Your first knife

Mine was a gerber l.s.t though it may have been called something else back then which was about 30 years ago. Got it at local walmart I remember being over at my dad's house and him telling me that's too sharp for you right now. I was like haha thats funny I'm a ninja Rambo expert fast forward a couple hours after me fidgeting with it I'm asking him to help stop the bleeding😄
 
Believe a Barlow I found on the side of the road
But it could have been the Swiss Army alox my grandfather bought for me, when I was visiting.
 
Told this story once before on here. Black rubber handle dagger. Flea market. Dull blade (but didn't know that at the time; any blade shaped steel was "sharp" to me). Took it to school in grade 7 in a locked tackle box to show it off to a couple friends. Was super discreet. Told on by a friend. Got sent to principal's office, where they had a cop show up and lead me through questioning trying to paint me as liable to go on a violent spree. Officer told me he knew jiu jitsu and would pretzel me. Neither genius conceived maybe if that had been handled differently they might have helped me identify my true calling decades earlier.
 
David Mary said:
Told this story once before on here. Black rubber handle dagger. Flea market. Dull blade (but didn't know that at the time; any blade shaped steel was "sharp" to me). Took it to school in grade 7 in a locked tackle box to show it off to a couple friends. Was super discreet. Told on by a friend. Got sent to principal's office, where they had a cop show up and lead me through questioning trying to paint me as liable to go on a violent spree. Officer told me he knew jiu jitsu and would pretzel me. Neither genius conceived maybe if that had been handled differently they might have helped me identify my true calling decades earlier.
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🥨 ouch, it's always heart warming when we can truly lean on our friends in times of strife, or some decent show and "no" tell
 
David Mary said:
Told this story once before on here. Black rubber handle dagger. Flea market. Dull blade (but didn't know that at the time; any blade shaped steel was "sharp" to me). Took it to school in grade 7 in a locked tackle box to show it off to a couple friends. Was super discreet. Told on by a friend. Got sent to principal's office, where they had a cop show up and lead me through questioning trying to paint me as liable to go on a violent spree. Officer told me he knew jiu jitsu and would pretzel me. Neither genius conceived maybe if that had been handled differently they might have helped me identify my true calling decades earlier.
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You must be from modern school knife culture. In my day, not only could you carrry knives in school, they often awarded them as prizes. I got a couple knives that way.
 
The only knife I remember from my kid years was a demo knife, probably a Camillus, with the dimpled metal scales. No recollection of where I got it or where it went. After seeing “West Side Story” on Broadway at about age 12 or 13, I really wanted a switchblade. I made do with a gravity knife that looked like a switchblade. I used it mostly as a fidget toy, 60 years before I ever heard the term “ fidget toy”.
The first knife I ever bought was a Löwen Messer hippekniep, a sodbuster style knife I bought for six bucks in an Amsterdam department store. I was backpacking around Europe, and needed it to cut the black bread and gjetost I carried on the road. I still have it.
 
My first knife was an old carbon steel slipjoint hawkbill that may have belonged to my grandparents. I remember the dark patina on the blade and the wooden scales. Probably made in Sheffield. I doubt it was very sharp or that I even tried to sharpen it. Sadly it ended up in a fire.
 
This is technically my second knife, I lost a similar one.
So, my father bought me this replacement a year or two later when we went back to the Catskill Game Farm (around 1967).

I tried to find these when I brought my own kids there in the early 1990's but they had switched to plastic knives by then.

catskill.jpg
 
Peter Hartwig said:
You must be from modern school knife culture. In my day, not only could you carrry knives in school, they often awarded them as prizes. I got a couple knives that way.
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Yes, I remember on Fridays (elementary school) we could wear our cub scout uniforms to school, my father had loaned me his boy scout knife (a fixed blade Camillus).

In high school most boys carried a pocket knife and would compare them during recess. It was the first time I saw Mumbly Peg being played. :)
Mumbly Peg definitely wasn't encouraged, but no one stopped it either.... and this was New York City in the mid 1970's
 
Mine was a slipjoint, maker unknown. Probably like 2.5" or so. Clear plastic scales with a picture of Elvis under it. I was 5 or 6, I'm not sure I knew who he was then.

It was taken away at school, it ended up in my bag, a kid saw it and told the teacher. That was probably 1978 or '79, so I'm not a convicted terrorist now, they just took it away. I don't think I intentionally took it, but that was a long time a go and in the mean time have come to understand I have no idea why kids do things.

Got my dad's heavily-sharpened Buck next, and held on to that for the rest of my childhood until I left for school. Don't know what happened to it after that.
 
Mine was a Wenger SAK I got in October of 1985. I adored it. It was a gift and I carried it everywhere (except school).
 
I think my first knife was one of what later became known as MIL-K knives: a milsurp 4-blade pocket knife. My first fixed-blade was one like this:

U4zdO76.jpg
 
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One of my granddads leftovers he didn't want anymore. Can't remember the name. But it was a folder with aluminium handles with some kind of fake or real teak inlay. As I remember it had a thump stud. Saw a picture of it on bladeforums recently, but forgot to ask more about it.
Think I got it from him because the wood was broken.
I'm real sad I don't have it yet.
It was surely a cheap knife, but now that I get more and more into knifes it could be cool to restore it, and pass it on to my son when he is old enough.
 
When I was 5, I was playing in the cellar of my grandpa's house. He had a workbench, and as I rummaged through his tools, I found an old 4 blade scout knife. I was instantly fascinated. I knew I needed this object. I asked if I could have it and grandpa said "yes". Thus started my journey. No activity, no event followed this momementous personal moment.
 
The first three were -

A white shell handled Imperial 2 blade jack that was bought off a card for $3-4 bucks, I set that down after opening a box, and it vanished. The next 2 were a Victorinox Classic, and an Ideal shell handled scout. I forget the order on those, but I think the Victorinox was first.

My neighborhood hardware stores as a kid were awful for knives. If you asked for one, they'd show you Stanley knives, X-acto, or Imperials/Ideals/Colonials that had years of dust covering them.
 
My first was a BSA field knife which I lost the day I got it. The next was an ivory scaled Anniversary BSA whittler (Camillus) which I still own. The thrid was a SAK Climber I lost and replaced, and finally there was a Buck 110 which I still own. Those were my knifes, more or less, for a decade or more until the late 1990's when Benchmade and Cold Steel showed up on my radar.

The Scout knives I got for Scouting. The SAK was a gift from my parents when I turned 13, and the Buck a gift from my Dad that same year.
 
ShaiHulud said:
What do you remember about your first knife? And was there an activity or event assigned to it? I'll go first.

My first knife was a Victorinox swiss army knife, model unknown, my dad bought it for me and said it was only for when we go backpacking/camping --- and so "it" began
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ShaiHulud said:
What do you remember about your first knife? And was there an activity or event assigned to it? I'll go first.

My first knife was a Victorinox swiss army knife, model unknown, my dad bought it for me and said it was only for when we go backpacking/camping --- and so "it" began
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A camp type 4 blade affair from a local hardware store around 1970. It was a monumental moment for me as a young kid.
 
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