Who turned you into a knife lover?

No one taught me to appreciate knives. When I was 5, I found an old scout knife in my grandpa's basement. It was like a switch went on in my head. I've been obsessed ever since. I was never encouraged to carry or like them, but I wasn't discouraged either. My parents were neutral on the subject.
 
Can't say it was anyone who got me interested in knives, but rather a patch of woods near where I grew up. It was a refuge from the apartment buildings and the only place for the neighborhood kids to slink away from adult supervision. When you're in the wild, you need at least a pointed stick to defend yourself and to dig in when the terrain got rough! None of the parents thought twice about 6 year olds running around with them since most injuries in those days came from taking a spill off a bike or catching a baseball with your face.

A pocket knife has never not been handy, so I've always carried one. The explosion in accumulating happened in my late 20's due to disposable income when I stopped smoking and drinking. I needed a new vice, and this has been a lot more educational and fulfilling than burning money.
 
Being a kid in the late 50's and 60's it seemed like every one had a knife for no other reason but to have one. was just part of being a kid. We never wore bike helmets back then either. I guess I've never grown up!
 
I have to say my father got me into knives. He bought me my first knife when I was in the first grade. It was a Camillius Cub Scout knife. I've been hooked ever since.
 
I previously had 1-2 cheap knives and a SAK. After getting disposable income, I figured it was time to expand my horizons.
 
I blame the little display of little pocket knives on the counter at the Marathon Gas Station when I was a little 6 year old girl. It was a matte red plastic handled knife with a little blade and a corkscrew. It cost $5 I believe. I tugged on my moms shirt sleeve and pointed at the display asking her could I please have one. She said yes, so I pulled out the change in my pocket and counted out $5. Lol. That thing was carried, used, lost, found, etc, and eventually lost again.
After that it was a little rainbow knife I saw for $5 and picked up. That thing went everywhere with me for over a year. After that I kept picking up knives. After a while I got into the good stuff. Now it's a sickness lol.

I blame it all on those little knives that made my eyes light up like a little kid on Christmas Morning.
 
It was art what done it :beguiled:. As an 11 years old, I bought a top of the line Duncan yo-yo at a department store promotion that included a free carving on the wood by a Filipino demonstrator. As he deftly carved an ocean scene on the yo-yo, I was fascinated by his small, three bladed pocketknife. Now that, I thought, has possibilities. I've been a knife guy ever since :) .
 
I blame my Uncle for my addiction. My father always taught and tried to instill in me the value of a knife as a tool. But that was it as far as he was concerned, a tool.My Uncle was a collector however, and would always gift me knives every christmas. He enjoyed them mostly for aesthetical value and didn't mind having an excess of them. I'm not saying I'm a collector, but I certainly have more knives than I really need.
 
John Rambo and Gil Hibben. Always wanted one, especially Rambo II.
My grandpa infused some when i saw him using a sabit, a local curved hook knife to harvest bananas and his long spear for home invasion.
 
My dad gave me my first--a boy scout fixed blade--when I was five, but Tarzan of the Apes showed me how important they are. :)
 
In somewhat chronological order; influences were my dad, who had a wonderful well-used case whittler type circa 1940s, always razor sharp, that he showed me how to sharpen; then boy scouts; a book Hie to the Hunters by Jesse Stuart which has a passage of "Arn" sharpening his skinnin knife the night before he hunts for the wolf that "kilt" his best coon hound; Yancey Derringer TV series; another book, Sitka by Louie LaMour with a great Bowie knife account; Jim Bowie, Bo Randall, and the SOG warriors in Vietnam; William Holden picking a fighting knife for his Devil's Brigade. Somehow with these and many other influences, I became enamored with well-designed and made steel. Have plenty, more than I need, yet not near as many as I would like. "One of each" comes to mind.
 
Gotta say the old man. Gave my an original bowie and some other crazy knife when I was 12. These knifes sucked, pitted, dull and loose. But with a little love they not only got used but are on display in the basement bar 20 years later.
 
I joined the cub scouts for the pocket knife, been hooked ever since. Still have that one somewhere.
 
think_of_the_children, among others, who used to moderate the knife sub-forum in glocktalk.com --a spydey man from the looks of it. is he still around?
 
My brother,
He was always playing with knifes when I was little.
Now I'm 14 and he works for Victorinox now:)
and now I've got 13 knifes
 
My knife hobby was due to 2 people:

The first was one of my friends who went trough a mallninja phase. Summer of sophomore year in high school, he bought a cheapo balisong and taught me and some of my friends basic flips. I thought it was so cool that I ended buying an Mtech Twist to learn more advanced tricks. My balisong craze ended soon after my parents found all the cuts on my hand. My friend then got one of those black-blade-tactical-tanto spring assisted knives (in a mall, of all places), and I was surprised to learn that his "switchblade" was actually legal. Back then, I couldn't use thumbstuds for my life, so I bought a spring assisted flipper, yet another cheapo Mtech. The handle scales broke after a week when I dropped the knife on the kitchen floor. That weekend, I found some scrap plastic, a drill, and sandpaper, and I made my own scales instead of getting a new knife. One small step for penny-pinching; one giant step towards being a knife nut.

Fast forward to summer of senior year. Spring assisted knives were all I cared about until I went to a police equipment store with another friend who was about to join the military. We walked in, looked around, and I almost couldn't believe how "expensive" some knives are. This weird looking knife with a hole in the blade...for $60?!...why would anyone buy that?! So dumb little me pulls out my knife then says "I have a spring assisted knife that can probably open faster than any of these!". What does my friend do? He says "no, there is a faster way" and waves out a CQC-7. Oh man. I spent the rest of the day on the internet learning everything I could about knives.

The other thing I noticed is that learning about knife steels actually helps me with my material science courses. I just had an exam in which I had to answer questions about a extrusion die made of D2 tool steel. I had the biggest grin on my face as I breezed through that section. D2? Why, that's right up my alley! Thank goodness for my recently developed interest in the HEST/F and Brous SSF.

tl;dr: Two friends: one who bought fun knives, and one who bought quality knives.
 
Not anyone in particular but rather a group of individuals. They include the people from Spyderco, Kershaw and Boker - just to name a few.
 
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