Your First New Knife and the Year You Bought It?

[Hickory n steel]

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.

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 .

That's a great knife you've got there, made by Ichiro Hattori in Seki Japan.
It's an early variant of their model 109, availability of Hattori knives here in the US is limited but they still seem to make the 109 which sells for around $250-$300 when you can find one in stock.

 

[black mamba]

Some great stories and great knives, too. That Deerslayer caught my attention; never seen one before but an iconic pattern.

 

[Stelth]

Here, in 1979 or 80. I was 12 or 13. The other knives I had were from relatives. The first I remember actually buying myself was a Pakistan-made ripoff of a Buck 110. I didn't know about quality or brands or anything about steel at that time.
Something like this:
image posting

 

[draggat]

Ok, so it technically wasn't new and I actually didn't buy it......

I found this machete in a vacant lot (an empty field that eventually had a few houses built on it) next to my house when I was 10 or 11. Someone had obviously been beating on a stump or something hard with it, the edge had horrible dents and it was just left to rust away. So, I saved it..... It aligned with my obsession with 80's slasher films, notably, the Friday the 13th series. In fact, I was overjoyed that it had been forgotten there and I was the one to find it!

I fixed the edge somewhat with a file and it is reasonably sharp, but it is retired and has been part of my horror movie collection for a long time. That is a genuine, well deserved patina!



My first real knives were a SAK and a Buck 110, given to me by Dad. Other than camping or Boy Scouts, I rarely carried a knife with me until my mid 30's.

The first knife I actually bought with my own money was a counterfeit stiletto in Tijuana for $10. Don't ask how I got that home..... I was probably 22 or 23 at the time. It just sat in my desk and I would flick it every once in a while until a girl I was dating asked if she could have it. Sometimes I'm a sucker for women! Replaced it with a Beltrame, so it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

I didn't really care about traditional knives until around 2010 and it's been downhill ever since!

 

[Hickory n steel]

The first traditional knife I ever bought myself was a cheap 3" faux scrimshaw lockback that I bought as a teenager for $4 at a store called Bargain Smart down the street from my moms house.
I think it's still around somewhere but the covers came unglued and fell off.

The first good traditional knife I bought myself was a Case sodbuster Jr from the local hardware store in 2016.


This was before I came to really love traditional knives and I don't know how I came to want a Case Sodbuster, but I know I had wanted one for awhile.

 

[Murphy Slaw]

Not the first, but I think I bought this around 1980 and used it for well over a decade of hard use and abuse. This old LB-7 wore out a few sheaths.

 

[RickHuf]

I don't remember the first knife I bought.

It's would probably be flea market mall ninja stuff in the mid nineties. Or a dollar store SAK clone.

Maybe it was some of those Pakistan knives from the mail order ad in the back of Boys Life. It was like 3 for $20 or something. Boot knife, lockback stilleto, Bowie, etc to choose from.

Whatever it was, my first knives were certainly junk but they worked perfectly fine.

Eventually I ended up with a 110, a 422 bucklite and a scout knife. Still have the 110.

 

[tongueriver]

The early knives are all gone now. The first one was a blue Camillus Cub Scout knife, then a Schrade Walden Boy Scouts "Leader" pen knife, both purchased by my Parents in the early 1950s. The first knife that I bought was a yellow stockman knife, either a CASE or a Schrade Walden, in the L.P.Price hardware store in Baker, Montana. As a lad, I was up in the cockpit of the Tilt A Wheel Carnival ride during Fair Week in August of (probably) 1958. The Carny running the controls down on the ground would manipulate the ride in such a way that the riders' pockets were systematically emptied and the treasure would fly to the ground, where the operator's shill would race in and grab the coins, wallets and knives and disappear into the crowd. That was the end of my yaller stockman knife. Then a George Leonard Herter Canadian knife, a Boker USA jumbo congress knife, A Schrade 154 fixed blade, a Buck 102 and 121, and an 858 Schrade jumbo stockman. And then a couple thousand more starting in 2007 when I quit buying tobacco and started buying knives. All of those pre-2007 knives are long gone. The pre-2007 knives were all tools, not collectibles; that concept had not yet crystalized in my brain. Then... in January of 2007, my Son sent my a BUCK Alpha folder with a birthday etch on the blade. And that was my first collectible knife.

 

[hugofeynman]

Extrema Ratio RAO in 10/09/2010.

 

[Bigfattyt]

I may be wrong. But I think the first knife I bought for my self was a Glenn Hornby custom hunting knife with stag handles (I keep thinking to see if I remember another but all the ones I remember came after this.

He was my uncle, and I got it at 12 years old at a family reunion. I had saved up lawn mowing money for the purchase.

this is not a great photo of it, but it's what I could find off hand.

 

[Oldy]

A rappala filleting knife in 1973.its is now at the bottom of the Nelson river along with my tackle box.maybe it made it to the Hudson bay.

 

[RickHuf]

I don't remember the first knife I bought.

It's would probably be flea market mall ninja stuff in the mid nineties. Or a dollar store SAK clone.

Maybe it was some of those Pakistan knives from the mail order ad in the back of Boys Life. It was like 3 for $20 or something. Boot knife, lockback stilleto, Bowie, etc to choose from.

Whatever it was, my first knives were certainly junk but they worked perfectly fine.

Eventually I ended up with a 110, a 422 bucklite and a scout knife. Still have the 110.

I'm quoting my own post here but I'm kinda pumped right now.

I was digging through an old footlocker full of junk and found this childhood treasure. Look how whooped this bad boy is! Lol

This is the kind of stuff we had as kids. No doubt a mail order cheapo that was used and abused. Looks like I even took it to the bench stone or my paps big old pedal stone.

 

[Stelth]

Pakistan's finest! I still have a few of that ilk in my garage.