What got you interested?

[DR.BOOM]

I know there are a few threads about how people got interested in knives but we always new members joining and everyone should share their story. I know a lot of guys got it from family members handing one down and that's always really special. Does anyone have any cool stories on how they got into it?

My story is not too special, I was given knives for gifts but I just never cared about them. Then one day I walked into the mall knife store and saw the huge lineup of S&W knives in there. I saved up a few weeks and then went to work convincing my parents why I should have one (I was only 15 or 16). Fastforward a few yearsand I'm a collector with dreams and a maker trying to improve my skills.
So what's your guys stories? Some detail if possible.

 

[brets-ftw]

since i was about 5 i was always was interested in everything old (knives, swords, armor, fighting styles etc) went from studying everything i could get my hands on to actually practicing 14th century italian sword fighting (NOT fencing) with Maestro Brian R. Price. he mentioned his shop where he cold works a lot of his own armor. so i moved onto forging and blacksmithing, but thats kind of a dying art so its devolved into collecting and using knives, and now im getting this old spark goin again at the ripe old age of 18.

 

[MikeH]

I was raised in a family of hunters and fishermen. My grandfathers were old-style sustinence farmers. Knives have always just been a normal part of life. I was given my first knife at age four (and still have it), and just grew up using and appreciating them. Carried a Schrade trapper all the way through high school, back when a guy who didn't carry was considered kind of odd.

 

[Planterz]

To be honest, I don't know what started my interest in knives. I know why I'm interested in (fascinated with) knives, but I don't know what got me started on it. I never hunted or fished, never went camping, never whittled, etc. I've always liked martial arts movies, but never had any strong desire to learn how to "knife fight". Maybe it was MacGyver. The first "real" knife I got was a SAK. The timeline is fuzzy, but I also remember trying to sharpen my mom's kitchen knives (which were, and still are dull as a 2x4) with a junk whetstone. I could get them sharp, but they were crap knives, so they would dull quickly. I stopped after my mom cut herself badly with a newly sharpened knife. I still believe in "a sharp knife is safer than a dull one", but an extremely dull knife isn't dangerous at all if the edge is like a butter knife.

The reason I like knives is because they're functional art. There's also something primordial yet pure about a knife. The entire span of the history of man is about wanting a better knife. We wouldn't have survived as a species without this most fundamental of tools. From bone to stone to bronze to iron to steel to modern alloys, it's all about the desire for a better knife. The modern-made screw is perhaps the most important invention of the industrial revolution. Before then, screws were hand made, and weren't the same. The modern screw, with controlled pitches allowing repeatability and universality, which allows modern products of all kinds to be mass produced and assembled with ease, literally holds the world together. And it all comes from Man's need for a better blade. There's practically nothing you can look these days at that's produced that didn't have a sharpened object involved at some point in its creation. And it all stems from our innate tool-making intelligence that started when we realized that a pointy piece of wood, a shaped chunk of bone, or a chip of certain stones had the ability to cut softer objects.

 

[whetrock]

I grew up in a pretty outdoorsy family and my Dad always seemed to stress the importance of a good knife and from an early age I just had a facination with them when I was about 5 ish he gave a wenger copy of a victorinox SD classic and the rest is history then for christmas when I was around 8 my uncle bought me a Case texas jack knife and from then on I was hooked for good.

 

[BunkerSheaths]

My brother would always call me over to show me pictures of knives on the computer. I would look and say, "It's just a sharp peice of metal." Then he started telling me just how important a knife is. He showed me all these knife companies, and explained the heat treating differences, steel differences, and design differences. Then he brought home an Ontario Air Force survival knife, and I loved it. Somehow, a few years later, I started making Kydex sheaths for them. Now I can spot a good knife when I see one, and a bad one when I see it. Each knife is a peice of art.