Do You Remember Your First Pocket Knife?

[cshold]

I vividly remember at 11 years old my next door neighbor giving me my
very first knife. (1972) He was a retired PA. city police officer that had diabetes
real bad and had both his legs amputated, he passed away a couple years later.

I cherished this little knife as one of my best friends; it was in my pocket almost every waking
hour for many years. (Till I got my Leathman ) I carried it to school every day from 6th grade on.
The teachers knew I religiously carried this well sharpened pocket knife, and asked to
barrow it on numerous occasions through my school years.
(Can you imagine this today? )

I really have no idea how old this little Imperial pocket knife is, it has served me well since 1972,
used anywhere from digging splinters out of my hands, cleaning /trimming finger nails to gutting out
a couple of deer when the hunting knife was forgotten.

[piller]

My first one was a 2 bladed one made by Camp King. I wore it out in about 10 years.

[bsaride]

Don't remember the first, probably an official cub scout knife, lol.

Had a stockman in my left front pocket since I was eight.
I have been changing it around some in the past few years,
currently a Case warncliff jr trapper type

[bdhold]

Imperial mini canoe. Cheap Japanese knife from the "ice house" (TX for corner store).
Now they're collectible - they were made in Seki City.
Next was a Cub Scout knife, and they're really collectible.

[Hobie]

My first knife was a Case Boy Scout knife. I carried it all the time and, yes, teachers would borrow mine or some other boy's knife most every day. Nobody expected anything else. Indeed, the boy without a knife was the odd one out. We played mumbledy peg at the bus stop. I would lay newspapers on the living room floor and carve wooden boats while watching TV with my parents. Unfortunately it is in/at the bottom of Lake George in New York. I know just about right where it is but couldn't find it, even shortly after losing it. I stood, dove, worked in that cold water (that year was particularly cold while we were there) lifting and moving rock on the lake bottom looking for my knife. It is likely deep in the crevices. That taught me the value of a lanyard around water. I really missed it the next day when helping my grandfather work on his sailboat and then wanting to open a bottle of grape Nehi.

[C. Cash]

Imperial jackcamping knife, earned through blue chip stamps around 1978-9.

[J Miller]

Well, no I don't remember the first knife exactly, but I have a scar from it as a souvenir. You see as a 6 YO I was showing off to a friend and had a stick in my left hand. I went to stick the knife in the end of the stick and missed .... Stuck it in the web of my left hand. Still got a 1/2" scar there. Even as boy I knew the value of not showing pain. As I sat there leaking red fluid all over the place I acted as if it was nothing. Boy did it hurt though.

Joe

[Old Savage]

I bought a Camillus Model 51 from Johnson's General Store at about 10 years old. Same story - used it for all kinds of stuff. Stolen from my car in Davenport, Ia about 1974 - found this one at a knife show. It is the bottom one in this picture of some of my Camillus Knives.

[stretch]

I do! It's a red Swiss Army knife I got on a trip to New York city with
my Dad when I was 8. Hoffritz. I got a Spaulding pitcher's glove and ball,
lunch at the Empire State Building, and the pocket knife on that outing.
I still have the knife.

I carried it everywhere - school, on three continents in the USAF,
planes, trains, automobiles - you name it. When I was in college, it
held the only corkscrew I owned, so it was DEFINITELY a necessary
piece of kit!

-Stretch

[WCF3030]

Yes.
An Olsen "lil critter" that was made less then 20 miles from my house. I used it for years on small game and pan fish until the factory closed up and now it sits in my drawer to be passed down to my son.

[DixieBoy]

Sounds like Hobie and I had the same knife as kids. I had a Boy Scout knife, main blade, kind of a screwdriver/bottle opener blade, a can opener blade, and an odd blade that I figured was meant to punch holes in leather, like an awl or something. Had the Boy Scouts emblem on dark handles. Never knew it was made by Case. And I still wonder where that knife is now. - DixieBoy

[fordwannabe]

I remember the knife but not sure what it was called. It was an imperial(IIRC) single blade knife that was rounded on one end and kinda taper on the other. We always called them fish knives but I have no idea what it was really called. It had fake mother of pearl scales and a lock for the closed position, you had to hold it tip down and press the back of the blade into the handle for it to open. I remember dad telling me to be careful and don't lose it, ....lasted less than two weeks before I lost it somewhere.

[El Chivo]

Boy Scout knife, one big blade and one small

[rjohns94]

it was a small one blade knife my grandparents gave me from the great smokey smountains souvenir shop, though I don't know which one. Soon after I got a cub scout knife with multiple blades. my son has both now. One I kept was a bayonet my uncle gave me from his time in Vietnam. Still have it in the gun cabinet. Still as sharp as ever. Used to cut braches down, practiced throwing it into trees, and all sorts of digging and cutting and chopping. Still could serve in all those purposes. Kewl post.

[Old Savage]

stretch - I carried one like that for a while and still have it.

[Rusty]

My very first one was a "pen" knife my grandfather gave me when I was about 4. I couldn't have been much older cause he died when I was 5. I remember it had green scales on it that had a swirl pattern to it. It had 2 little tiny blades that I couldn't even open without help. The blades were so stiff to open they would make my little thumb nails bend backward when I tried to open them, childproof I guess. My mom took it for safe keeping and I never saw it again.
Next was a little knife from the Washington Monument gift shop that wasn't much better, but it was a knife.
The first really useful knife I ever had was, like a lot of others a Cub scout knife. That sure was a handy pattern too. I bought one like it right after I was married by Case XX and flat wore that one out.

Good thread, it brings back a lot of memories.

[gamekeeper]

My first pocket knife was a little two bladed, red scaled souvenir pen knife from the Isle of Man. Given to me by by Dad's second in command at the fire station where my Dad was Chief.
I was only about 7 years old and I carried it with me everywhere.

[tman]

Imperial 2 bladed fishing knife. Yellow with a metal fish on handle. 1 blade is a knife blade. Other has a scaler, hook remover, and bottle cap opener. Still have it.

[mouthpiece]

Grandfather bought me litle sheath knife while on vacation. Within the hour I dropped it on the pier & it fell through the boards onto the superstructure below. My dad retieved it with chewing gum on the end of his fishing rod.

Eventually lost that knife again but still have the memories of it more than 1/2 century later.

[L_Kilkenny]

Camp King sudo swiss army knife. No idea what happened to it. First pocket knife I bought was a hardware store barlow. Lasted about a week and one of teh scales fell off. Been so many since......

LK

[damienph]

Mine was a Boy Scout knife that my Dad gave me when I graduated from Cub Scouts (Webelos) to a Tenderfoot Boy Scout in 1965.

I gave that knife to one of my best ever friends when I moved from Georgia back to Kansas in 1991. He still has it.

He gave me a 1909 Argentine Mauser that his Dad gave him, I still have it.

[AJMD429]

10 years old - got a BIG Swiss Army knife, but somehow lost it during a hasty 'jump in the canoe and get going' back home off a sand-bar during a storm/flash flood.

13 years old - got a CASE 4" 2-blade folder, which I wore on a belt-sheath throughout junior and high school.

Any teacher that thought knives were an 'issue' in school would have been laughed at. Even firearms weren't particularly thought to be an 'issue', though they were supposed to stay in vehicles, unless you rode the school-bus, in which case they'd want you to keep them IN your locker until you went home. Officially, you were supposed to actually attend the whole school day and then hunt after school, but of course many of us happened to sort of fade away after lunch...

[cshold]

10 years old - got a BIG Swiss Army knife, but somehow lost it during a hasty 'jump in the canoe and get going' back home off a sand-bar during a storm/flash flood.

13 years old - got a CASE 4" 2-blade folder, which I wore on a belt-sheath throughout junior and high school.

Any teacher that thought knives were an 'issue' in school would have been laughed at. Even firearms weren't particularly thought to be an 'issue', though they were supposed to stay in vehicles, unless you rode the school-bus, in which case they'd want you to keep them IN your locker until you went home. Officially, you were supposed to actually attend the whole school day and then hunt after school, but of course many of us happened to sort of fade away after lunch...

Reading all these replies is just kicking memory lane into overdrive.

But also very scary as to how anti-gun this country has become in
so few years.

Now just pointing your fingers as a mock gun on the play ground will
get a student suspended.

I remember in high school the last week of school before summer break
the squirt gun battles in the hallways between classes, and I’m talking
about almost everyone had one including a few teachers.

[RIHMFIRE]

My first knife was a Case Boy Scout knife. I carried it all the time

Me too.....gave it to my nephew.....when he was a youngster around 12 or so
wonder if he still has it....hes 21 now...

[jfg_4]

I think my first knife was my official Cub Scout knife. I got that back in late 70's. I ran across it about 10 years ago... unfortunatly I think I put it some place safe... no telling where that is!!!!

[Hillbilly]

probably a Camp KIng too...

My great grandmother gave me a little Imperial pen knife about the same time.

[AJMD429]

Reading all these replies is just kicking memory lane into overdrive.

But also very scary as to how anti-gun this country has become in
so few years.

Now just pointing your fingers as a mock gun on the play ground will
get a student suspended.

I remember in high school the last week of school before summer break
the squirt gun battles in the hallways between classes, and I’m talking
about almost everyone had one including a few teachers.

Yep. I walked into the principals office as a sophomore in high school, carrying a .32-20 lever-action, and asked if they'd keep it in the office's safe during the afternoon, as I'd picked it up during my lunch hour at the gun shop where it'd been repaired, and since I rode the bus, there was no place to keep it.

Vice Principal - "Why don't you just put it in your locker...?"

Me - "I have one of those stupid half-lockers that isn't tall enough."

Vice Principal - "Don't you have any friends who have tall lockers...?"

Me - "Sure, but I don't want to leave an expensive family heirloom gun with the kind of kid that would be MY friend..."

Vice Principal (smiling) - "Yeah, your friends are likely to be some unsavory characters. . ."

pause

Vice Principal - "Why don't you just take it to class with you, then...?"

Me - "I would, but I've got drafting class this afternoon, and you know how THOSE guys get..."

pause

Vice Principal - "Yeah, you're right there. OK, hand it over..."

Me - "Do you have a screwdriver handy...?"

Vice Principal - "Huh...?"

Me - "I'm going to take the lever and bolt out of it - you don't expect me to leave a functional GUN with you guys here in the office, do you? I know it is for an obsolete caliber, but I have to have some sense that I've not created a dangerous situation."

Vice Principal - "Hang on," and he produces a screwdrive from the drawer of a nearby desk (thankfully the old Marlins didn't have that overly-narrow lever-screw).

I remove the lever and screw, and slide out the bolt and lug, and pocket them all. (The ejectors didn't fall out on the old Marlins.)

I hand him the gun, and he says "Just come get it after school; I don't want to have your mom calling me if it disappears overnight."

During drafting class, of course we have to draw some 'machine parts', and although there is a table of parts we can measure and draw, I choose to draw the bolt in my pocket (the lever had too many curves that I was too lazy to measure and draw) - the drafting teacher approves of it as something 'beyond the basic'. I even got the over-radiused front/right cuts on the bolt accurately measured and drawn. Teacher didn't freak out and call the SWAT team.

I took the gun home on the school bus, uncased. Driver didn't freak out and call the SWAT team; no problems.

THAT kind of Vice Principal (and teacher and bus driver) is hard to find nowdays. Mind you that if you hurt someone, stole something, or otherwise actually did something BAD, that guy would paddle you so hard that you'd be in the doctor's office the next day for some salve. If it was a 'schoolboy prank', he'd advise you not to do it again, speculate with you on ways not to get caught next time if you did it again, and laugh with you about it. "Guns" didn't even make the 'prank' list, and were pretty much a non-issue.

Of course, that was back in the days when a couple of guys could have a fistfight during lunch break over some girl, and one or both would have a 4" knife on them (most 'hetero' guys did ), and often one or both would have a 12 gauge shotgun in the gun-rack in their vehicle , but NEVER did the use of a weapon become an issue during that kind of altercation. Both student and faculty had a firm grasp on the reality of deadly violence, vs. a good old-fashioned fist-fight for some silly reason. Right vs. Wrong was not just a matter of symbolism, but of substance.

Kids these days watch way too much television, don't hunt enough, and think it's OK to shoot someone in the back you don't even know, just to make a point about feeling 'dissed' because they are lazy, stupid, unmotivated, and didn't get spoon-fed when they were babies...

[AJMD429]

probably a Camp KIng too...My great grandmother gave me a little Imperial pen knife about the same time.

Man, those "Imperials" were crummy looking (with the cheap plastic grips), but had some GOOD steel. I remember hand-making wood grips to replace cracked plastic grips on several folding and straight knives, and that steel would really take a good edge...

[pokey]

i really admire you people's memories.

always had a knife in my pocket or on my belt [ or both ],
but the FIRST one,, not even a clue.

[shooter]

I still have mine. It's a Schrade regular ol' lock blade. My dad gave it to me when I was probably 7 or 8 years old. Miraculously it has followed me around through all my moves since I left my parents' house.

[fordwannabe]

Funny how so many of us had similar experiences, living in very different areas of the country and probably in different decades. At my high school the fella who din't have a pocket knife ON HIM was, looked at a little differently.

[Old Ironsights]

My first pocket knife is a standard Case 2 blade, don't know the model, that I found on the street in when I was 9 or so. Still have it somewhere.

[Blaine]

Cub Scout knife for Christmas....8?....Cut my finger but good within 30 minutes.....

[Birdman]

I still have my first pocket knife, my first straight blade knife and my first wife. I intend to keep all three till my dying day. This has got me thinking that I have never pointed these items out to my son. I will be doing that yet tonight. Come to think of it, he is familar with my wife. She's a mighty fine mother as well as a fine wife for 31 plus years.

Thanks for making me think about that.

[Griff]

Nope.

[piller]

My Son's first was a Leatherman Wave at age 6. He wrote a letter to Tim Leatherman and actually received a reply with a hand written signature. He still has the knife.

Does anyone have a Mora knife? Does anyone remember the Edgemark brand knives. Some of them were made in Mora, Sweden and had good steel. My older brothers each got one when they were about 7 and 9 years old. They still have them. At the same time I got a L'il Swede by EKA and still have it. Some of the best steel I have ever used in that blade.

[woods-walker]

Mine was a Barlow made by Imperial.

[Pitchy]

I can`t remember my first knife but do remember playing stretch with knives in first grade.

This fixed blade knife was given to me by my best friend when i was 12 in 1966 who died in a MC accedent later in life.
It was made in Finland, that is stamped on the sheath but no name on the blade.
The silver pocket knife says imperial and Ireland.
The little one has no name.

[Bruce]

No way I can clearly remember the first one. As I recall, I was born, the doctor stepped aside and someone put a Case knife in my diaper.

Seriously, I do not ever remember not having one in my pocket. When I got married, it was there - just in Case.

[cshold]

I can`t remember my first knife but do remember playing stretch with knives in first grade.

This fixed blade knife was given to me by my best friend when i was 12 in 1966 who died in a MC accedent later in life.
It was made in Finland, that is stamped on the sheath but no name on the blade.
The silver pocket knife says imperial and Ireland.
The little one has no name.

Very cool
I love the looks of that leather sheath...

[Pitchy]

That knife took a lot of abuse as you can imagine from a 12 year old kid till now, wish i new the maker, but i knew the giver and that`s what counts.

[Ysabel Kid]

Still have it. My Dad had a business trip to New York City and brought back a pocket knife for my brother and I. I think I was about 5 years old. The panel has the Empire State Building on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other. This was before the WTC was built.

I carried a BSA edition of the Swiss Army Knife for most of my years growing up (and still do), but my first one was this little simple pocket knife, and I'll never forget it.

I'll take pictures of it later.

Great post Mike!

[m.wun]

I got the Swiss Army Knife in the "Camper" version.I dont know what ever happened
to it.When it disappeared I bought a "Hunter" Buck Knife.I loved the smell of the leather
case that came with it!

[mouthpiece]

Does anyone have a Mora knife?

Sure, me an my buddy both do. Sometimes they can't be bought due to their populairty among the EOTWAWKI crowd.
Most guys ditch the plastic sheath & make one for their knife outa leather.

[Dave]

I don't remember the first one I got but I do remember all the men had Case XX pocket knives. I bought a German Boker stockmans knife for $13 when I was about 10. Got my money hauling hay and cutting tobacco. That was a lot of money for a knife at that time. I still have it even though it has been sharpened away alot. Those days are long gone.

[Sixgun]

Yep, I got both of 'em. The "Old Timer" was purchased by me in 1966, when I was 12 from the Gookie Catalog and the Nazi Youth Knife was also purchased by me in '66 from a flea market. Yea, good 'ole days.------------Sixgun

[Lobo]

Hi All,

I was about eight and got an official Cub Scout knife. Promptly cut my thumb while carving a Cub project. When my next youngest brother went to Cubs, the knife went to him, and Lord only knows where from there. I bought a Buck Stockman that I carried for years, and lost somewhere. Happened onto another Buck Stockman at a gunshow shortly after, and still carry it.

[O.S.O.K.]

Blue scaled Cub Scout folding knife from the official scout store... Do they even have Cub Scout knives any more? I sure hope so.

Boy Scouts do for sure - I know that. But not sure about the Cubs....

[Pistol Mike]

Does anyone have a Mora knife?

Yes i got several of them, have been carrying a "Morakniv" (see link below) as a work knife for the last 15 years.
Hard to get a more price worthy knife if you ask me. http://www.moraofsweden.se/index.php?cid=484&ssel=401#


Regards Mike

[kmittleman]

Great topic! I found my first pocket knife when I was maybe 6 yrs old at summer camp. It was a small Swiss Army knife with a blade and a file. At some point, I think I lost it or it was confiscated but my Dad got me a new one for my 8th birthday. Something really cool about a father giving his son a pocket knife.