What makes you a "Knife Guy"

Hunting and fishing with my dad when I was a kid - knives were always necessary tools. I got my first knife when I was about ten; I've been collecting and using them ever since then...
 
Grandpa gave me a simple pocket knife around age 7-8 along with some basic instructions, had knives ever since then.
 
I am a knife nut. You grow into the job. I carry one in my PJ's.

I had a knife in my pocket in the second grade and gradually moved up in size on slip joints. My Case Barlow was the first "real" knife I owned and used it hunting, trapping, and for cutting whatever needed cutting when I was 9-10 years old up until I replaced it with another Case jack knife that carried me through college and beyond. Vic SAKs grabbed me in the mid-1980's and I have loved them since. My dad considered them to be toy knives. Now my knives span both fixed and folding knives being traditional and modern in design. I must have a pocket knife!
 
My father told me as a boy he always had a knife; he gave me a knife. I have always carried one since. I have also given and taught my two sons to do the same. My oldest son has passed that tradition on to his sons. Regardless, I always feel naked without one.
 
For me it's a self reliance issue. Whatever comes my way I want to be prepared. Knife, firearm and quality footwear. I believe it comes from the fact that my paternal line began the adventure of traveling to the new world in the very early 17th century. Those were hard men.
 
I come from a generation where boys in my then small country town were given a knife around 6 or 7 and expected to learn how to use and maintain it. I was taught it was a necessary tool and not just a sharp pointy object. I carried it at all times including to school as did most the other boys since for certain class projects we were expected to have a pocket knife.

Ever since then I've always loved knives and have carried one daily. Thou now I more into fixed blades than I am folders.
 
I have loved knives ever since I was a child. What ignited that was my grandmother. She was an amazing woman. Hands down the most talented person I have ever known. She could to anything. And I mean anything. She never bought anything. She made and grew nearly all her food and didnt waste anthing. She really lived like an american indian but in a house which she maintained and built parts of herself. Anyways one of her sons died before I was born and he was into knives. And my grandmother once told me that I never got to meet my uncle but showed me some of his prized possessions. Those possessions were his knives. One of them was a mexican switchblade. From the first push of the button and hearing the sound, I was in love immediately. I was probably in kindergarten or first grade. I didnt get my first knife until second grade but I didnt shut up about them for that whole year. And I have been an enthusiast ever since. Im 35 now. So its been quite a long ride.
 
It's something that's always been there, but I justify it by saying that the knife is one of man's most basic tools, and I feel that carrying a knife is part of what makes me human. With all the power to do good and harm that goes along with it.
 
My dad and family were never into knives. I grew up in a barely white collar family where the care and use of knives was not emphasized like many here experienced.

Sometime around 11 or 12, I started camping, fishing and hiking with my friends near the brooks and woods that were common in my area. I decided I needed a knife to take on my hikes and fishing and camping trips. With money earned from chores and covering a friend's paper route while he was on vacation, I purchased a USA made Schrade Lb7 from the local hardware store. What little I learned was self taught between my friends and I. For years, the Lb7 went on all my hikes, cleaned a bunch of trout and even some stripped sea bass. It whittled, cut rope, made marshmallow sticks and opened cans. I rarely wore it on my belt for fear some of the grown ups in my life would question it or find it odd, but for five or six really formative years it was usually with me in a jacket pocket or a pack. I simply learned how useful a good knife could be.

Not long after, I went into college and life in general. I lost the Lb7 at some point, but I always had one or two knives and I was comfortable using them though I never really carried one anymore.

Fast forward to today and guess what turned back up in a trunk at my parents house, after not being seen for over 20 years... Finding that knife brought back a bunch of great memories. I cleaned the few knives I owned, started to learn to sharpen the right way. My 15 and 12 year old daughters now know how to safely use knives and I have given them a few.

Now, I always have a folder on me and I've started a modest collection of my own. I started to purchase more and viola ... Here I am. A "knife guy."

 
Last edited:
I like knives. I think they're just swell.

My dad is a knife guy, though he wouldn't say so. I grew up getting novelty slipjoints and Swiss army knives as gifts when he came back from business trips. The first modern knife that caught my eye was my uncle's Spyderco Police, because it was a gift from someone in intelligence and had been used "in the field". Finally, I lost my beloved true edc Spyderco Caly 3.5, that I had for years, while orienteering and ended up here looking for a replacement.
 
What makes me a knife guy is hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, sometimes work. I wouldn't own as many as I do if I had no need for them to fulfill my real desires and hobbies. Only ones I own that I don't use are the retired ones from being inept or worn out. No collectors or admiring pieces.
 
Use one everyday, feel naked without one, in any normal day I have two or three on me, people say I'm weird but I say the opposite, couldn't imagine surviving without one.
Besides those, How else would you play the knife game?
 
The first actually good knife I ever had was a few years ago at Christmas, I was probably 12 or 13. I was looking for a Bowie style knife that looked cool but was still good quality. A Becker BK9 caught my eye and when I told my dad I liked one made by KA-BAR, he said it would be a good one. Put it on my list and got it. My first good knife and still my favorite. In late 2014 I got an ESEE Izula and some paracord from your site, and have wrapped and re-wrapped the handle several times to get it just how I like it. My first good folder was a Kershaw Leek, and since then I've gotten a Benchmade Griptilian and a Zero Tolerance 0560. I've also gotten two more Beckers. I figure that qualifies me as a knife guy. :D
 
Last edited:
I've been semi-obsessed with knives since attending a knife show in my hometown when I was about 9 years old. I've pretty much had some form of knife in my pocket since then. It wasn't until the last 3 years or so that I started getting into higher end knives and mid-techs. How about a t-shirt with the strider pt-cc I just ordered?
 
My Father was a city LEO . He worked vice 21 years. He carried a S&W 19 revolver. Never fired his weapon in the line of duty but used his Case Jack knife plenty of times. He is gone and I have Case knife which I carry now & then.
 
It's the only place steel, leather and fine wood come together.

One of my first memories was sitting by my dad as he spit on a carborundum stone and sharpened a couple of his knives. I was in awe. Not enough space here to tell the story of my father, who grew up in the depression about 20 miles south of the Canadian border on the outskirts of a small Montana town--#2 of six brothers. i.e.he knew his stuff in anything guns, survival and the wild.

I received my first knife at the Alamo, a gift from my parents--a one inch blade purchased in the gift shop with the Alamo and Davy Crockett graphics embazoned in full color on the plastic scales after I exhibited 6-year-old lust over it in a showcase. Within a week I got in trouble with that knife and it was taken from me. It was returned a while later with a wink from my father out of my mother's sight. I was discreet with blades from that moment on. Still am.

I acquired cheapies occasionally during my elementary years (during which my dad began transferring most of his knowledge of the wild to me in some amazing places) and got my first "good" one, a Schrade-Walden 108 OT folder in 8th or 9th grade. I still have it. This was followed by a "switchblade" or two by the time I was a senior.

Through college and into early adulthood I acquired quite a variety, losing or breaking many, yet managing to enter my professional life with a pretty good collection that has grown since.

Early in this period, as my father's job involved world travel, my parents gave me a leuku from Finland (an early J. Martinni), Basque yatagans (my love for stiletto-styled blades was born!), various Spanish Jerezana estiletes, and a kickass khukuri forged in a village in Nepal, among others. I still have most of those.

I lost my Benchmade/Emerson CQC in the High Sierra while in my 30's (?) and still grieve over it. Made me very careful from then on.

By my 40's I had been into extreme backpacking and motorcycle touring, whitewater canoeing/kayaking for a long time which led to more specialized knives--boot knives, a leuku/puuko dual rig, my cherished Tekna dive knife (crazy, right?), etc. Again, most of which I still have and mention in these pages sometimes.

As I got older and began to pull back on some of these activities, I raided drawers, saddlebags, dry bags, cars, trucks and packs to get all of my accumulated knives together one day for the first time and surprisingly realized I was a "collector" if I wanted to be.

Things got ridiculous from there and I was into Sebenzas and embarrassingly high-dollar folders before I knew it.

Currently I have no business ever buying another knife of any kind...but I still do. Knives make memories.
 
Last edited:
I think my love of knives comes from the thoughts that they provoke when fondling them. I think of memories I made while camping or fishing. I think about all the what if moments I can have in the future. I picked up a new custom Bill Seigle JEST Bolo and my first thought while it was in my hand was making a debri hut and making a fire. Delimbing some small trees to make a shelter, sitting by the fire and starting to carve a spoon.

Almost every new knife I buy induces these thoughts, and no matter how busy my work schedule gets I can hold a few knives for a few minutes and take a quick trip to my favorite camping spot in my mind. It's the best mini vacation around, and even when money is tight and I have no time just playing with a few knives can take my into the woods in my own mind and keep me sane.
 
One of the best "inventions" man has ever made. Going all the way back to stone tools, the cutting edge has allowed humans an advantage over other animals and without the blade we likely never made it past the evolutionary stages that had us walking upright. Knives, blades and other edged tools are worth of reverence and admiration for the part they've played in our existence on this planet. Also, cutting stuff is fun. Primal, even...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top