Who or What got you started?

The old Sears & Roebuck catalog used to get me drooling(as a kid) at the sight of a Buck 110 or 119.
 
Great stories so far it's awesome to hear some of the sweet memories! I come from a mexican family where most of us where used to manual labor, my grandfather specifically since he had a coffee plantation back in mexico. I remember hearing stories of him carrying gargantuan knives before to work the plantation and keeping them razor sharp (he's got the scars to prove it). To this day he grinds all his knives down to a self made flat grind with an old stone. That really sparked my interest in knives and made me look around for a good knife. I kept hearing spyderco was a great brand and by luck i stopped by an old gun shop in my town and spotted spyderco's. I came out with my first serious knife a gen 1 dragonfly and a huge smile on my face (a frown on my girlfriend's face-yes i took her :D) havent looked back since then
 
Knives were just a part of our culture when I was growing up. no male over the age of 5 went anywhere without his pocket knife. If he had his pants on, there was a Case, Queen, or Tree Brand, usually the 3 blade Stockman, knife in whichever pocket didn't have a hole in it. My interest and passion for Bowie knives started when my uncle James let me read his copy of "The Iron Mistress," and was fed even more by the TV show, "The Life And Legend Of Jim Bowie," starring Scott Forbes.
 
It's hard to really remember what sparked my interest in pocket knives. I was maybe 4 or 5 and my grandmother tried to give my sister and I a couple of a jack knives she had bought from the dollar store. They certainly weren't anything special, but I was instantly fascinated with them. I did kind of like the "weapon" aspect of some knives, but for the most part I just really liked the gadgety aspect of them. My father didn't let us keep the knives my grandmother got for us, but then a couple of months later after I said I wanted a swiss army knife ( some of my friends that were in the boy scouts had shown theirs off to me ) he bought me a little key-chain Victoronix that was on sale at a drug-store checkout line. That was my very first pocket knife and I just kept collecting more and more over the years. Of course being a kid I didn't have any clue of a really good knife, so half the swiss army knives I ever had were from the dollar store.

When I was 10 or so I was into coin collecting and the store I bought those from also had a lot of knives in the display case--artsy wall-hanger stuff. I saw some balisongs and thought they were the coolest thing I'd ever seen and had to have one... Bought one for $10 and learned how to sharpen with that one, as well as another swiss army knife I had gotten about that time--I don't remember which brand it was, but it was as a nice one, it took a razor edge. I remember the first time I saw Crocodile Dundee shave with his bowie knife I grabbed my swiss army knife and the Lansky kit I use to have at that time and saw if I could shave my arm hair and was amazed a knife could actually do that. Had a couple of other knives around that time but mostly display-case and gas-station special type stuff, some of them weren't bad knives--I got my first cut that needed stitches using one I'd sharpened withe Lansky to whittle.

My grandpa on my dad's side use to give me a couple of pocket knives when he'd come by too. Mostly cheap stuff, but he also gave me a couple of schrades that I really liked. Two Old Timers, one a dog-leg jack and another one I haven't found the model of, and a Uncle Henry stockman. I still have one of the Old Timers and the Uncle Henry. I remember the Old Timers were the first knives I'd seen with a real carbon edge and I remember thinking, "Oh, these have that old timey look." Apparently he used them to castrate pigs, so they were razor sharp when I got them and well sharpened... The dog-leg jack had a clip-point blade that was sharpened so much it looked more like a hawkbill.

Sometime around that time I also got my Buck 119 that I still have. That was my first fixed blade and I think my first super high quality knife, and at the time it was certainly the most I'd ever spent on one. It has held up great over the years and that was definitely a decade or more ago. I also got my first liner lock around this time which was a Buck Odyssey, but I lost it when I was a teenager... Used that one for a really long time.

I still liked knives but mostly just bought gas-station specials and disposable ones since I had all the quality knives I needed, but then a year ago or more I decided I needed to take up some old hobbies and got into sharpening and wanted to get a "premium" knife.
 
i started collecting knives back in 2009 when i first saw those ridiculous cutting vids from cold steel (it seems pretty amazing back then lol) and from watching nutnfancy's stuff. my first knives are ontario rat 1 and a cold steel recon 1 (older model). now that i have owned many knives, i start to know whats good and whats bad, and what suits my need the most. there is no single "best knife" for everything. each knife is design for a specific use. so i really hate it when some youtuber start ranting about a knife cz it did not serve his purpose.

anyways my edc right now is a Spyderco military and a few emersons =)
 
It's in my genes, sharp metal and things that go bang. Suppressed it, and so was only mildly interested in knives as a teenager and then life happened. A way bit older, I got sucked into the black hole that is knives when I walked into a cutlery shop and could handle the variety of spices in person. It also helped that my pockets weren't just coughing up lint.
 
What got me started? Well a combination of sorts me thinks..... My old man is responsible for me loving big upswept curved skinning blades, one knife in particular which I've since inherited was often the culprit when my father cut himself while sharpening :rolleyes:

Mcgyver was responsible for the gadgets, and yes I've had a SAK since I was about ten I think. ( and dont get me started on duct tape!)

Now I think the Fonz has a lot to do with me instinctively carrying a knife in my right rear pocket.... although he used pack a lil 7"crescent IIRC :cool:

Then only a few years back my brother in law tried to convince me that Tanto's were the only blade worthy of his use..... and of course I had to prove him wrong.

Bo
 
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Probably my grandfather. I remember he always had a 2 or 3 blade traditional w/him at all times, and was always called on to cut things.
 
Always carried a pocket knife since I was a kid. A few years ago, I started to upgrade my EDC items: a better wallet, a nicer wristwatch, etc. Finally got around to wanting a 'good' pocket knife. Now I have several... :D
 
Got a couple Daniel Boone and Davy Crocket advertising slipjoints, Colonial made I think, out of the SMKW catalog, from my father (another company picked up the contract, they're still in the SMKW catalog). Couple years later, a neighbor gave me a Schrade Cave Bear folder (I broke the tip off of it, and got rid of it, wish I still had it). After that, I bought tons of Frost and Jaguar cutlery junk. Most of it broke on me, one folder, the blade bent backwards and almost took off my thumb. I bought a few Cold Steel Voyagers at a flea market, got heavy into CS, SOG and Kershaw, and went from there.
 
It was a Benchmade Mini Grip that I thought was the best, and sharpest knife ever because it came with a paper that said how sharp the knife was. I paid full retail for that Mini Grip from a store in the local mall, and I couldn't believe that I spent that much on a knife. Little did I know then that knife was just the beginning of my addiction.
 
my father gave me a schrade pal 120t when i turned 7 that he had for 5 or 6 years and Ive always had a knife on me since then
 
My dad got me my first leatherman multi-tool/knife kit 6 years ago. Since then I've always carried a knife and multitool
 
Interesting stories and the wide range of reasons folks got interested in knives.

I fall into the grandfather camp -- it was my grandpa that used to always have a pocket knife. He would whittle and make small figures which, as a kid, I thought was a pretty cool thing to do. He would give me those cheap traditional folders with the hardware store logos or promo items he would get as a salesman. He'd also give me little screwdrivers with store logos too but somehow i never got into collecting screwdrivers...

Fun thinking back to all that.
 
My dad always had a knife on him. My first knife was a Barlow which I promptly slashed my finger with while whittling due to a dull blade. After getting an earful from my father, he showed me how to properly sharpen a knife. So I've been carrying a knife of one kind or another (mainly Bucks or Cases) since I was about 6. It's been in the last couple of years that I've started expanded to different makers like Kershaw, BM, and Spyderco.
 
My friend in college always carried a Kershaw. I was surprised but he explained how useful a pocket knife was. That got me looking on Youtube and then I came across Cutlerylover and Nutnfancy. The latter was interesting but the former was the guy that really got me into knife collecting. Very down to earth and intelligent, Jeff helped me realize that a knife was a good tool and something enjoyable to use/collect.

After I got my first Spyderco (about 3 years ago), I was hooked. :D
 
When and where I grew up, men carried pocket knives as a matter of course. Sometime about 1960, I asked Dad's permission to adopt an old jack knife with carbon steel blades out of the tool drawer. He said yes, and into my pocket it went. Been carrying and using pocket knives ever since.
 
I have a few different hobbies that I jump in and out of depending on how much I spend and how bored I get. I have quite a firearms collection as well, and back in the early '90's when I was shooting every other day, I noticed the knife case at the indoor range I was frequenting and they had quite a collection of Benchmades. One day I was BSing with the employees over by the knife case, and asked to look at one of BMs while I was standing there.

It was pretty much all over after that.

One knife turned into 10 and I thought at that time, that I was pretty good with what I had. Then a decade or so later, I found this site and joined only because I have always been a huge knife fan and I always look for discussion forums when I find something that I am interested in. That was back in early 2010.

So here we are.

A couple months ago, I got bored with all my other hobbies and figured I would check out BF after having been a lurker for all those previous months. Then the bug hit... And I bought a knife after reading through the threads and it has been down hill ever since. LOL!!
 
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