When did you first get into knives?

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darthwayne

Joined
Oct 7, 2016
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152
Doesnt really have to mean when you bought your first $500 custom but do you remember the time when u started appreciating knives?

my dads a sailor and he had this 5 inch fixed blade knife issued on ship. i used it to chop fruits off trees that had thick branches.

lost it years ago while moving places and never owned a knife as tough for years.

it looked a lot like mora knives but was probably generic
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i also cook a lot so i ve started getting into kitchen knives and learning how to sharpen...knives are key part of everywhere i go
 
When my father gave me an old Buck with the tip broken off. I was about 8 years old, I think. Lost the passion for a bit in my teens, but picked it right back up in my twenties.
 
I think it started with going to flea markets with my parents when I was 12 or so. Then when I was about 14 and staying with my aunt in Florida I picked up an issue of Blade, it had an ad for the Knifemakers Guild show that was starting the day before I flew back. I managed to sweet talk her into taking me, and she even loaned me $150 to buy my first custom. It was a Darryl Hibben boot dagger, and I was officially hooked. I still have that knife, good memories :)

~Chip
 
Other than as just having a few as tools for most of my life, my interest in it as a hobby began in November 2012.
 
Used to hang out with my grandpa a ton when I was a kid. He was a WWII vet, farmer, and ran a postal truck at night. Not sure when he slept. Early 1970s.

Anyway, his yellow stockman (probably a Schrade Walden 881y) was always catching my eye cause he was always cutting something or sharpening when he would take a break at lunch time. Grandma would watch "Young and the Restless" and he would sit there honing away. Once that show was over it was back to work on the farm.

That yellow knife and his "Cat" diesel hat were two things I just HAD TO HAVE and I begged my parents for both. I was too young for the knife so I did get the ballcap. Few years later I got my first jack knife.

Got way too many knives now......more than I'll ever need. I think he had that one yellow stockman his entire life.

Regards.
 
I always have been hooked. First knife I ever got was in Cub Scouts. That knife is long gone but, I do still have the first knife I ever bought. A Boker. Don't remember the model #.
 
There were three people responsible for my love of knives, my grandfather who saw a guy die in a car accident because no one had a knife to cut off the seatbelt he told this story many times when I was young reminding everyone he knew to always carry a knife. The next was my uncle who for my 6th birthday gave me a small victorinox can't remember which one it came in a red box handed to me with the important truth every young boy needs a pocket knife. Finally my step dad who mom married shortly after I turned 7 he had a custom fixed blade made by a friend he worked with Steve Lebinski (not sure of spelling). The knife was a wood handled hollow ground bowie with brass bolster. He took great pride in sharpening and taught me early on to take pride in getting a good edge on a knife. So I've been into knives for a long time and with a fair bit of help from men who also loved them.
 
When I was 6 or 7 years old , my parents gave me a knife like this but smaller.
I lost it, but they bought me this one when I was about 9 or 10.

Yes they sold these as knives for kids back in the 1960's and yet somehow we lived to make it to adulthood.

That was about 50 years ago.



At about 11 I started to buy knives at local flea markets. I mostly bought cheap stiletto knives. One I carried all through high school, but I gave it to a friend who liked it and always asked me if he could have it. I still collect stiletto knives and today I have a bunch of them.

I bought my first fixed blade when I got into hunting at 14 years old ( 1973).
 
I was 7 years old, when my Mom gave me my first knife. We used to camp & fish a lot, and she taught the importance of having a good tool. I have been hooked ever since. It has been 43 years.
 
JPD1998 said:
When I was 6 or 7 years old , my parents gave me a knife like this but smaller.
I lost it, but they bought me this one when I was about 9 or 10.

Yes they sold these as knives for kids back in the 1960's and yet somehow we lived to make it to adulthood.

That was about 50 years ago.



At about 11 I started to buy knives at local flea markets. I mostly bought cheap stiletto knives. One I carried all through high school, but I gave it to a friend who liked it and always asked me if he could have it. I still collect stiletto knives and today I have a bunch of them.

I bought my first fixed blade when I got into hunting at 14 years old ( 1973).
Click to expand...

I remember those, been to Catskills Game Farms many times in my youth. Same age. My Mother said no that one, "I Would Poke my Eye out"
 
driwash said:
I remember those, been to Catskills Game Farms many times in my youth. Same age. My Mother said no that one, "I Would Poke my Eye out"
Click to expand...

Back in the 80's, my wife and I went there while we were on our honeymoon, prior to that, I hadn't been there in years.

Years later we took our two daughters there the weekend that they were closing down, it was really sad. I still have the ticket stub.
 
I got my first knife when I was 5, I have been addicted ever since.. My dad and my uncle got me into them.
I still have my first knife some 40 years later too..
 
I've always enjoyed knives. I never got "into" them until 2012 when I got my ESEE Junglas. Its been downhill for my wallet since.
 
When I was 14, in '88. I was living in my hometown in France at this time.

One of my dad's workmate noticed I had an interest in knives and imported me a Buck 110 from USA.
Back in those days that was a helluva sharp blade, very rare in Europe, 420 was the gold standard!
This is how I got into this passion.

This nice guy passed away when I was 16, unfortunately. I still got his 110. I still thank him for getting me into cutlery every time I get a new piece, wondering what he would have think about it. Thank you, Jean-Louis, and God bless!

And as you can see it's still scary sharp, I didn't pay enough attention while taking a pic for this post and punishment was immediate haha



qYQFd8Eh.jpg
 
My grandpa gave me my first pocket knife 42 years ago, I was seven. I lost it shortly after, as 7 year olds often do and I was crushed. My mom took me to Abelman's hardware store so I could pick out another. I never stopped loving and acquiring them ever since.
I still have that knife my ma let me pick out.
I grew up in a time where all the boys in school had a pocket knife on them and it was legal, the norm. You were looked at like a weirdo if you didn't have one.
Amazingly there were never any assaults committed or any other sort of delinquent crimes. A different era and time I guess.
 
1972. My folks gave me one of those little blue Camillus cub scout knives. I was immediately struck and fascinated by that knife. By that age I already had several years of watching my Grandfather make daily use of his pocket knife and I always thought how cool it was to always have a tool on you. That knife started the lifelong obsession and it got carried and used for a good eight or ten years until I was in High School.
 
Started watching old Tarzan films on Sunday mornings before church, my parents grew up in the 30's and 40's so it was a natural progression, even carried a plastic knife in my swim trunks when we went to the local pool during the summer. Then my father gave me my first pocket knife, a lock back with wood handle and a slim blade, believe it is a Frontier made by Imperial. Still have it somewhere. Then my friend and I would play in the creek and woods and we would pretend we were soldiers avoiding enemy patrols. Bought my first Swiss Army knife, loved the cool tools in a small package. I would fit in the the sleeve pocket of my bomber jacket. Bought a cheap hollow handled knife as my first fixed blade, he bought an Air Force Survival knife, I was jealous, so when I was in college I bought my first real knife, Kabar leather handled Marine corps knife, the rest is history......and so was my money. Although I started learning to trade and barter for what I wanted next.
 
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Memories. They are good, sometimes. This is one of those times.

I've been into knives at some level for a looonng time. I had my first knife, a two blade folder with a knife blade and a fish scaler / hook remover when I was about 10. The knife was shaped like a fish; had green scales, nickel-steel bolsters, enough blade play that the handle and blade could be in separate zip codes at the same time, and - get this - a D-ring on the fish's tail to...well I never did figure that out. Way too small for a belt. Probably a precursor to the current lanyard / fob craze.

When I was in the 6th grade, the school librarian, who was so hot that I thought of her every night, bought a huge picture book of custom knives for the library - really for me, as I was the only person in the school who ever looked at it, and she knew it. She let me keep the book for months at a time. I remember seeing some of the art, the beauty, in blades and just being left speechless.

Then I read Dune, with the crysknife playing such an important role.

In the 8th grade, I fashioned my own knife from an old file using a shop grinder. At that point in my life, all my money went to basically two things: the monthly Penthouse, and knives. At least today the porn is free!

My second knife was a piece of crap fixed blade; it had a full length tang; and the handle was two two pieces of cheap aluminum the thickness of a pop can riveted to the tang and painted in alternating stripes of black and silver. Then I saved up and purchased a large fixed blade Buck knife, and a set of 3 Arkansas bench stones. That's the knife that I used to teach myself freehand sharpening.

By 11th grade, I had (for me) a nice folder. It had a lock; cherry wood handles, and a 3" blade. IIRC, I broke the blade one day prying something.

Somewhere in there, I purchased a black-plastic handled knife from (I think) Cabela's catalog. It had brass screws, and brass liners. One handle says "Normark", and has a coat-of-arms between the "r" and "m". The blade is marked "Stainless" on one side, and "EKA Sweden" on the other. Needless to say, I still have that knife - but that's the only one of my childhood knives to survive. None of the copies of Penthouse made it, but they sure did create some fond fantasies that "pop up" every once in a while.
 
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