What happens to those "lost" knives?

O

Owlhoot

Joined
May 19, 2011
Messages
26
This afternoon I fished in my pocket for my little Buck esquire that I've carried off and on for several years, but my hand came out empty. I'd lost my knife. I poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to mentally retrace my steps of the morning to try to determine where and how I had lost the knife. As I thought about it, I couldn't help remembering many of the other knives that I've lost over the years, knives that simply disappeared, knives that I didn't even have in my pocket, yet were lost, never to be found. I'm pushing 80, so over the years I have had enough knives disappear to make an outstanding collection for anybody.

I belong to a generation when boys not only carried knives religiously but also played knife games during recess at school. Consequently everybody I know and knew packed knives. And all of them lost knives too. So my question is, what in hell happens to all those lost knives? Are they like disappearing socks devoured by the washer or dryer monsters? Or is it something even more mysterious and nefarious?

Now the odd part is this: while I have lost many knives, and my friends and acquaintances have lost many knives, in all my eighty years I have never found a knife. I've found wallets, money, pens, jewelry, keys, and once, a fine pocket watch, but I've never found a knife. So tell me, where do they go? Do you think the devil himself has a hand in this? Is it the fault of the left-wing media? Or perhaps aliens from another galaxy? Or maybe you guys are finding them and not telling anybody. If that is the case, I'd like to have my little Buck back!
 
That's so true, I've never found a knife. I to have found keys,phones,money,wallets, SS cards, checks.. etc etc but never a knife. Hell I even found a Diamond Ring. Think there is a knife gnome.. like the one that steals my socks and lids to my cups
 
My vote is that Mother Earth is so impressed at what "we" did with the metal she gave us, she decided to reclaim it.
 
chester22 said:
That's so true, I've never found a knife. I to have found keys,phones,money,wallets, SS cards, checks.. etc etc but never a knife. Hell I even found a Diamond Ring. Think there is a knife gnome.. like the one that steals my socks and lids to my cups
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Just like you, I have lost and subsequently found almost everything possible except one of my knives. My hardest loss was my most recent - a beautiful mini TSEK I was about to send off to have the blade reground. I try not to beat myself up about it, and hope that someone that can appreciate the knife will find it, if its ever to be found.
 
I was just wondering where they went earlier. I think it is two Griptillians and two different Spydercos not to mention other cheapies and my friends would all know it was mine and are good enough folks to actually return them.

I did tell one friend I gave a couch to that when he is done with it I need to cut it open to get all the junk I lost in it over the years back.

But I am picturing a Rumplestilskin type character sitting on a huge pile of knives rubbing his hands together and giggling to himself
 
I have two lost knives a month ago. Put them in my pockets one day, about to set off, just as I walked out the door I noticed I didn't have them.


Haven't seen them since...

17116-b-the-borrowers.jpg
 
I also have thought this a few times...My theory is that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow is actually a pot of our knives. Somebody needs to catch that little thieving leprechaun already!
 
Hi Owlhoot -

Interesting. I have indeed found a knife - fairly recently in fact.

I work in a large office building / cubicle farm, with many conference rooms spread throughout the building.

One day I had a meeting and when I was setting up for the meeting, I noticed a nice Victorinox knife lying on the table.

I turned the knife into the building security, hoping that the owner would look to them to see if it had been turned in.

I have never gone back to see if that knife's owner ever claimed it - but I think I'll ask them tomorrow.

I have not lost a knife since I was in high school - and that was a Buck 110.

I have a Vic Waiter that I carry with me - and one day a couple of years ago I dropped it out of my pocket when I was leaving the gym - but luckily one of the members found it, and since I have my electronic gym keyfob attached, the gym workers looked up my membership number and had the knife waiting for me the next day when I arrived for my workout.

Since my old Vic is pretty beat up, it would not be a prize to anyone that found it, but it is very valuable to me.

I am pretty good about not losing and/or breaking things - I have the same comb that I have had for years, the same knife, the same sunglasses - Now that I have memorialized this in print I suppose now I will lose one or more of these items.


I did have one thing that I lost - I bought a new Corvette in 2001 - I had the car for about a month and one day I drove it to work, and then could not locate the key when I left work. I have never located that key and fob, and had to order a new set from Chevy so that I could have two again - That was not a fun experience.

I hope you find your little Buck - I know how attached we become with these simple little tools that serve us so well on a daily basis.

best

mqqn
 
I've only lost one permanently, but I've only been carrying a knife consistently for 4 or 5 years. I went out to eat one night with a Kershaw Leek and a Gerber Evo, and when I got home, the Gerber was gone. I called the restaurant, but nobody had seen it.

I've also found one knife, but I was the one who lost it. When I was 16 I worked for a lawn care company. One day I was weedwhacking the front ditch at a yard we cut every week, and when I got done I noticed my knife was gone. I looked around but couldn't find it. Then the next week we came back to cut that yard again, and I found my knife lying in the ditch! It had rained that week, so there was some rust on it, and the hinge has been sticky ever since. Thankfully it was just another cheap Gerber (I had only recently gotten into knives). A few years later, after I got a couple Kershaws and some other nicer stuff, I ended up giving that knife to my brother. But I just found out that he has now lost it. So it would seem that the Knife Gnome is dead set on that Gerber lol :D
 
Steel isn't a naturally occurring metal though?
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Exactly, she has all the raw ingredients, but just never thought to combine them in those exact ratios. At the most basic steel is just iron and carbon.:)
 
Just this afternoon I lot my Leatherman WingMan. I Think that I lost it in my brothers lawn while playing with the kids. But who knows. I won't be over there for another week at least since were all going on vacation together, so I hope I can find it. At least it was only a $30 tool.
 
I had a neck knife vanish out of it's sheath once... The odd thing is, it was under my tucked in shirt.

I searched my clothing at least a dozen times when I noticed it was gone, and I still can't explain where it went.
 
I actually found a knife gnome one day. When I first got into purchasing and collecting knives, I was a young kid. I would work during the summers mowing lawns and what not to buy fishing gear and knives which I took good care of. For some strange reason, the knives and not the fishing gear would always disappear, usually at the rate of about one knife every month. My prized purchase was a Spyderco Catcherman that I had saved up for as it was a grail knife for a teenage fisherman. It too disappeared. After a few more came up missing, I caught my younger brother and some of his friends carrying around some of my missing knives. Come to find out, he was taking the knives I was working to buy and giving to his friends as "gifts" but not the fishing gear since none of them thought that was "cool" enough. I was lucky to get a couple of the knives back but never the Catcherman. I still prowl the exchange and e-bay to find one but it's not the same as that first knife. I have filled the void with a few other Spydercos and have learned to keep my eye out for gnomes at home.
 
It's either lost by gravity or lost by forgetfullness.
Either way, it's sad to lose a cherished item.
 
I have lost three knives.

The first was my Kershaw vapor and though it was the cheapest since it was my first decent knife I miss it the most. If I hadn't lost that knife and gone looking for a replacement I doubt I would have joined bladeforums.

I had a ZT 0150 disappeared from a bag. This one really pissed me off because I think it was stolen. Now I am much more careful with my knives.

The last one I lost was a s30v leek when my pocket ripped open on a mountain top. Went looking for it but couldn't find it. I no longer keep knives in my pockets when doing that kind of thing.

Hopefully I will never loose another knife. I don't want to keep learning things this way. It is expensive and painful. I wonder if anyone ever found the ones I lost.
 
I will add that I think most knives are "lost" to the TSA - and then they are later sold on Ebay.

Sad but true.

best

mqqn
 
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