Your first pocket knife

I remember mine just like it was yesterday, it was a day of firsts , I had just turned 10 my Dad and I were going to see his dad and stopped at a small country market to buy the older gentlemen a taste of the High Life as dad was paying I looked up on the wall behind the guy ringing him up and there on a old yellowed card hang 3 or 4 Imperial Barlows, I beg Dad for one and he relented and bought me one of those plastic handled beauties, that was my first knife, which on the way to the car I proceeded to cut my thumb so bad that I still carry the scar some 35 years later and then came my second first in about 5 minutes, I said a word that started with S and ended in Dad going upside my head, not hard but certainly enough to let me know he didn't approve of such language from his 10 year old. The 3rd first happened later, my Dad swears it didn't happen but I can still remember him leaving to get rid of some of the High Life, and Grandpa sneaking me just a sip of his beer from the bucket of ice on the porch.
 
I never even tasted a beer until I was in college. Tasted some wine and it really sucked prior to that.
 
When I was around 6 or 7 my grandparents came to visit from Oklahoma. My Grandpa, who had worked as a security guard for the HILTI tool company and some point in his life gave me a promotional knife that he had held onto and never used. It was a Victorinox Tourist that a had a metal inlay that read HILTI. I loved that knife...despite immediately slicing my finger open, my mom let me keep it. I carried it everywhere. After a couple of years I had managed to break the tip off of the blade by stabbing it into the ground, but it didn't keep me from loving it. It was my primary knife until I lost it when I was a senior in high school. Man I miss that knife. Some nights I spend hours searching the big auction site for a replacement, but all I ever find have heat stamped logos instead of the inlay. What I wouldn't give to have that knife back...
 
hunter s thompson said:
I remember mine just like it was yesterday, it was a day of firsts , I had just turned 10 my Dad and I were going to see his dad and stopped at a small country market to buy the older gentlemen a taste of the High Life as dad was paying I looked up on the wall behind the guy ringing him up and there on a old yellowed card hang 3 or 4 Imperial Barlows, I beg Dad for one and he relented and bought me one of those plastic handled beauties, that was my first knife, which on the way to the car I proceeded to cut my thumb so bad that I still carry the scar some 35 years later and then came my second first in about 5 minutes, I said a word that started with S and ended in Dad going upside my head, not hard but certainly enough to let me know he didn't approve of such language from his 10 year old. The 3rd first happened later, my Dad swears it didn't happen but I can still remember him leaving to get rid of some of the High Life, and Grandpa sneaking me just a sip of his beer from the bucket of ice on the porch.
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Great story! :thumbup: So your dad took out a 10-year old and brought home a bloodied Barlow-toting, cussing, shortly to be beer-drinking, reprobate! :D
 
Jack Black said:
Great story! :thumb up: So your dad took out a 10-year old and brought home a bloodied Barlow-toting, cussing, shortly to be beer-drinking, reprobate! :D
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Exactly Jack I think it was probably around this time that my younger brother, (now a preacher) became the "good one". He was never a fan of knives, swear words or ice cold beer, so I am convinced I have had a lifetime more fun than he has.....
 
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The top one was mine given to me by my dad when i was about seven or eight, some sixty odd years ago the bottom one was his carried in his vest pocket as well as i can remember, as you can tell we could not get fancy knives where we lived but these did the job...
 
I was five and visiting my aunt and uncle over in Germany, we took a weekend trip down to switzerland where my uncle, an avid knife user, took me into a SAK store and let me pick out my first little SAK a keychain one, but still felt big as a five year old. Good memories with that knife, I remember using it to whittle a pinewood derby car out in the garage and a took a nice sized chunk out of my finger. My dad came outside and said to me, "so you're painting the car red now, huh?"
 
My first 'pocket knife' was actually a utility knife. I come from a pretty big family, and money was tight when I was growing up. Once every couple of months or so, I would get to go grocery shopping with my mom, and we would always go to the dollar store. To a young kid in the mid-late 90s, the dollar store was a place of wonder, and mom would always let me spend a few dollars there. As usual, I probably scanned all the possible options, singling out the ones that interested me the most. I'd seen my dad and other relatives using them, and had been fascinated with knives for some time. I remember once sneaking into my brother's room just to check out a small SAK type knife that he had. I don't know that I'd set out that day intending on getting a knife of some sort, but when I laid eyes on that gray, sheet-metal colored utility knife, I had to have it. I got up the courage to ask my mom (unsure if she'd say yes, I think I was around 8-9 at the time) and to my excitement, she said okay, as long as I didn't use it around my younger siblings. I was more than fine with that. I remember discreetly taking it out back and whittling the bark off of many sticks, sharpening them to a point. That was just the beginning...
 
Good story MrsZ. I never asked permission to get a knife. My Dad always carried one, so I figured it was just fine and it was.
 
My first was an Imperial Toothpick with yellow plastic handles and the fish scaler secondary blade. My grandfather bought it for me at Gibson's Discount Center in 1967 or 68, can't remember. The last I remember about the knife was that I had ripped the yellow shell wrapped handles off of it and it started to rust here and there. After that, who knows where it wound up.
 
First, a cheap scout knife that the scales fell off of in a year or two. Long gone.

Second, a Camillus Demo 1760 that my uncle Ernest gave me -- he had it for some time and may have had it shipboard on the USS Augusta during WW2, not sure, Ernest has been gone many years. As I recall he gave it to me in 1967 or 1968. I carried it for years and finally wore the spring out, so I bought a 1763 maybe 10 or 15 years back which I still carry off and on.
 
I don't know if it was a Colonial kids Daniel Boone knife, but if not, it was most definitely a Schrade 7OT lockback a neighbor gave to me. This was Schrades version of the 110. I beat the heck out of that knife and it took it all. I carried the sheath in my pocket, either jeans or coat pocket, everywhere. I finally broke the tip off by jamming the blade into a fence post while I was working outside in the middle of a snowstorm. Broke the tip off. Sold it off after reshaping a terrible point with a stone, someone was smart enough to hold onto the old girl (condition was disclosed). Wish I had it for it's history, a BF member was kind enough to send me another 7OT when I mentioned the knife.
 
My first knife was an International Paper giveaway knife. It had pearly (not shell) handles, tip bolsters, a spear and a bottle opener screwdriver. I believe or recollect that it was an Imperial stamped IPCO or similar. I was 6 or 7. I got in trouble for taking it to the park and using it out in the open to cut on a tree or picnic table, I think some parent observed me and decided that was not a good thing with other kids around.

When I joined Cub Scouts in 2nd grade I got a stainless Ulster Scout, but the spring broke ala demo knife and it was replaced with the 5-blade deluxe model that I still have.
 
My first pocket knife was a pass-down from my grandfather. He kept an old Schrade Walden H-15 hanging in his garage that he told me he used "to dig up roots in the garden" that I really admired, but I guess he thought he should start me off with something a little smaller. He eventually gave me the H-15 as well and it is one of my most cherished possessions, but this one started it all:
IMG_20140211_152125568_HDR.jpg


BTW, any help in ID'ing this knife would be greatly appreciated.
 
hunter s thompson said:
Exactly Jack I think it was probably around this time that my younger brother, (now a preacher) became the "good one". He was never a fan of knives, swear words or ice cold beer, so I am convinced I have had a lifetime more fun than he has.....
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I am with you there my friend, my brother is the "good one" too! :D
 
urza said:
My first pocket knife was a pass-down from my grandfather. He kept an old Schrade Walden H-15 hanging in his garage that he told me he used "to dig up roots in the garden" that I really admired, but I guess he thought he should start me off with something a little smaller. He eventually gave me the H-15 as well and it is one of my most cherished possessions, but this one started it all:
IMG_20140211_152125568_HDR.jpg



BTW, any help in ID'ing this knife would be greatly appreciated.
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What a cool little knife. I wish I could tell you something about it. Can you see any markings on the blade?
 
r8shell said:
What a cool little knife. I wish I could tell you something about it. Can you see any markings on the blade?
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The only marking I can see is "Made In USA" on the side pictured, nothing on the other side.
 
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