What knife started it all for you?

I was about 7 or 8 when I went to Wal-Mart with my grandpa. We were at the sporting goods counter and he asked me if I wanted a knife. I think it was one of the small Imperial Schrade stockman types, 3 blades. For some reason, I said *no*. I still kick myself for doing that, but my parents hadn't said I could get a knife yet. Perhaps that proved to them that I was responsible enough to obey them even in the face of *horrible* temptation, but I wish I had taken Gramps up on that. He died a couple of years ago, and I'd have had my first knife to remember him by. Damn. About a year later my parents gave me a SAK, and I think my dad had gotten it a long time ago, because they don't even make that anymore. Then I got a couple of POS knives (one had a big copper handle and chinese stainless blade - $5 at Kmart) and then my grandpa did get to give me a knife; Buck Prótegé which I carried until I got a CS Voyager about a year and a half ago. Now I carry it and two CRKTs. Unfortunately, I won't be getting any more knives for a while; I need a car!
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The knife that made me crazy about blades was my dad's old Gerber; I don't know what it was, but by now the handle scales are aged yellow and chipped. Very old. It's been retired in favor of a CS Voyager, but I think he still has it.

Asha'man

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Ó caíde sín don té sín nach mbaíneann sín dó.
"Since it’s no one’s concern, then no one should care."
 
..first knife was a slim little two bladed Imperial folder from my greatgrandad, so I could whittle beside him as he carved his wooden fans, and somehow I still have that knife.
the first *cool* knives I got myself (teenager) were an Ontario usaf pilots knife, well used now after 20odd years, and a Gerber Guardian, that is still a cool blade imho. Various stages of addiction since then, getting worse the more I log on to BF..

misery loves company...
 
Well the knife that really started my "lust: for knives was the Emerson Commander.
About a year ago now American Handgunner had an article on Emerson Knives Inc. and featured several pictures of a production commander.
I was totally in love. Wasnt a bit less in love when if oudn out the price, just slightly appaled (thent he most expensive knife I owned was a 25 dollar Buck and I thought it was top of the line).
Now I own a Commander, and am not at all appaled by prices like that these days. For a good knife its well worth it.
Me a Knife Knut?? never........
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Morgan Atwood
If you deny someone the right to defend themselves you are guilty of nothing less than attempted murder.

If it aint satin finished, I dont want it. (97% of the time)
 
First it was a Spyderco Delica some 6 or more years ago. A year later came, Oh my gosh, another spyderco, this time an Endura. After that I began to drift towards other higher end production folders, often colaborations like my BM Sentinel and Leopard, the Commander from CRKT, and others. My fixed blade front couldn't be left behind, so I added to the small Gerber I've had for 20+ years two CS knives. Then one year about 3 or 4 years ago it all took a turn and suddenly I found myself with a Busse, some Livesay's, an Aki, then Sebenzas, now Doziers, and now (sometime this summer) a Tichbourne! What is going on? When will I have enough blades that I can't possibly use them all as they could be used in the rest of my life (probably already)?

 
My great grandfather came to the borderlands between Texas and Mexico in the late 1800's, and was a rancher and sometimes peace officer. If you've seen the movie "Lonesome Dove", you know where I live--right down the road from Gus and Woodrow.

I remember my great granddad from when I was a child in the 1950's. He was a kindly old man with one arm. His hand was pulled off in a roping accident when he was middle-aged, then the gangrene set in and they had to go in twice to cut off more of his arm till they got it all. My dad said he never slowed down--learned to shoot left handed and could take ducks on the wing, coming off a windmill tank, with a .45 Long Colt.

He had a bowie knife that my dad inherited, 7" clip blade with false swedge and double brass hilt, some kind of stacked leather/horn/brass handle. It was made from a file, and by the time I first saw it, it had been sharpened down until the original profile was just a memory, the sheath worn and stained--talk about a user!

That knife sits in an oak case on green velvet, now. Along with a holster for a SA Army Colt, its sheath still rides on the old man's gunbelt, which is displayed on the wall of my den above the case that contains the knife.

I still remember all the things I thought about my great grandfather and his life and times, whenever I saw that knife as a child. It was magic then, and looking at it on the desktop beside the computer as I write, it's no less so now.
 
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