timers, my dad didnt carry one but my grandpa always carried a Case knife, I spent a lot of time with grandpa as a kid working on the farm, my best memory is him always cutting a watermelon at lunch with that knife, wish I knew where it ended up.
Anyways, I guess thats where my love for knives comes from.
 
JM2 said:
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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All said, it sounds like you turned out okay AND you have a great hobby 👍
 
I've just always been this way, nobody steered me down this road. My father hated the idea of me having a knife. When I was 9, I secretly bought a $1.49 jack knife at the Katz drug store and he was livid when he found out. The last time I saw him, he got a pained look on his face when I opened a package with a Buck 112.
 
I cannot remember not having a pocketknife. My Dad was a Soldier during my early years and carried a TL29 (he had two of them). I remember he and I carving and painting a neckerchief slide for my Cub Scout uniform when I was about 8, we used the TL29 - nearly 60 years later I still have the neckerchief slide. My grandad was an electrical contractor and taught me to skin Romex with a Klein wire-skinning knife when I was 10 or 11, I had some of those but they were considered expendable. My first pocketnife that I owned was a blue handled Cub Scout knife, about 1963. Later I got a brown handled BSA pocketknife when I earned Tenderfoot and my younger brother got my Cub Scout knife. My first real nice pocketknife was a Christmas gift from my Grandmother my senior year in HS (1972) - I still have that Buck 301. I won’t go into all the fixed blades but I still have my first, a Western Black Beauty 66 from my folks, Christmas 1967. I have never not carried a pocketknife (except for post 9/11 air flights and I quit flying a few years back). OH
 
Well for me it was a question of economics. I’d been collecting firearms and on my income it was getting too expensive. I’d always liked knives and could afford many more of them. I still buy a few guns but not anywhere near the number of knives I’ve acquired. I’m happy at this point in my life. 😃
 
It was my dad, mostly, but his dad and all of his brothers always had knives, too.

Dad grew up in the desert southwest after WWII, and everyone he knew carried and used knives all the time, so it was just a normal thing for him to do as well. He learned to make knives, and taught me and my brothers as well. He gave me my first pocketknife, an Imperial jackknife, when I was 8. But I first cut myself with a pocketknife a bit before that when he got a new Kabar stockman and put his Camillus BSA Whittler in his sock drawer. I thought he ought to have given me that knife, so I took it and started whittling on a chunk of wood and promptly cut myself.

Between the time I was 8 years old and when I went to basic in my mid 20s, I never was without a knife. The first thing I bought when I got to my AIT station after basic was an SAK, and that Tinker has been all over the world now. I rarely fly anymore, but when I do I always check a bag so I will have the proper tools available after landing.

I like Spydercos, and traditional slipjoints and hunting knives.
 
My Dad was an Electric Lineman from the time I could remember and he had a Linoleum Knife or Pruner knife hanging off of his heavy leather tool belt .. He always seemed to have a Barlow in his pocket . He showed my older brother and I how to use a knife safely when we were probably around 6 or 7 , but he never bought me a knife . Somehow I seemed to always have a knife for playing Splits from the time I was about 12 and up . How I got them , I do not remember . I bought a cheap knife when I was 17 just to carry with me when I went into the Army . After I got out of them Army and got a real job , I bought this Ulster and carried it every day for over 40 years . I used it for everything . From cleaning small game to using it for analyzing hydraulic components and engine parts after I magnetized the blades .
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After I retired in 2001 , I retired the Ulster and bought a small Case with Stag covers in about 2006 . Then my kids decided that they would just get me a knife whenever they wanted to give me a gift . Then in 2014 , I decided that I would just start collecting Barlow knives and tried to buy any brand , Old or New , that I could find . That lead me into Case , GEC , Taylors Eye Witness and all the others that I could find . Also I joined Blade Forums and started looking at all the knives that other guys like Half/Stop ... paulhilborn paulhilborn , Markesharp Markesharp , Primble Primble , Jack Black Jack Black , waynorth waynorth and many other Enablers were carrying and using and things kind of just Blew Up . So I guess I just have to blame all of you Enablers out there for causing me to Get Into Knives . Thank You Very Much guys .

Harry
 
I was fascinated by knives at a very young age, maybe four or five years old. My dad me and my next younger brother did a lot of fishing so there was always a knife around, I think the one my dad used the most was one he made from a file, and it had aluminum handles attached to it with brass pins. My earliest knives were the shell construction fish knives with scaler and hook remover. They were available at almost every store in town and every gas station. We used to call them banana knives LOL. This was in the sixties. My grandfather on my mother's side carried a well-worn Barlow, probably a cheap shell construction knife, these knives were affordable, sharp, and sold off of cards with thin bungee retainers and were mounted up high above the counter.

At about twelve or thirteen years old I had a paper route and saw a Buck display in the hardware store. It had the blackest ebony handles I had ever seen, and I had to have it, so I saved up my money for a few weeks and went into the store to buy it. I still remember the owner asking me if my parents were OK with my buying a knife. I said they would be fine with that; you need a knife for fishing and doing stuff and he sold it to me. My dad was very impressed with that knife, and I would hone it to a scary sharp edge on his India stone. I don't think there has been a time since then that I did not have a knife in my pocket. Now I have literally hundreds of knives, and yet seem to carry only a few, settling on one for a time, then switching to another for a time.
 
Is there anybody here who had no interest in knives before being formally introduced to them ?
It took seeing that big shiny Bowie my dad had for me to really become fascinated with them , but the interest in knives and things that shoot stuff was always there.

I remember finding a red Victorinox classic at an amusement park when I was 3, even at age 3 I somehow knew it was a pocket knife and picked it up.
Then there was the cheap liner lock my dad kept on the end table next to his recliner for awhile, I distinctly remember one day when I was 4 or 5 I was messing with it and couldn't figure out how it closed.
He caught me and, I just told him it fell off and opened but he knew that wasn't true.
He just went along with my story and put the knife where I couldn't reach it knowing it was his fault for leaving it there.
 
Since I can remember. As a kid I liked stories about knights and sword fights. When I watched F Troop reruns, my eyes were drawn to the sabers they wore. I use to sneak into dad’s drawer to see his Boy Scout knives. I’ve just always been drawn to them, since before I could actually own one.
 
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