Now, this has been and interesting thread, and I have enjoyed reading about everyones stories! I have always been into any kind of knife since I was just a kid! I don't think I have ever met a knife that I didn't like. Most of my knife collection are production knives. My first pocket knife was a Case medium Stockman. I carried that around for years, until I went to work for a newspaper! I used that knife to death, until I left it in a truck one morning. I got home and realized that I didn't have it, I went right back to work to look for it but, by that time some AH had abscounded with it! From that time on, my relationship with that company went steadily down the tubes. I bought another case, by which time they had gotten to be fairly expensive compared to what that first knife cost me. I bought a few buck, and always like the 110 for working with. I met one of two of my best friends in 2001, and Teddy put me onto my favorite knife up to that point, which was the Frontier Folding Hunter by Imperial or Schrade. I had never heard of Schrade until about the time they were going out of business. I decided then, that I wanted to try and get as many of the different styles of knives that Schrade made, before they went totally out of business and before the knives became scarce! I did a pretty good job, I amassed a fairly decent collection out of that. I bought them pretty much any place I could find them but, ended up buying a lot of them from Smoky Mountain. It got to be a regular thing for me and Teddy to give each other some kind of knife to each other every time we got together. When I bought a decently priced knife, I usually bought two of them, so I could give one to Teddy, and he did the same. Teddy made some of his own knives and pretty much in a primative way. He didn't use too many electric tools to make them, mostly old hand tools. He made them out of old saw blades and stuff, and he has a hardwood source for handles right out his back door. He kind of showed me the process, and that is when I really got into custom knives. A few Christmas's ago, he had one of the blacksmith's down in his area make two damascus blades for him. He had picked up two old Buck lock back type knives that the blades had been ruined on. So he had Billy Merritt put those two damascus blades in those Buck bodies. He gave one of those to me for that Christmas, and I cherish that knife! The following Christmas, I decided that I needed to find us a nice knife for Christmas. I got to looking around and had almost decided to buy a pair of RAT-7's for us but, then I got to looking at my recently arrived Backwoodsman magazine and found John's advertisement in it. I contacted John and had my first custom knives made, a pair of Kephart's with Tulipwood handles. Teddy and I both love these knives! John makes about the best knife I know of. I just picked up the second knife from him, my new LOBO at "The Gathering" last month! That's a real beauty too! Now I'm working on making another order from him but, I have to work on the old woman first. Ha! Ha! I still buy other kinds of knives when I can find them and afford them to put into my collection. I finally added a RAT-7 to my collection but, I really glory in being able to afford and add another JK to my collection. I think they are the finest working knife I've ever run into. You sure don't have to worry about hurting them!
