Your First New Knife and the Year You Bought It?

black mamba

black mamba

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The first knife I can ever remember buying new was a Gerber Silver Knight lockback, much like the one pictured below. I carried it for about 14 years before losing it.
I bought it sometime in the early 1970s. A gracious forum member gave me this one to replace it.

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Please tell us about your first new knife you purchased, and when you got it.
 
As a kid, I remember riding my bicycle to a lumber yard that was only a couple of miles from my house. I would always go and look at the vertical, glass display cabinet full of Case knives. Of course this was in the early to mid 70s, so there wasn’t all of the different colors and jigging, just different patterns. The one that caught my eye was a Texas Jack. I eventually saved up enough money, and bought it. I couldn’t wait to show my Grandpa. He always had a Case knife. I no longer have it, but will always remember it. Lance
 
My first New Knife that I bought 1961 or 1962 . I had many knives before that but no new ones . I retired it in either 2001 or 2004 . I don't always get my dates correct anymore . Since then I bought a few more . It has served me very well . I still have it and leave it retired .
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Harry
 
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This is a story I told back in 2017 on another forum. I had other cheap penknives before this but this was the first knife I bought myself.


I bought this knife back in the early 1980's out of the back of some magazine. Back when you had to send in a check, wait for the check to clear and then wait some more for the knife to be mailed to you. I carried this knife until my dad bought me a proper Buck 112 for my 13th or 14th birthday.

It sat in a drawer for years until around 1999 when I moved home to Minnesota from Colorado. At the time my dad helped me venture out on my own being self employed as a Carpenter / Handyman. He would come and help me on jobs even although he was almost seventy. He needed a pocket knife so I gave him this one. Kind of a turning of tables since he had bought me my first few good knives. He loved this knife as it takes a great edge being good Japanese steel and rides well in the pocket. He carried it everyday until he passed away a few years later.

A few years went by and I decided to give it to my best friends son. I kind of forgot about it until recently when something reminded me of it. I was feeling kind of nostalgic for it a few weeks ago and casually mentioned to my friend how I had been thinking about it. I asked him if his son ever used it. He said that he didn't think so as he has a bunch of other knives now. I kind of left it at that.

Well I was over there today helping my friend out with his kitchen remodel and his son surprised me by handing me the knife saying that he would be happy for me to have it back. Well I have to say that I teared up a bit and thanked him for taking care of it for me.


Here it is, an old friend returned home


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I was gifted a couple of new knives when I was in elementary school before 1965, and my wife gave me a Leatherman PST for Christmas in the mid-1980s. But the first new knife I ever bought myself was in early February 2014 at Walmart when I bought a "2-pack" containing Chinese Buck Solo and Trio (373). I didn't care much for single-bladed knives at the time, so I gave away the Buck Solo, but I still have the 373. Here are a couple of photos (actually, I think they're scans on a photocopier) of both of them soon after I bought them:
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- GT
 
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Two ways to answer this question; my first new pocketknife was an Official Cub Scout model that my folks bought for me around Christmas in 1963 (it got passed down to my younger brothers, and then who knows what became of it). The first new knife I bought for myself was this Buck 105 Pathfinder, bought at the APG MD PX in the fall of 1976. My BOQ roommate, a fellow Second Lieutenant, and I decided to buy Buck Knives for an upcoming FTX; he bought a 110 Folding Hunter and I bought the Buck 105. It was my Army/ARNG field knife for the next 14 years, when it became solely a hunting knife. OH
 
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My dad always kept me well supplied with new knives, as birthday gifts usually, starting when I was 5 (1971), but the first new knife I recall purchasing with my own money was this Precise Deerslayer, probably around 1983 or 84.

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As you can see, it hasn’t gotten a ton of use over the years, though it is tied to a couple of memorable events.

I got it at the now long-defunct Trading Post - a local outdoor sporting goods store that had guns, knives, fishing gear, etc. My dad always got his knives at either Wire hardware, or Mack’s hardware, both also now long out of business. I could walk to all three of these places from my house. Now if I need something I have to get in my car and go to a big box national chain store :confused:.
 
The first knife that I bought by myself was a little Japanese lockback sometime in the early '70s. (Similar in size to a Buck 055.) At some point the backspring broke and I don't know what happened to it after that. (I saw an identical one at a gun and knife show several years ago and wish I had bought it, but I bought a Case muskrat instead.) Around '74 or '75 I bought a Buck 110 (two dot), and around 1989 a Buck 703 Colt. Around '91 or '92 I bought a Buck 119.
That was enough for me for about 25 years and then I got interested in knives again and, Oh Dear, where did all these knives come from? 😁
 
Original Puma 6396 Bowie - I think it might be the first one I bought myself, or at least my earliest significant expenditure on a knife. I'd had 2 or 3 knives given to me by my father, but I don't think I'd bought any myself prior to this one. This knife was also the one that sparked my interest in accumulating knives. I bought it in the early '80s, maybe '82-'83 or so. It's date-coded from 1981. I was a year or two into my U.S. Navy enlistment and had just enough saved income to start considering such purchases at the time. I think aesthetically, it may be the one that I consider most beautiful in my collection. I look at it as a piece of fine art. I had absolutely no use for such a big blade. But I saw it in a cutlery shop at the mall while visiting home on leave at the time, and just had to have it.
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Some of you may have heard this knife's story. It is actually a duplicate of my second knife, but the first that I purchased for myself. The year was 1964. I needed a knife, so I pedaled my bicycle to the nearest department store and hovered over the knife display, longing for a Trapper. The Barlow cost (what seemed at the time) substantially less than the Trapper but cut exactly the same. So I went home with the Barlow. It served me well for a few years until it was lost and replaced by the Trapper that I had wanted and still have.

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The Barlow is an excellent knife, and I'm thrilled to have found a duplicate.
 
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It was 1970. I was 23, and was backpacking around Europe, hitchhiking, camping, staying in hostels, rolling my own smokes from Dutch shag. It didn’t take too much of this nomadic existence to make me realize I really needed a knife, to slice cheese and sausage mostly. At a department store in Amsterdam, I found just the knife. Six bucks for a Löwen Messer (Lion Knife), essentially a walnut-handled Sodbuster. It served me for the year that I traveled. When I got home I put it away, so I still have it.
 
I previously had a second-hand boy scout knife that never got much use but the first knife I bought with my own money is the Schrade with the broken clip blade purchased circa 1969 at TG&Y. Stagalon covers! Woohoo! At least it sounded cool. I broke the tip off the clip blade using it as a screwdriver prying the side cover off a motorcycle. Money was tight when you are making $1.10 per hour washing dishes at The Ponderosa Restaurant on the weekends. It went on to scrape a bunch of gaskets and cut a mile of heater hose when working at Hensley's Truck Stop and highschool auto mechanics. Skinned a few rabbits and squirrels and cleaned a bunch of fish, mostly crappie. I lamented the loss of my favorite clip blade, and was relegated to mostly using the less desirable to me spey. Probably explains why I still don't care for spey blades. But carrying it for a few years through Junior High and High School taught me a good lesson. I never broke another knife. Still have it, a fine porch member gifted me the pristine replacement. Old story but great thread.

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My first knife was a hand-me-down Barlow from my Dad. That was in 1950-something. The first knife that I actually remember buying was an Uncle Henry 885, that I bought in a Union 76 Truck Stop in NC in 1970. I bought cheap knives before that that are long forgotten, but the reason I remember the UH is because I paid $15 for it, and that was a lot of money for me to be spending on a knife back then. I still have it:
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Ironbut said:
My first knife was a hand-me-down Barlow from my Dad. That was in 1950-something. The first knife that I actually remember buying was an Uncle Henry 885, that I bought in a Union 76 Truck Stop in NC in 1970. I bought cheap knives before that that are long forgotten, but the reason I remember the UH is because I paid $15 for it, and that was a lot of money for me to be spending on a knife back then. I still have it:
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Nice knife. Looks like you got some use out of it.
BTW, $15 in 1970 (according to U.S. Inflation Calculator) equals $122.01 today. Arguably, more than a lot of folks would be willing to pay for a pocket knife.
 
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