Wild Willie's "It is better to have loved and lost" GAW...

Wild Willie

Wild Willie

Joined
Mar 19, 2018
Messages
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Ok guys and gals... I've been negligent in my postings and I do miss being on the porch. Busy season is upon us in the tree work industry in Western New York, and frankly I find current events to be too depressing to keep up with...
To top that off I lost my beloved kellam wolverine just this week, slipped out of my pocket and bounced out the hole in the floorboard of my crummy old truck.
I figured I might help salve the soul of some other poor knife knut who has lost a great blade.
Now for my conditions... Share with us your worst sob story about a lost loved blade (for obvious reasons keep it traditional forum appropriate). Also please be a regular contributing member in said traditional forum. International entries welcome, but bear with me on shipping and whatnot. Up for grabs will be a winners choice of a few of my least carried pieces. Please know that this guy doesn't believe in safe queens, so there's going to be signs of light use at the very least. I'm still deciding what knives might be included for the prize, all are traditional in nature. I'll slap some pictures up when I get myself finalized on choices. I'll let this run through next Wednesday, the 17th... Then I'll sit down with the kids and pick a winner.

Thanks to everyone, and good luck.
 
5 or 6 blade Rough Rider Sow Belly stockman with yellow covers. About 3 years ago now. (long discontinued even before I lost it, so less than zero chance of replacing it.)
Lost somewhere between Arby's and home, while riding my bicycle. (roughly 7 miles one way)
Retracing the route the next day accomplished nothing but another meal at Arby's. Yes. I asked. Allegedly they did not find it.
 
Im in. Ill share my sad tale.... :(

My first knife was a red bone handled Case (I think a stockman, I cant recall, I was young?), that my dad gave to me. I loved that knife, I took it everywhere and used the snot out of it. I even took it the beach one time, and it never came back. It turns out that a kids swim trunk pocket doesnt have the best retention. lol There is a fish somewhere near Ocean City Maryland probably whittling a board off of a sunken ship right now, I hope the fish is enjoying my knife. lol
I did learn responsibility from my mistake though, and thats served me even better in life than a pocketknife would have.
 
Around 1983 I spent around $14.00 for a Schrade Old Timer 34OT at the Army Navy surplus store in Platteville Wisconsin. I carried that knife throughout high school, working on farms and whatever other work materialized. The only time I didn’t have that knife was the few months I was in Marine Corps boot camp. Around 1988 I lost that knife in the Marines, I was a bit distraught as it really was the only knife I carried for 5 years straight. I replaced it with a Victorinox Small Tinker, which I still have, but I’d kill to have my 34OT back. Thanks for listening to my tale of woe.
 
My first SAK was a Wenger. I don’t know what model except that it was probably roughly equivalent to a Tinker. It had scissors, a good Phillips screw driver, and a typical assortment of tools. Its purpose was to supplement the tool kit on my /5 BMW. As the years passed, I accumulated more bikes, some of which I toured on, others I used for commuting or day trips. Most of them got a SAK, to be carried somewhere on the bike.

In those days, it never occurred to me to carry a knife in my pocket. These were 3 and 4-row knives, too lumpy in the pocket for my taste. Especially, I did not want to have a hard metal object in my pocket to land on in case I came off the bike. It happens. After the one Wenger, these were all Victorinix.

Flash forward forty years or so. I began to take an interest in knives for their own sake, not just as tools. I started riding more in the back country, off pavement, where the speeds were slower and the landings softer. Somewhere in there, I decided to go out to the garage and gather up all my Swiss Army knives and see what I had. I came up with five knives, all Vics. There should have been seven or eight.

A couple of months later, I found another Victorinox, but the Wenger never turned up. I keep thinking it must be out there somewhere, stuck way in the back of a fairing pocket, or hiding in a zippered pocket on a moldering piece of motorcycle luggage. The feeling of unresolved loss does not begin to compare with that felt by Stephen Lewis, Ian McEwan’s protagonist in “The Child in Time”, the father of a toddler who goes missing, never to be found. He and his wife live out their lives without ever knowing what happened to the little girl. But the loss of that Wenger is still a tragedy.
 
Deffo in for this one...such a great theme.
First pocketknife I owned was a knockoff SAK..given to me by my Dad for xmas...I kept that until it fell apart and replaced it with SAK Angler....still got it.
Second one is the one I lost....in the mists of time....It was a fixed blade hunting knife with carbon steel and stacked leather handle..possibly Japanese...in the 70s Japanese was pretty much what Chinese is today ...in terms of stuff you bought at Coles(KMart) price...$3.00aud...lotta dough back then.
Bashed the living daylights out of it...camping, hiking ...it rode in my first car as just in case weapon:rolleyes:...
No Idea what became of it....the knife that is not my childhood.
 
Good stuff guys, I feel everyone's pain here. Keep them coming. I'll have an idea for prize choices this evening... Stay tuned.
 
I have related this doleful tale previously in another thread, but at the risk of opening old wounds, here it goes:

Back in the mid 70’s when I was in elementary school, I got a Case Sodbuster Junior for my birthday (this was not my first knife). I think I may have been in 5th grade or so. Also about that time I was given a pair of maroon crushed velvet bell bottom slacks as hand-me-downs. They were still a little too big. I was used to wearing jeans and carried a knife every day without worrying about it falling out of my pocket, so I didn’t think twice about dropping my new knife into the loose pocket of these abominable maroon slacks and heading to the school playground to play basketball. Of course the knife fell out and was lost, as I discovered when I got back home. I retraced my footsteps but never recovered it. As you can tell by my clear recall of these events more than 4 decades later, this incident scarred me for life. I think I had that knife at most 2-3 days.
 
Seem to be unlucky with keeping hold of French knives, one went missing SIX years but turned up in a house move:cool: This one, a 9cm locking Lag has been missing just over a year and I've lost hope:( Had to go on a business trip right the other side of the country for a few days, wanted to take a decent knife with me. But, hotels are black holes for possessions....plus the virtue signalling 'colleagues' over there had they found a knife they wold probably evacuate the premises in panic and call the bomb disposal squad ;):eek::poop: So, it's a goner and mourned.

Interesting GAW so I'd like to be in it too.

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I finally decided to spend some time on the AT. Not one of those months long treks, but just a couple of days, just to say I did some hiking. Only one night was involved, and I was able to use a light tarp. I planned the trip to be sure the weather was pleasant. Everything went off without a hitch. When I got home and started unloading my pockets, something was wrong. My old beat up ancient blue cub scout knife was missing. Even though I enjoyed the hike, it made me sad.
 
Not an entry because I was just the lucky recipient of a generous GAW by CVamberbonehead CVamberbonehead , but I will tell my story anyway.

When I was 17 or 18 I was given a Schrade Easy Open Wire Framed Jack knife by my Grandpap, I absolutely love that knife, carried it constantly. In my early 20's my wife and I bought a small camper and when I was installing the hitch and harness to my truck I needed a different connector then what I had, so I jumped into the truck and headed to the store to get one. when I returned home I continued working on the harness and I reached for my knife and it wasn't there. I looked everywhere for that knife to no avail. I reenacted in my mind the last time I remembered using that knife when I realized that when I was working on the harness I set the knife down on the step bumper of the truck and drove off to the store for the part that I needed. apparently the knife fell off between home and the store to be lost forever, I even drove that route again quite slowly looking but no luck. I think foe a good couple of months every tine I went down those same roads I always looked for it. Hopefully some deserving soul found it and put to good use and it didn't just rust away along side of the road.
 
I lost a box during one of my moves when I was younger. It had my first knife, an Old Timer 34OT my dad got me, but it also had a personalized autographed picture of Evel Knievel my grandfather got for me in a restaurant in Wilkes Barre, PA. But wait, there's more. There was a personalized autographed copy of Mike Schmidt's book my uncle got for me, as well as a ton of autographed hockey stuff from all the camps and clinics I went to. It was the most important box of my childhood and I have no idea what happened to it. My pop has gotten me a few knives over the years, but that first one was special...
 
Man, talk about opening up some old wounds! I've shared this story before, but I guess to add to everyone else's misery, here goes...

Many years ago, when I was a stupid emotional teenager (now I'm just older, LOL), my mom kept bugging me to clean my room. Being the typical teenager, my room was a mess. At that time, I did have an interest in knives, and I had received a few from my dad and grandpa up till that time. I don't remember them all, but I know there were a handful, and for sure there was a Grohmann Russell fixed blade and a Remington camper folder in the collection. I didn't have a legit storage solution for them like now, and had just kept them in a paper bag in my room.

Finally the day came when I got the ultimatum to clean my room or have it cleaned for me. In typical teenager fashion, I just flew off the handle and started thrashing through my room putting things away and throwing away trash. Unbeknownst to me, I threw that bag of knives away. Once I realized what I had done, it was too late. You know that sick to your stomach feeling you get? Yeah, I still get that when I think about that stupidity. Some of those knives were owned by my dad and grandpa, so that makes it worse to me.

My present-day knife collecting seems like a feeble attempt to "recapture" those knives I stupidly threw away by mistake years ago.
 
My deceased Dad's Case XX pocket knife. He passed away about 12 years ago. As you can see he sharpened the thing down pretty good. I took a picture in the hopes to get a broken blade replaced. He had it with him always. Had it over 60 years and I had it for about two years and lost it. Don't know where but I'm still bummed out over it.:(:(:( Please count me in.

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Interesting GAW I'd like to enter just to see what's up for grabs, but I fear my story wont make the cut.

A few months back I lost a really nice Case brown delrin slimline trapper.
The first trapper I actually liked, and due to it's as ground blade finish and handle material it was the very first time I have actually chosen stainless over carbon steel.

The F&F and W&T of this knife were spot on.
A great knife, but I'm not going to buy another because it may not be as nice of an example.

The real kicker to me is that I will forever lament having lost this knife but I no longer actually miss it because I have been liking smaller peanut ranger folders more and more lately.

 
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It was a no name cheap knife. Not sure if the folks here would count it as traditional but this happened about 40 years ago so ...

The knife was a lock back, sort of curved handle with a clip blade. Covers were hard black plastic and there was a dragon on it. It had swing guards too.

One of the first knives I carried a lot.

Not sure what year it was. Early 80's. We were living in northern Indiana and we went to Chicago to pick somebody up at O'hare airport. Or maybe drop somebody off.
I loved that airport back then. So much energy and different people. It was wild for young norcaldude.

Anyway, we had to go through a metal detector at some point and I had my dragon knife in my pocket. As I stood in line I was probably pretty nervous. I knew the detector would ding and I'd have to hand it over so I had my hand in my pocket on my knife, ready to hand it over. And the machine didn't ding! Yay! But the lady manning that machine spotted my guilty face and silently held her hand out to me.
I pulled out the knife and handed it over. She nodded her head for me to proceed and that was the last time I saw that knife.
 
Oh man folks, some real tearjerkers here. I'm not at home to post a picture yet but I can tease and list the few I've definitely decided on... A yellow delrin slimline trapper from case in cv, a Mercator k55k, an opinel 6 in carbon that I modded the handle on, an old school imperial USA Barlow, and a Schrader 34OT. I'll snap some pics when I get home and get them up... Keep up the entries, I do apologise for causing trauma, but it makes me feel better about my loss.
 
My grandfather is the one that got me into knives. When i was young, before school age he would watch me for the day while my parents worked so we would go to his house sometimes and of course i had to look at all his things like tools and guns and knives. He had a simple two blade pen knife in with his stuff from the service (ww2 USS BIGHORN) and he had a brand new old timer 340 in the brown box. With blue foam inside i remember how smooth the blades opened and even the smell of the oil on them. And the pinch of cutting myself. It never clicked with me until i recently had my first son but he had got that knife for me when i was old enough. Fast foward to my teen years he finally gave me the knife and i had it in my bedroom as a cherished knife and one day i re-arranged my room and then i never saw it again. I have torn thst room apart and still no knife. I do have the 2 blade pen from him and a few more he bought me at the old army/navy store out of the used bin. Anyway that loss is my worst.
 
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