What Got You Into Knives?

I needed to cut stuff. Seemed like a knife was the best tool for the job. And then slowly I started seeing more and more variations of the same tool that I liked, and I wanted them all!
 
I grew up around knives, Dad & brokers always had them. I had a few but I was now in to guns. I finally started buying chinese Kershaw's at Big 5 sales and started the collecting bug.... Then found a Kershaw leek for 27$ on Amazon and got an American made knife and it grew from there to ZT's to high end production knives where I am currently. My wife is starting to take notice of how many knives I have haha, maybe I'll go back to guns for a little bit to throw her off.
 
What got me “into” knives was a motorcycle trip to Mexico in the early part of this century. Prior to that trip, I was in the habit of always carrying several knives in supplementation of my tool kit: an Opinel, a SAK, a small Anza, maybe a Wirkkaala puukko. After a while, I started carrying a basic Leatherman, maybe leaving the SAK at home. I had multiples of many of these, and kept them stashed on various bikes. Although I owned quite a few knives, I viewed them as tools, and did not consider myself as “into” knives.

On this particular trip, I had resolved to pack light, and tried to cut back my traveling kit to the barest minimum. The roads we would be traveling are steep, rough, and difficult. I left all my knives behind, figuring the blade on the Leatherman would get me by.

About two-thirds of the way through the trip, I managed to lose my carburetor’s drain plug coming up out of the canyon from Batopilas. This had never happened to me on any motorcycle, ever, in forty years and half a million miles of riding. Nobody had a screw with matching threads, so as a field expedient, I used the blade on my Leatherman to whittle a dessiccated twig from a dead mesquite bush and twisted it into the threads of the drain hole. It held for four days until I could get to a Suzuki dealer in Chihuahua. The Leatherman was up to the task, barely. It would not bite into the wood at all, so I just scraped shavings off until it fit.

Then, a couple of days later, after crossing back into Texas, I left my oil filler plug at a gas stop, only noticing it a few miles down the road by the oil mist that was now coating my pants leg. My buddy rode back to the gas station for oil while I set out to plug another hole. Once again, the only material at hand in that dry country was dead mesquite. Once again, the Leatherman merely skittered across the wood. I got an ugly chunk of branch to fit, but resolved right there never to venture out again without a decent knife.

I must have been talking about knives a lot after that, because the next Christmas, Conchita gave me a USMC Ka-Bar, and the next year a Griptilian. I started to read a bit, bought some Moras, and in due course found my way to BF.
 
When I was a kid, I loved to rummage through stuff in the attic, basement, and anywhere else I found interesting. I remember finding an old pocket knife way up on a cabinet shelf. To me on was a joy to behold. The knife was an original Remington bullet knife.

From that time on, I was into knives I wasn't a collector until many years later, when I put picked up a copy of the Parker Voyles guide to collectible knives. Soon after that, I had several Case USA stamped knives. From there the race was on.

I wonder what happened to that Remington.
 
Mossyhorn said:
When I was a kid, I loved to rummage through stuff in the attic, basement, and anywhere else I found interesting. I remember finding an old pocket knife way up on a cabinet shelf. To me on was a joy to behold. The knife was an original Remington bullet knife.
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I did the same thing in my Dad's "man closet/attic" accumulation. He kept most of his hunting stuff in there. I found an old WWII first aid kit with morphine still in it. Interesting. It was really old and probably would have killed you if you injected yourself. He also had a switch blade there. Dad told me they were illegal and to leave it in there. I did. It was one of the German ones with the flipper on it. Years later I saw them at a gunshow and bought one. Dad never said they were illegal to carry (vs own). Of course now in my state, if I wanted to, I could carry the knife but have little interest.
 
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