What got you started?

The first "expensive" knife I ever purchased was a Spyderco, back when they were first released. After that purchase, there was really nothing more, until I was at a gun show with my dad, and we saw the Kershaw Blur; couldn't believe it was legal in California, so I bought two. :D

The wheels really started to come off when I found this forum. I started with a PM 2, then another, the an Umnumzaan, then Hinderers, and it's been all downhill from that day forward. :D
 
I got an Alox SAK as a kid, I was using it for work and I broke one of the blades. While at th swap meet, I found the knife guy, and he recommended the spyderco delica. That was pre internet. Loved carrying that knife. Then the internet hit and it was all downhill from there. Youtube was probably the worst.
 
Well, my dad had a large dairy farm in south Florida of all places. He used to get knives from Purina, Noba and other vendors and would give them to me as a kid. I bought a Gerber FSII and I realized there were better knives. And here I. Am 50 years later
 
Keeping it to more 'recent' history, probably the first 'expensive' knife I purchased was a Benchmade Panther in the early(?) '90's. I was so mesmerized by it at the time. Still have it.

EDIT: btw....STILL one of my favorite all-time blade profiles.
 
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My dad was a knife collector when he was a kid. One of my knives was passed down from my grandpa a Italian stiletto switchblade with stag handle that was bought in Italy by my grandpa and smuggled into the states in the early 1980s for my dad. My dad eventually sold off the knife collection but kept this one switchblade because of its sentimental value and that my grandpa had passed in the late 1990s. Fast forward and the switchblade was passed down to me from my dad and now I'm taken my dad's old hobby up. Which my dad likes because he was a knife nut as a kid.

My dad also got a spyderco sometime in the late 1980s and was a early pioneer of them. So naturally I grew up at a young age watching my dad play with and collect knives. Pretty much just naturally grew up around quality knives.
 
I lost both my knives.

A number of years ago my parents gave me a Case Stockman of some kind. After a while I lost it, either in a friends car or on a trip to Peru, but I'd gotten used to carrying a knife, so I went to my folks place and rooted around till I found one of my Grandfather's old pocket knives. I carried that for a bit over a year. About two months ago, I lost that one too. As I was fresh out of family heirlooms, I decided I'd have to buy one for myself.

Being me, I couldn't just go to the Wal-Mart and pick something: I had to research and study and agonize over everything. I decided I wanted a stockman pattern, as I like traditional things, and it's sort of symbolic as having a herd of animals is a long-time ambition of mine. I read about US made carbon steel Schrades somewhere and decided that's what I wanted. But instead of buying one knife to replace the one I had been carrying, I've proceeded to buy nine US made Old Timers (8OT, 34OT, 108OT and 5OTG) off the Bay, with a couple Bucks (701 and 703) and a Camillus Hawkbill thrown in for good measure. But nothing has totally satisfied me, and as I keep looking around trying to find the perfect knife for me, I keep seeing new things I want to try and my little collection keeps growing.

And now, after spending a couple hundred dollars on vintage slipjoints, I found my Grandpa's old knife in the cushions of the couch. Turns out it's a Boker Tree Brand swell-end jack, probably '60s vintage. But I still can't help reading and learning and looking for that perfect knife. If I can only get ahold of a Northwoods Madison Barlow, single sodbuster blade in the Blue Camel Bone I'd be set and could stop, right?
 
The Madison (both one and two bladed versions) are really nice knives. Yeah, "you'd be set for life". :D
 
Buck/Strider 880 tanto. That dates me a bit. I was 18.
 
When I met my girlfriend at the time, now wife, one of the first gifts she gave me was a PE Kershaw Leek. I always carried a knife but this was my first quality knife. Over a few years she bought me two more in different configurations because I liked the first one so much. About a year and a half ago after not being able to find the correct torx bit in my toolbox to tighten the pocket clip on them I did a Google search and found this website. It was all down hill from there.
 
CRKT M16...really! It was (embarrassingly) much higher quality than any knife I had previously (single-hand, locking folders, anyway). It became my every day companion. It was my gateway drug into the world of EDC folders.
 
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