What got you interested in knives?

I had an old Buck hunting knife for decades and used it for deer hunting, but never was interested in knives at all. Then came the day that my friend Gregg showed me his Bark River Gameskeeper. That was it... away I went, head first.
 
I remember it just like it happened yesterday. We were in a small hardware store in either Washington or Oregon, I can't remember which. In any event, my inquisitive, six year old eyes fell on the most beautiful creation I had ever seen - A 4" Ka-Bar hunter, with a leather ring handle. The grind lines were gorgeous and the leather handle spoke of heritage. With my last remaining funds, I bought that knife and treated it like the fine tool it was. All the men on both sides of my family carry/carried knives, so even though it was a fixed blade, the Ka-Bar was right at home on my belt.

Some time and place, my treasured knife went missing, but it's beauty is still present in my memory.
 
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I think the best knife I had was a 110, from my father when I was 4. I had junk knives, that I just bought to buy......I started buying knife magazines and going to gun shows. Now, I am friends with all the knife guys in the gun shows, and I get good deals. I also collected and still collect military items. I usually buy those types of items, but you can't pass a new Spyderco Manix 2 (Black) for one hundred bucks!
 
When I was a small child I witnessed my father using this massive cleaver, this tool was absolutely extraordinary. It actually had the ability to make headless chickens dance! .....And that is what first got me interested.
 
My grandfather got me interested in knives. He always carried a gentlemans folder usually either a Case or Old Timers. He also started a collection of German made knives. My dad always carried a Case folder. I got my first knife when I was around 7 which was a Swiss Army Classic. It was not until recently though that I have looked at really nice knives or thought about buying one.
 
My dad got me into knives when I was about 7. That was 40 years ago, and I've carried a knife in one form or the other ever since. What's interesting is that I never knew, or really cared about steel's or fit and finish in a knife until I joined this forum. As long as my knife was sharp and would do what I wanted it to do I was happy. As I was growing up, my dad would randomly ask to see my knife, where he would proceed to check if it was sharp, god knows I wouldn't hear the end of it if it wasn't! :D
 
I was always obsessed with knives (and guns) as a kid but my mom would never in a million years let me have either. A Swiss Army knife was the limit. I bought a boot knife with a 2.5" blade in the 4th grade and she took it away from me! Several of my friends had a stash of cool knives in grade school and I was so jealous. Oddly I didn't start collecting until about a year ago (I'm 29 now). I always wanted to but for whatever reason I didn't.

Why do I like them? A lot of reasons: the lines, the design, the geometry/shapes, the danger, my mom told me not to do it, vicarious military/combat fetish, the idea that someone can look at what kinds of knives you are into and learn something about you (I guess that could be applied to a lot of collectables). I don't know specifically what got me into them though. I just know I was obsessed with action movies as a kid (Van Damme, Schwartzenegger Seagal, etc) and guns and knives were always "cool" to me. My first real knife purchase was a Benchmade 710 about a year ago.
 
My Great Grandfather always carried a Case XX Whittler. He would sit on the front porch whittling on branches from a Maple tree while he listened to Baseball games on the radio. When I was 7 or 8 we went to the hardware store and he got himself a new Case knife. I became the proud owner of his old one. I've had a knife in my pocket ever since then. Including all my years of school back in the day when knives were allowed and looked on as tools not weapons...
 
When I was apx 7, everytime I went to visit my uncle who was 6 years older, he always had a new knife he was excited to show me. I always thought they were cool but didnt truly get into them until I was around 16 when he took me to buy my first clipped knife (some sort of frn cold steel). 13 years later, Havnt been without once since.
 
My Dad's Buck 110 as a little kid and the movie Jeremiah Johnson. I always wanted to be a trapper and a mountain man when I was little, part of me still does.
 
My father gave me a knife on our first camping trip. Not sure what it was but I loved it. Could not find enough things to cut. Started whitteling sticks and I was hooked. Carried a knife every day since.
 
i thought alot about it and i can draw it back to the fact that when i was a kid i freaking loved the movie the sword in the stone.
 
A cheap butterfly knife I got some years ago. Brought it home, looked up some tricks on youtube, stumbled across cutlerylover, watched some of his other vids, got hooked.
 
For me, I always used knives as a kid. I loved them with a passion back then. Somehow I kind of drifted away from them. Man years later when I was in my early 20's I reignited my passion when completing a horticulture course. One of the requirements was to have a pocket knife. The rest is history.
 
My father is a chef. so naturally as a young lad, i began hanging around him in the kitchen... watching him use chef knives, paring knives, bread knives, fillet knives. etc. he taught me how to sharpen them on whetstones (the good way, for me). i was always around SAK's. that's probably the corner stone of any kid/adults knife collection. i began collecting small "no-name" folders, but nothing got me hooked. i finally went out of my way a bought a benchmade griptilian. after that i began reading more and more about better quality steels. (even though 154cm isn't bad at all). and here i am... with knives everywhere around me, and pocket change and some lint left.
 
I was in elementary when I started to watch Tarzan movie re-runs. I became interested in knives then. I joined our version of the scouts and did some camping. In high school, I started carrying a crappy balisong and in college upgraded to a better quality locally made balisong with ball bearing steel. My interest in knives waned and I just used knives in my mango farm only because I participated in my other childhood interest which was guns.

Recently, a couple of my friends gifted me with some S&W knockoffs that are so common here. That led me to search for genuine locking folders on the internet and I found a blade subforum in one of our local gun enthusiast forum. This led me to BF and a few other forums.

That was the beginning of the end of my bank balance.
 
I started reading comics at a very young age, and was always attracted to the knives used by the characters (The Lone Ranger). When I was like 6 I got my first SAK, and was happy with it for a while. Then came the "classic" knife movies of my generation: Rambo, Crocodile Dundee, Predator. At 12, I laid my hands on a U.S. Cavalry catalog and was blown away; I had no clue so many cool knives existed! I even asked my parents to get a loan so I could get like half the knives on that catalog, lol.

Fast forward to college; studying Agriculture with a major in Animal Science, a pocket knife was the mandatory tool for all of us, but still I was only scoring cheap stuff (most of the money a kid gets in college is invested in beer and the pursuit of tail). Graduated, started working for the government, moved far from home, and after a while receive one of the first CRKT M16 tantos that came out (without LAWKS) as an award, besides already having a Gerber Gator issued as work tool. That was the serious start for me then.
 
My Dad always carried a Case slippie. I saw how useful it was and wanted a knife too. I got my first slippie when I was in 2nd grade. It was a little Imperial branded knife that cost like a $1. My hands grew and I got a larger Imperial knife (still $1), and used that. My first better knife was a Case Barlow (two blade) at about age 10 (guessing). At that point, us kids were big enough to wander around out in the woods and knives were a constant companion for all of my brothers. I lost the Barlow after years of use small game hunting and replaced it with another Case knife. Still have that one. But since then I have bought many knives. My regular hunting pocket knife is a Remington (Camillus) full sized Trapper. Love that knife. I love the pattern and have at least a dozen different large trappers now. I buy a little of everything these days from one-hander's, to SAKs (love SAKs), assisted openers, small to large fixed blades etc. It never really stops and I'm always looking at knives.

Never really thought about carrying a fixed blade knife in the woods or elsewhere until I watched the first Rambo movie. Old army movies and knives never did much for me as I viewed the fixed blade as a fighting knife. That has changed.
 
Mine was: MacGyver. As little kid I loved the show and how MacGyver saved world using swiss army knife. I got my first knife when I was 7. I got my first real swiss army knife when I was 8... rest is history :D
 
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