What and who got you into knives?

As. Kid, I know I had pocket knives, because I played chicken and mumblety peg, which I could not otherwise have done. One of them was a demo knife; I have no specific recollection what any others might have been.
Around 1960, I took an interest in knives after seeing “West Side Story” on Broadway. I got a little gravity knife that looked like an Italian switchblade, and carried it for a couple of years. So I guess you could say it was Leonard Bernstein who got me into knives.

For the next ten years, I went without, until I realized if I was going to backpack around europe, I was going to need a knife to slice cheese and bread and sausage, and maybe to rig some guy lines for a tarp shelter. In Amsterdam I paid about six bucks for the Löwen Messer Hippekniep that I still have today.

Over the next few decades, I accumulated a bunch of Opinels and a bunch of SAKs to carry on my motorbikes, in supplementation of the tool kits. I never carried them on my person, because I didn’t want a hard lump of anything in my pockets in case I did the Flying W followed by a face plant on asphalt. Along the way, I also picked up the Tapio Wirkkala Puukko from the Brookstone catalog, the Vic Mauser-labeled GAK, again out of a catalog, and my first Anza, at a motorcycle swap meet. Charlie Davis was somewhere on the premises, but I bought the knife from his wife or girl friend who was manning his table.

Over this period, the Opinel was my idea of a perfect knife, light, sharp and cheap with an elegant locking mechanism. The SAK was my multi-tool, until I decided the Leatherman was superior, and bought a few to carry on my bikes in place of, or in addition to the SAKs.

The Leatherman fell out of favor with me on a trip to Mexico. , trying tontravel light, the Leatherman was my only blade. I had lost not one but two fluid plugs due to the rough roads, and in each case turned to the Leatherman to whittle a plug. The knife got the job done, but only with difficulty. I resolved never to travel again without a good knife.
 
I remember always liking knives, but my first purchase as a young boy (probably 12) was an Anvil brand stockman. I was fascinated with that knife, but unfortunately lost it. I picked up cheap barlows and such as a boy, but as I got into my teens in the 80’s I got interested in knives as weapons. There was the flea market purchase of a survivor cheap Rambo knife, boot knives, balisongs, etc.
At some time in the 90’s after being old enough to carry firearms I decided I wanted a pocket knife to be primarily an effective cutting tool instead of a weapon, and that is when my ideas and philosophy on knives changed. Then I started experimenting with different types, styles, steels, manufacturers, etc. and it has been downhill since 😂
 
I grew up on a farm and Dad always had a stockman or barlow in his pocket, and a vise-grip pliers on his belt. I think I was around 11 when he gave me and my older brothers each an Utica lockback for Christmas. It was a feed company promotional knife. Over the years, that small knife got smaller. I worked on neighbors' farms through high school and college, and used it daily. At some point in high school, I got a really cool looking SAK with lots of tools. The thing was so thick, I never carried it and eventually lost it in a move. The Utica stuck around.

After Dad passed, I found one knife in his desk. It was an Imperial barlow, with a bit of rust and very stiff springs. Also a promotional knife for the same feed company. Unfortunately, when I cleaned off the rust, I also cleaned off the billboarding on the blade.

These days, the Utica mostly stays in a drawer. It was my only knife for about 30 years, and has too many memories to risk losing. It's opened kids' presents, assembled furniture, cut snacks, harvested garden veggies, etc. I've carried Dad's barlow a few times, and it still cuts. I'm more likely to use his old coffee mug (also a promotional item from that same feed company!) than his knife, though.

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i've always loved knives ever since I was a kid. I had gotten into scouts a bit older than the cub scouts age so it started in Webelos for me. I remember going through the manual and seeing the portion on knives and their usage and saying thats probably something useful to have. Of course, scouts in the big city vs suburban scouts or even rural scouts is a big difference. My early knives were either cheap multi tools or SAK clones from the dollar store and junk shop. I did get a coleman knife keychain once when the family drove to Tanger outlets in long island and they had this large camping/sports goods store that no longer exists. That was a fun little carving knife, very heavy pull for a kid. Then came the trappers and balisongs from the junk shop, and eventually allowance would provide enough pocket money for some other knives. That would be my modern phase. It wouldnt be until after college and starting work when I'd have some real money for nicer stuff and come full circle back to traditional knives although I do dabble occasionally, typically a single blade.
 
Oddly enough, for an old guy, I came to the party rather late - at age 55. Prior to that my only real experience with pocket knives were as rarely used tools. I used a multi-tool more often. I had a red-handled SAK back around when I was 10 or 11. No idea what happened to that one, though I do still have a scar from that one on my left hand to remind me that sharp knives are sharp. I had carried a Buck 110 on my belt at work during an earlier career, but that was more of a "just in case" rather than a daily use knife, and it eventually migrated to a toolbox which sat mostly unused in the carport storage room for several decades.

It was participation in a different Internet gear forum which first got me interested in pocket knives, mainly some of the newer modern styles that were, at that time, totally new to me. I was interested in a few of the Kershaw designs at the time, and the Kershaw sub-forum here is what brought me over.

Then I wandered into the "Traditional" forum here, which at the time I assumed meant mostly discontinued "antique" knives, but then I discovered that many were still being made and manufactured, by Buck, Case, and several others. I was impressed by the beauty of the older designs, with their jigged bone handles, nickel-silver bolsters, and brass liners. Reminiscent of older times when things were made by hand and where beauty as well as function were important. And on top of all of that, they were affordable.

That was also a time when two other factors combined - a period of increased income from a retirement pension from a former job that started giving me some "extra" monthly income, and I experienced a near-miss family health issue that sort of changed my perspective for a while about things, and spending a little bit on something you enjoy was not a big deal.

So for a while, I got into collecting and learning about pocket knives, in particular the traditional styles and patterns, which spread into sharpening and eventually even into kitchen knives.

Eventually, that "extra" income got rolled into the general income, and new expenses appeared, so there was no "fun money" left I could afford to just waste. I had also reached a critical mass of cutting tools where it made no sense to ever add "just one more" to the pile. The joy of getting that new box in the mail waned, and I eventually just stopped buying them.

My accumulation days are behind me. Every once in a while, like once every couple of years, I toy with the idea of adding just one more. As a special treat or in remembrance of my earlier days in the hobby.

But short answer - this forum :)
 
I had a pocket knife and two cap guns by age 7 in 1954. I know this because Davy Crockett (King of the Wild Frontier!) was airing on the neighbors' TV that year. And I was smitten with everything about it. I even had a coonskin cap. I used my pocket knife to carve a wooden facsimile of a fixed blade hunting knife. Then for a few decades I used knives as tools. I first thought of them as collectibles beginning with a gift from my Son on my birthday in 2007. I have had it bad ever since.
 
My first knife was my Cub Scout knife.

My uncle, a big, tall and soft spoken farmer, nicknamed me "Primble" when I was nine years old. It all started at the Caney Fork country store, which had a Primble knives display and I was always walking down the old red clay dirt road to see the knives. I recall talking about them all the time. My uncle eventually got aggravated with me and told me that I was going to turn into John Primble if I kept going down there all the time. My cousins thought that was funny and they commenced to calling me "Primble". Nicknames got designated easily in those times.

It would be many years before I would actually purchase a John Primble pocket knife.

My second knife was a Case bone medium stockman, which I purchased at a hardware store, about the time I started running a paper route from my bicycle. I needed it to cut the strings on the paper bundles, but, soon found many things that needed cutting. Third knife was a green Case Sodbuster.

I started buying more Case bone knives as I got a little older and had a Buck or two, as well. The hardware stores with knife displays were my enablers back then.

In the late 1970's I kept adding more Case bone knives to my collection. From there it really blossomed in the late 1990's, when I kept accumulating more and more.

When I came upon Blade Forums, my collection grew and grew and grew.

I really think it was the Primble Knife display down at the Caney Fork Store that really started my interests in pocket knives .......................................... and later I located and purchased that very display from the Caney Fork store. It is now stocked full of old Primble knives, in my home. 😊

I also had help in acquiring more Primble's from other members of the porch, to which I am grateful. 🙏

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Thanks all for sharing.

Thanks for sharing your story primble.

I had a cub scouts knife, blue with three blades. I am not sure of it was before or after the schrade stabbing incident. It was around that time though. I was in cub scouts about a year I think. It was expensive and mom couldn’t manage it so I dropped out. Thankfully for her, I didn’t show much interest in it, so she didn’t push it.
 
Growing up on a dairy farm, knives were mainly used for cutting hay bale strings , which i was allowed to start feeding out from around 6-7 from the deck of the ute. As far as I can remember my first knife was a Victorinox Spartan at age 9 for Christmas, which taught me it wasn't always the big packages that had the best presents in them :) MacGuyver was big on TV then , so it was a treasured item although lost through stupidity a few years later . A couple years later I got one of the cheap plastic Rambo knives like everyone my age did. Got issued a Camilllus TL29 when I joined the NZ Army in 2000, wish I'd kept it. Around my 30th I started colleting various modern knives on the budget end, then in the last couple of years I've got more of a appreciation of traditionals, which hanging around this place sure doesn't help :D I've compromised by EDCing a Pioneer which has a bet each way on being traditional, but also has multiple functions for workplace use.
 
sf fanatic said:
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. 😃
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I have had a similar experience. My original love was for guns, but I couldn’t afford to “collect” the ones I wanted. Revolvers and precision rifles/scopes are expensive 😂.

I’ve always lived on a farm so I had chores and summer jobs on it since I was 9. Most of those chores required the use of a pocket knife and so I always carried one. It was never fun trying to pull twine off a bale if I forgot my knife as a kid!
Fast forward to me being around 20, I bought a Benchmade 940 and spyderco pm2. Fell in love with the spyderco and started a small collection of tactical folders. At some point I bought a GEC bull buster second hand and really enjoyed it. Took me back to my childhood knives in a way. Started reading up on GEC and grabbed a NW Fremont in burlap that I sold because I didn’t like it. Then I bought a couple GECs off the exchange which I loved and I really wish I still had. I did a lot of buying and selling which is what was so great about knives, I could cycle through and try a bunch without losing a lot of money. In hind sight though, I let go of some great knives because of this.
The rest is history, I’ve been collecting GEC’s and a couple other kinds of slipjoints for around ~5 years now.
 
Very interesting replies. Thanks all for sharing.

Guns has been mentioned several times. I’m still into guns. I go back and forth between which I am enamored with the most; guns or knives. But I don’t turn my back on knives because I’m on a gun kick, and visa-versa. I didn’t get into guns till I was 18. I always had a BB gun from about 13, but mom wouldn’t allow a real gun until I could legally overrule her. I’ve never had over about ten guns at a time, but I’ve traded quite a bit. I’ve had over 100 different guns. I have kept a list of models I’ve had.

Knives being so much more inexpensive than guns, it’s only natural that they are a bigger hobby for me. And the fact that I use a knife multiple times daily. I carry a gun daily, but I don’t use it much. A knife is the basic human tool over a club, and the most useful tool a person can own.
 
Primble said:
My first knife was my Cub Scout knife.

My uncle, a big, tall and soft spoken farmer, nicknamed me "Primble" when I was nine years old. It all started at the Caney Fork country store, which had a Primble knives display and I was always walking down the old red clay dirt road to see the knives. I recall talking about them all the time. My uncle eventually got aggravated with me and told me that I was going to turn into John Primble if I kept going down there all the time. My cousins thought that was funny and they commenced to calling me "Primble". Nicknames got designated easily in those times.

It would be many years before I would actually purchase a John Primble pocket knife.

My second knife was a Case bone medium stockman, which I purchased at a hardware store, about the time I started running a paper route from my bicycle. I needed it to cut the strings on the paper bundles, but, soon found many things that needed cutting. Third knife was a green Case Sodbuster.

I started buying more Case bone knives as I got a little older and had a Buck or two, as well. The hardware stores with knife displays were my enablers back then.

In the late 1970's I kept adding more Case bone knives to my collection. From there it really blossomed in the late 1990's, when I kept accumulating more and more.

When I came upon Blade Forums, my collection grew and grew and grew.

I really think it was the Primble Knife display down at the Caney Fork Store that really started my interests in pocket knives .......................................... and later I located and purchased that very display from the Caney Fork store. It is now stocked full of old Primble knives, in my home. 😊

I also had help in acquiring more Primble's from other members of the porch, to which I am grateful. 🙏

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That is such a great story! Really neat that you were able to acquire the Primble display case after all those years. Very cool. 😎
 
My father always had a pocket knife, so naturally I wanted one as early as I can remember. My first wasn't a pocket knife, but something harder to lose...It was a sheath knife, probably an Imperial or Colonial, and It came with a long set of rules, the violation of any would cause the blade to be repossessed. I was proud of that knife enough to remember it vividly 65 years later. At school in the 50s and 60s, most of the boys carried pocket knives. The teachers would ask to borrow one when they needed to cut something and there would be a rush to get one to her first. It is interesting that there was no vandalism of school property by carvings that I can remember. Carrying a knife has always been as natural to me as breathing.
 
My uncle Robert was main influence but everyone I looked up to and some I didn’t carried pocket knives. Robert took me fishing in Oklahoma for most of my teenage years . I’m good at losing knives so I think I end up buying a new knife with the allowance my parents sent . Small Jack or stockman Old Timer. As I grew older and through my twenties and thirties I probably had 3 or 4 pocket knives. Buck 112 , 90’s era case 6254 stainless yellow trapper and a small Gerber liner lock .
Ten years ago as my 40th birthday approached, I thought it would be nice to find a nice pocketknife for the occasion . I was a fool to think that would be easy D6E1A64D-8433-4B60-9D20-973F4601EC68.jpeg
 
My family got into camping when I was 8 years old. One summer at a KOA I met another kid my age and he carried a pocket knife. From my memory I think it was a camp knife. Thought he was the coolest kid I ever met because he carried a knife like my father did. So naturally I asked my dad and he was ok with the idea but my mom suggested we wait a bit. My parents agreed that my 10th birthday was an appropriate age to get my first pocket knife. So I had a good 18 months of research. We used to get random magazines in the mail, think sharper image, American legion and similar. Well they always had knives in em. Id sit on the floor with all the magazines open to the pages with my favorites knives. I just couldnt wait. My dad had a pretty good sized collection himself and would sit down with me once a month and let me check em out.

Well my 10th birthday came. On that day my dad took me up to our local gander mountain to buy my first knife. He told me I had $100 spending limit. This was back in 1997. Wide eyed me walked up and down the showcase at least 20-30 times until I finally decided. I pointed in the case and my dad asked the worker if I could look at that knife I excietedly pointed at. It was a Victorinox SwissChamp. Just remember thinking all the tools meant I could do ANYTHING with that knife. $75 and it was mine. I felt like a king. My dad bought me a fitted black leather belt sheath for it. And from tha day I was hooked. My second knife was a week or so later. A Compass Silver Eagle. I wanted the same knife my dad carried.

Since then I’ve collected knives on and off over the years. At this point my collection is over 120 pieces. From surplus store, gas station and HSN folders to Chris Reeve and Demko. My collecting journey is clear if you look at my collection. And yeah. I still have my SwissChamp 😁
 
OldSoul said:
My family got into camping when I was 8 years old. One summer at a KOA I met another kid my age and he carried a pocket knife. From my memory I think it was a camp knife. Thought he was the coolest kid I ever met because he carried a knife like my father did. So naturally I asked my dad and he was ok with the idea but my mom suggested we wait a bit. My parents agreed that my 10th birthday was an appropriate age to get my first pocket knife. So I had a good 18 months of research. We used to get random magazines in the mail, think sharper image, American legion and similar. Well they always had knives in em. Id sit on the floor with all the magazines open to the pages with my favorites knives. I just couldnt wait. My dad had a pretty good sized collection himself and would sit down with me once a month and let me check em out.

Well my 10th birthday came. On that day my dad took me up to our local gander mountain to buy my first knife. He told me I had $100 spending limit. This was back in 1997. Wide eyed me walked up and down the showcase at least 20-30 times until I finally decided. I pointed in the case and my dad asked the worker if I could look at that knife I excietedly pointed at. It was a Victorinox SwissChamp. Just remember thinking all the tools meant I could do ANYTHING with that knife. $75 and it was mine. I felt like a king. My dad bought me a fitted black leather belt sheath for it. And from tha day I was hooked. My second knife was a week or so later. A Compass Silver Eagle. I wanted the same knife my dad carried.

Since then I’ve collected knives on and off over the years. At this point my collection is over 120 pieces. From surplus store, gas station and HSN folders to Chris Reeve and Demko. My collecting journey is clear if you look at my collection. And yeah. I still have my SwissChamp 😁
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Thank you for sharing with us. I owned a Swiss champ very briefly as a kid. At about 12, a neighbor kid came down and swapped it to me for something. When my moms boyfriend and my mom seen it, some sort of red flags got raised and I had to return it. I dunno why, seemed fair and square to me. Still does really.
 
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When I was growing up in the 50's everybody I knew carried a pocket knife. Barlows & electrician knives were the most common, because you could get them at the feed store or the hardware for a few bucks. My first was a dull hand-me-down Barlow from my Dad, probably around age 7. I'm retired from the dept of corrections, and the only time that I haven't had a pocket knife on me, was when I was inside the fence at prison.
 
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