What Was the First GOOD FOLDER You Got?

C

Confederate

Joined
Sep 5, 2005
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Okay, so you'd been using mediocre slip joint folders and they were getting you by. And maybe the time came when you either bought or were given a CHEAP linerlock knife. What was the first really good folder you got, and if you paid for it, was it something you had to save up for? Or did someone give you a quality knife?

If you bought your first quality knife, how did you balance your needs against the price?

I was on vacation when I discovered that I needed a knife. I had a Case slipjoint at home along with two pairs of cuff links and a bunch of pennies. Ducking into a dollar store, I found a cheap Chinese linerlock. The blade was 2.5 inches and the frame was plastic that had been spraypainted silver.

And it locked pretty solidly, I thought. I bought it and it wasn't long until I realized that I needed a better one. So I went to Wal*Mart and I looked for a good brand name. Not knowing any better, I settled on another Chinese piece of junk because it was marked "Winchester." But it had to be a good knife, I thought. It was heavy. But then I saw a copy of this knife made by Maxam for five bucks and that struck home. The Winchester's blade dulled rapidly and the serrations were big and blocky, and were always getting in the way. So I visited here and a few other places and ended up buying a CRKT M21-04 on eBay, followed by a Cold Steel Voyager. Since then I've bought a lot more knives than I need, but after some time I concluded that knives are like ties: you can use a different one every day.

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The Winchester (left) and the Maxam.
 
My first good folder (excluding SAKs) was a Buck 110 from Wal-Mart. I'm a "poor college student" but even I couldn't pass up on such a classic knife. The only locking folder I had before the Buck was a cheap $.99 Frost cutlery piece of crap. I found myself using it often though so it was time to upgrade.

After the Buck 110, it was a Cara Cara G10, then a Benchmade Griptilian, and that's all she wrote. Now I have 30 or so knives :D
 
It was a while ago.

I think I mentioned this once, but when I was in my early teens I got a hold of a Gerber Folding Sportsman.
Paid a good buck for it, too.

Made in Portland, Oregon. Long before the company was sold to Fiskars. Solid brass handle with Macassar ebony inserts. 440C blade. Real nice knife. Lockback design.

Carried that knife for a long time.
 
I was very pleased with a gerber EZout that i got... 8 years ago, though it never saw hard use. When i lost that in college i went searching and found the benchmade griptillian. I guess thats the first GOOD folder i got.
 
Buck 112, many years ago. A really nice knife, even by today's crazy standards, but a bit on the heavy side. I carried it a lot on outdoor trips, but it didn't replace my SAKs as my main EDC because of the weight.

I then got a Puma backlock folder. Also very nice quality, but not quite so heavy. That knife became my main EDC knife for quite a few years and got a lot of use until I came across a Spyderco Rookie.

Ever since then it's been Spydercos all the way.

Hans
 
A Buck 110 when they first hit the market,much later a bucklite the size of a112, carried it out west on several trips along with a Randall mod 19 sheath knife , I still have bucks and a fondness for them because they were my first.
I now have some high dollar knives but still break out the old bucks often.
 
Ludwig said:
The only locking folder I had before the Buck was a cheap $.99 Frost cutlery piece of crap.
Click to expand...
Please refrain from using redundancies. You said, "cheap" and "Frost Cutlery" and "piece of crap," when you could have just said Frost Cutlery! Remember, it takes valuable bandwidth to run a board this size, so let's not employ the extra verbage! :D
 
Confederate said:
Please refrain from using redundancies. You said, "cheap" and "Frost Cutlery" and "piece of crap," when you could have just said Frost Cutlery! Remember, it takes valuable bandwidth to run a board this size, so let's not employ the extra verbage! :D
Click to expand...

:D How true. Frost Cutlery certainly would have sufficed.
 
For me it was an Al Mar large lockback with white micarta scales,a long bolster and finger grooves, and a drop point blade. I wish I had it today.
 
Ten years ago, a Benchmade/Emerson CQC-7, G-10 and black tanto combo edge in ATS-34. Throughout the years, with many hand sharpenings, it is now a modified tanto (rounded off), plain edge, with the coating on half the blade completely gone, up to the bevel line.

Still in great shape, zero blade play and the liner lock sits about halfway through the tang. After considerable use and some abuse, it is still in my EDC rotation: currently in my pocket!
 
The first really high quality knife that I ever bought was a Spyderco Endura. Before that, I generally carried a cheap Gerber or a SAK.
 
Let's see, my personal road to perdition probably began with a genuine Boy Scout knife from JC Penny's, then a succession of SAKs, Case for a few years, then a Buck Ranger, which led to a Russell belt knife, Cold Steel, Marble's, Benchmade, Bark River, Helle, Fallkniven, Roselli, and probably a few others I've missed in there... no doubt more to come, too. But I blame my genes; I have a wooden sword my mother whittled as a little girl, maybe 80 years ago.
 
I had a few SAK's when I was a teen, but I didn't know what I was doing then(that shows with the broken tips). I bought some cheap linerlocks, a magnum and a ka-bar warthog. The warthog wasn't too bad, but the magnum was awful. I got better knives at the fair when I was a kid.

Then I found SOG. Bought a blink on Ebay for $30 and loved it. Carried it for a year or so until I bought a Twitch II. Didn't like that one as much as the blink. So on went the search. And here I am, a couple years and a couple drawers full of knives later, with no end in sight(I bought two knives last night).
 
My first good knife and my first knife are one and the same, an Old Timer 34OT. :thumbup:

-Bob
 
First good folding knife was a Victorinox Recruit given to me (20 years ago) by my sister and my brother-in-law. First good lockbacks were A first gen SOG Tomcat and a Spyderco Endura, both bought around the same time.
 
I had one of those folders with 3 blades, a fork and a spoon. It had fake stag slabs and I couldn't tell you where it was made but it served me well. That was about 50 years ago. I guess I'd have to say the first good folder I got was a Schrade stockman which I bought for probably under $20 back around 1963 or so. I say it was my 1st good folder because I still carry and use it today! Now if you're equating a good folder with cost... my 1st good folder was a custom Buck 110 FG with elk horn slabs in 2002 for $128.
 
Buck 112. I carried it for many years along with a SAK. I now carry a Spyderco Delica.
 
When I was young I had a few SAKs and cheap knives I found or my Dad gave me from his company, mostly small plastic handled lockbacks. Had a few cheap liner locks over the years, had a couple of them fail on me. I started doing night stock at Kmart and I had plenty of time to look at knives there. Ended up getting a Wenger SAK. I liked it a lot, but decided I wanted something with a bigger handle and a lock. I was browsing BudK making a list of 3$ folders I was going to try out. I was looking as the Smith and Wesson folders at around 10$ and came here to ask if they were worth paying so much for. ;)

I just read a lot here at first, and after seeing lots of EDC setups and reading about knives I browsed all the stores in my area and came away with a CRKT M18-02 from a camping store on sale at 22$. I was blown away with the knife compared to the low quality ones I had before. I returned to the same store and got an Ontario SP Marine Bowie for 35$. After that I got a Spyderco Delica, Buck 110 and Spyderco Native. The Buck impressed me with its size and heft, feeling comfortable and secure in my hands. It was the first folder I reprofiled, taking it flat to the stone eventually. The Delica and Native both impressed me, but they felt a little small for me and were traded away. Later got a Manix and since then I've been a huge Spyderco fan. Picked up some Victorinox SAKs along the way and since then preferred them over Wenger. Also got into Opinels, Moras and Puukkos pretty early on.
 
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