What was your "gateway" knife?

10th birthday + brand new Buck 110 = coolest kid on the block in the early 80s. that's was my first "real" knife and because of that I will always love the 110s and 112s.
 
1988 Miami Boat Show, Knife vendor in a remote corner of the Miami Beach Convention Center Spyderco Rescue.
 
I'm going to elaborate on my previous post. Ive owned knives for as long as I can remember. Early on gifts and hand me downs from my dad. the first one I loved to carry was a Boy Scout knife my dad gave me when I was in the Scouts with a scout badge carved into the scale on one side. I don't remember the brand, but I could make it razor sharp on an Arkansas stone. It was in my pocket every day through Jr High and High School, Mind you this was in the "big city" of Fort Lauderdale. Knives back then were not considered weapons in the school system. Most days in my senior year, during dove season, I had a 12 gauge in my car for an after school shoot. Remember this is in Fort Lauderdale!!! I really wish I didn't lose that knife. My dad's long gone, but I still have a drawer full of his old knives. I'm a Spyderco fan from way back(1988) Just bought a Domino, and looking for my next one.
 
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When I was 10 years old, in 1982, my family took an RV trip through New England. At a gas staion in Franconia Notch, my Dad let me buy my first "real knife". It was a Barlow with yellow plastic scales. I lost it before our vacation was over and replaced it with a few different (and cheap) pocket knives until I went away to college and had to buy a "real knife" for a camping trip during Orientation. After much deliberation, i chose a Victorinox Climber, which I still have today. That SAK accompanied me on backpacking and ski trips throughout my college years and beyond, until I spent a summer leading outdoor trips for high school kids and really needed a "real knife". Again, after much deliberation, I chose a Spyderco Worker, with Tufram-coated aluminum scales. That pretty much sealed my fate as a lover of folding knives. Sadly, the pocket knives of my childhood were at my parents' house when Hurricane Sandy leveled it. But I have had a desire to buy a practical fixed-blade "real knife" recently, and so decided to join this forum and do my research. So I guess you could say my gateway knife is yet to come....
 
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Spyderco Endura around 1991 started it. I then graduated to a Wayne Goddard Jr. with linen micarta handles around 1994 and then it started.
 
Colog said:
I've had knives every since I could remember. My first quality knife was a Kershaw leek. That's when the problems really started.
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That is my experience, exactly. I was fine. I had even owned a few Gerbers. Until I met the Leek. Damn Ken Onion! :)
 
Becker BK9. Hail to the king, baby ;)

It started my obsession with Becker Knife & Tool. I regret nothing.
 
My first knife that I carried was a Vic Tinker that I got in about 7th grade. I whittled toothpicks with it. Then I lost it, and didn't have a knife for years. I remember being fascinated with a small cheap schrade lockback on my dad's keys that he found in a used car. In my early 20's I picked up another Vic Tinker that I still have. I stopped carrying knives for a bit, then about 2 years ago I started seriously carrying a gun, and with it I thought I needed a good knife. My friend offered to give me 2 crkt's (prowler, Ryan) and when picking them up in his store, I feel in love with a Kershaw Tremor, which I bought at his cost of $15.
That started me really getting interested in blades.
Then came my cold steel ti-lite, tanto lite, and Tokyo Spike. Shortly there after I bought my 551 Griptilian from him and now it's addiction. I currently carry a ffg Delica in grey, and either my 556 mini grip (currently at Benchmade for a broken omega spring) or my Buck Vantage small, with a leatherman sidekick, or the Vic Tinker.
 
I was 11, it was the summer of my first year at Boy Scout camp where I had just been awarded my Tote'N'Chip and I was desperate for a knife. My Dad however refused to buy or let me buy one of the crappy Chinese made BSA branded knives that they had in the camp store, he told me to wait until we went on vacation and he would buy me a quality pocket knife. One month later we're in Pigeon Forge and he takes me to Smoky Mountain Knife Works for the first time. I loved the store and I walked out with a German Hen and Rooster jigged red bone Canoe. That's where it all started for me and it has evolved into my obsession with ESEE and Benchmade as well as Kershaw and many more.

P.S. As an aside right now I'm carrying my Benchmade 940 and my crappy Chinese BSA branded whittler (It was a gift and i just need a sheep friendly knife so as not to scare my college peers)
 
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I can remember being very young going through my father's tool chest. I cut myself on this very knife. Ever since then I've been hooked!
 
Benchmade Monarch. I always had an Old Timer or a Boker Barlow in my pocket even as a kid, but that Benchmade started the search for the perfect knife. I went through all sorts of different models and makers since then. Funny thing is that I'm more likely to have a slip joint in my pocket now-a-days than anything else.
 
Even though I am in the UK have to say it was my brothers Buck 110. Loves blades ever since. 23 years later and recently got my own Buck 110. Happy days
 
My first Victorinox, which my mom bought me in Switzerland while we were there. I cut myself very badly. I was only 7 or 8 and I snapped the blade closed on my finger. :( I bled for over an hour, and I was so stressed out I was sweating in my seat. My mom was sitting up ahead so I didn't go tell her. I just held onto my finger with a tissue until the bleeding stopped. LOL

I can't remember if I had a knife before that.
 
I was born that way. Seriously. So it was some cheap no name knife. Then when I got older (maybe 10 years old) I bought those 7.00 blister pack knives from Walmart. I sure did do a lot of work for 7.00 back then. :)
 
An old Bowie that me and my dad made when I
was about 14.
I'm 31 now, Bowie has a special shelf apart
from all the newcomers. Leather sheath is falling
apart, though its still beautiful :)
That one sunk a hook pretty deep...
 
Hi all. First post.
I got knifes as soveniers when the family went camping at places like Yellowstone as a kid.
My first knife as an EDC was a spyderco. I don't remember the model, but I used it daily to cut/strip wire and cable as a boat rigger. Some kid stole it off a 40' yacht that his parents were looking to buy.
 
For most of my young adult life I carried fairly cheap folders, like that classic linerlock Kershaw with the rubber handle inserts. After HS I moved to AZ, and the first better knife I bought was a rainbow Leek, which was significantly more expensive than any I'd previously purchased (cost $90 at a sporting goods store - I wasn't on the internet yet). Great knife, loved it, but the soft steel (they used 440A back then) left me wanting something better.

And that's how I found bladeforums.

My first posts here (which were lost in a server crash) were asking questions about the knives I was thinking about buying: some Emerson CQC model (part of a Surefire combo), the Benchmade 921 Switchback, and the Camillus Dominator. But then I learned that autos were legal here, and I ended up getting a Woodard Fer De Lance. Best auto I ever owned, except for the pocket clip placement.
 
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