Who got you started in Slipjoints?

C

camo kid

Joined
Sep 3, 2002
Messages
329
Jackknife's post about our fathers skills got me thinking about the old timers I have met. The man other than my father that instilled the most interest in knives and self reliance in me was my great grand father. I was very young while he was still with us but remember his small cottage, and him very well. He was in his mid 90's at the time and I only got to visit him a few times a year if I was lucky. He came to America when he was 4 and grew up on a farm in Maine , never went to school but was self taught and wound up working as a professor at MIT. He was full of stories about working on weapons for the us government during WWII and the old Mic Mac Indian that lived next to him and taught him how to whittle when he was a youth. Being of the old school he knew boys loved knives and tools. Every visit while drinking tea and telling story's he show me his pocket knives. He had an old Remington scout knife with dark blades, that were sharp as a razor. Another was a Cattaragus, that the old native American man gave him, and an early buck 110. I was all ways excited to show off my old timer's to him. Sadly he is long gone and I never knew him as well as I now wish I could. When I was 8 and before he passed he sent my the Cattaragus and that knife is special beyond words, it has spanned over a century of new england history, much of it in my family. looking forward to your stories, Joe
 
My maternal grandfather, a Sicilian immigrant and master machinist at the Brooklyn Navy Yard was responsible for igniting my passion for knives (and music amongst other things).

When I was about eight he gave me a few pen knives which I unfortunately lost over the ensuing boyhood years through the proverbial hole in the pocket or while playing sports in the street.

I'm fortunate to still have several other mementoes of his...pocket watch, mandolin, tools etc. but really wish I could get some of those old knives back. I used to stare at the patina and smell the steel and oil and it always reminded me of warm times with my grandfather.
 
Watching my father clean muskrats, coons, and what ever we got in the trap. I would also set for hours and watch my Gramps work turning a small piece of wood into a boat or horse. Gramps could whittle about anything out of a small block of wood.
 
No heartwarming story here. I do remember carrying a slipjoint when I was a puppy (58 now). Only in later life did I become really interested in knives but not slipjoints so much. Now they are my favorite kind of knives. I developed this interest due to........are you ready for this?.........Bladeforums!
 
My Dad used to go far into Mexico as part of his career. When I was about nine (1959), he brought me my 1st big Mexican Bowie. It had bull horn handle, big honkin' blade, and a pretty nice leather sheath. I already had a Cub Scout knife, but the Mexican Bowie sealed my fate as a knifeknut. :)
 
When I was a kid, all the men I knew carried pocketknives of some description, usually a stockman. I think there were a couple who carried barlows, though, and my dad was a bit odd because he always had a trapper.

James
 
Granddad always had a stockman or Buck 110 and my dad always had a buck stockman...

I was into tacticals at first and still am to some degree I suppose. Probably from my time spent in the Army. But coming here and seeing all the pretty pictures of "folksy" knives, and experiencing the quality and workmanship first-hand has me falling into their footsteps. I don't mind that at all.

Come next Christmas I’m hoping to replace my Dad’s old stockman with a custom stockman. Too bad I couldn’t do the same for Granddad. Was a great man.
 
My mother-in-law asked to borrow my knife to cut open a package shortly after I started dating her daughter. She was appalled when I told her that I didn't own a pocket knife. She said "all men need to carry a pocket knife boy," so she grabbed me by the ear and took me knife shopping (purchased a Buck 501 Squire). Been with her daughter for 20 years and I've carried at least one knife at all times ever since. Love that crazy old lady!
 
Now that's a different story! Wish my in-law was that cool. Thanks for sharing that, augustus.
 
When I was a kid, there were slipjoints, straight knives, and switchblades. Even back then, it wasn't cool for a 11 year old kid to walk around Chicago with a fixed blade or switchblade. That left slipjoints, which at the time, we just called "knives." When my grandpa took me to the Northwestern University football games, just up the road in Evanston, I always got the NU pin with the ribbons and a little straight knife in a sheath hanging off of it. Gramps always tried to talk me into the pin with the brass football hanging off it, but I insisted on the knife. Those were pretty cool. But it was my dad who gave me my first knife... a case xx pen knife. Dad always carried a pocket knife, often a case 4 blade congress. I still have that knife and many others that were his.
 
augustus88 said:
My mother-in-law asked to borrow my knife to cut open a package shortly after I started dating her daughter. She was appalled when I told her that I didn't own a pocket knife. She said "all men need to carry a pocket knife boy," so she grabbed me by the ear and took me knife shopping (purchased a Buck 501 Squire). Been with her daughter for 20 years and I've carried at least one knife at all times ever since. Love that crazy old lady!
Click to expand...

Still have the squire?
 
For me,it was my Uncle,Big John....
I do not know how,but from a jobsite somewhere he worked,someone provided him with boxes of Buck slipjoints (the black ones),I think they were seconds,but they were cool
He'd come down from PA to LI,NY,with a station wagon full of onions,potatoes,wine,and those knives
My Father used to joke and say John missed his calling as a fur trader
He used to say,he's coming down from the Mts. to trade for rifles,we'd laugh
But me and my Grandfather would pick through those knives.I got trappers and Cadets most of the time,My Grandfather got a tiny one he cherished
One time ,I went to get my(Mom's) mail at the PO,there was a box there for me...It was a Case Shark Tooth,My Uncle John won it in a raffle.I still have that one,Since those days,I've always had knives
I miss all three,Uncle John,Grandad,and my Father.
-Vince
 
My grandfather was a farmer in Southern Illinois. He always carried a pocketknife, and had a cigar box full that he'd take down and show us kids. My first knife was a gift from my grandfather, a Schrade Old Timer 34OT. Since then I've never lost interest in traditional slipjoint pocketknives, even though my interest has expanded to many different sorts of knives.

I lost that original 34OT shortly after it was given to me. I immediately bought another identical knife, put it away and never used it. I still have that replacement knife to this day, nearly 30 years later. And putting that knife away for safekeeping was the start of my habitual knife accumulating.

-Bob
 
I always had them around, didn't start collecting until one got swiped at a government checkpoint. It happened to be a nice old "Old Timer". When I tried to replace it, I couldn't find one, so I tried to Google one up. The most hits were "EBAY" and "BLADE FORUMS". I've been sitting at my computer ever since.
 
My first knife... a teeny two-bladed Boker.

I still own it.
 
My father, who gave me a Boker congress with the dogs on it, and many admonitions about how sharp it was. The next was a neighbor, who gave me his old Schrade Cave Bear. While working outside one snowy winter morning, I stuck it in a fence post and broke the tip off. My sharpening brought back a crude point, but my searching for a better knife solidified my oddysey as a knife nut.

I would have to say that you guys have brought me back to the slippies, along with a few members of the Chesapeake Bay knife club.
 
My dad gave me a SAK for Christmas one year when I was a kid, but what really made me like slipjoints was reading his SMKW cats and seeing all the diffirent patterns that were available. Plus, there was that little voice saying "those things are so American..."
 
thawk said:
Still have the squire?
Click to expand...

The Squire is sitting at the bottom of Tampa Bay near the Skyway Bridge. I dropped it while fishing from my skiff back in the early 90's. :( Wish I still had it.

The Squire is a lockback not a slipjoint, but that knife did get the ball rolling. My replacement knife was a Case Canoe.
 
My father taught me how to take care of knives and such, but it was his father that turned me into a knife nut.

I did not know my grandfather well, only met him once, but he was a man's man.

He played acoustic guitar and banjo, was a storyteller, an oustanding leather worker, and outdoorsman. He made these monster pancakes, and expected you to eat whatever he put on your plate. He lived in Montana.

For a number of years, he would send me at Christmas a brand new pocketknife. He must have had stock in "Queen", cause I received those the most. But he always had good knives, like Schrade, Case, and Queen.

I wish I had a chance to know him better, but I can definitely see him in my dad...

Glenn
 
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