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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
What "Traditional Knife" are ya totin' today?
- Thread starter jackknife
- Start date
Amir Fleschwund
Gold Member
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2008
- Messages
- 7,935
She's beautiful, Ed.
I like how she's leaning in to comfort you.
A good dog is truly one of God's best gifts to mankind.
Greasepiggy
Gold Member
- Joined
- May 24, 2019
- Messages
- 1,443
Independence Day Ribeye!
Modoc ED
Gold Member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2010
- Messages
- 13,980
Yep - she's a keeper for sure.
Crappie71
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2021
- Messages
- 1,967
Ed, this is Mrs. Crappie; John has been keeping me in the loop about Abby and her bagel burying antics.
I know for sure every dog is precious in its own way, and there will never be another Coco nor Utah the Doxie, but I believe you picked another winner with Abby! Sheās beautiful!
Modoc ED
Gold Member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2010
- Messages
- 13,980
Ed, this is Mrs. Crappie; John has been keeping me in the loop about Abby and her bagel burying antics.
Yep, she's a real character Mrs. Crappie (Denise). She's a Short Haired Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix and a digger for sure. A couple/three new hidey holes have materialized this week but we've yet to explore them for what's in them if anything.
A good sign though is that we're not missing anything - that we know of.
Centermass
Gold Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2016
- Messages
- 6,886
BAR? Heck yeah. āMurica.
Down with King George III! Long live the Republic! 
Ellis Wyatt
Gold Member
- Joined
- May 17, 2009
- Messages
- 3,650
Yes sir. Seemed like a good day for the BAR. It makes the Garand feel really light and nimble.
Happy Independence Day!
- Joined
- May 14, 2012
- Messages
- 11,523
Thank you.
I do appreciate your enthusiasm for my newly acquired 74. I like the model and Iām looking forward to carrying this beauty.
btb01
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2008
- Messages
- 7,678
Roofers are coming to replace the shingled part of our roof.insurance company wonāt renew our homeowners policy until itās replaced.
Thatās a shame.
My brother had the same sort of thing happen, insurance was going to drop them unless they replaced the original slate roof on their 1930s house.
Nice pair of clip points!
Great looking knife! I keep hoping GEC will run that pattern again someday.
Nice trio of Lambs, Bob.
Happy 4th of July to our neighbors in the south!
View attachment 2917320
And a very sincere thank you to the member here that helped me finally acquire this beauty! (You know who you are.)
Great pic of a great knife!
Had these two with me quite a bit this past week. This is the first #81 from the most recent run that Iāve gotten around to carrying. Itās such a great knife!
Rufus1949
Gold Member
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2021
- Messages
- 17,306
[QUOTE="btb01, post: 23140161, member: ]
Nice trio of Lambs, Bob.
Had these two with me quite a bit this past week. This is the first #81 from the most recent run that Iāve gotten around to carrying. Itās such a great knife!
[/QUOTE]
Thanks Barrett.
I like the size of that #81, as well as, the interesting covers.
Nice trio of Lambs, Bob.
Had these two with me quite a bit this past week. This is the first #81 from the most recent run that Iāve gotten around to carrying. Itās such a great knife!
[/QUOTE]
Thanks Barrett.
I like the size of that #81, as well as, the interesting covers.
BrotherJim
Gold Member
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2015
- Messages
- 4,218
Christmas On The Mountain One Saturday In July
The coal was real. Not plastic, not painted rock, but cold and black with that oily sheen only the earth could birth. Three chunks from inside a red pouch sat on the mantel of the old minerās shack beside a yellow box that read āKissing Cranesā in cheerful lettering.
Tom Fletcher found them on Christmas morning, delivered by no one. Except the calendar said July. Tom didnāt question the seasons. He lived alone now, had since Dolores died twenty-one years ago, under mysterious circumstances. No one came up the mountain these days unless they wanted something buried. Tom didn't mind the quiet. Not anymore. The silence had learned to live with him.
He opened the box first. Inside, a pocket knife, gleaming despite the cabinās gloom. The blade was etched with a man wearing a safety helmet, and the words COAL MINER as though it had always belonged to him.
Tom held it up to the gray light trickling through the frost-blurred window. German steel, razor sharp. On the blade, it read: KC43CM Germany.
He thought of Doloresās voice, warm and warning. āThings from nowhere belong to nowhere.ā He hadnāt heard her voice in years, not even in dreams. But here it was again.
The knife felt right. As though meant for him alone.
He turned to the coal. Picked one piece up. Heavy. Solid. Too clean for something dragged from the bowels of the earth. Then he noticed something odd. A glint beneath the surface.
Grabbing the poker, Tom split the coal in two. Not rock inside. A tooth. A human molar.
His breath hitched.
The second chunk split the same. Bone, this time a finger joint, blackened but unmistakably shaped by tendon and toil.
Dolores had died in winter.
The roads had iced over that day, and Tom remembered the sound of the tires crunching gravel as she drove off in the truck they couldnāt afford, down the winding mountain path toward town. Said she was going to speak with the sheriff. Said sheād had enough of half-truths and missing men and the way Tom wouldnāt meet her eyes when he came home from the mine. She always asked questions. Always looked too long at the boots he left by the door.
Dolores never made it to town.
They found the truck the next spring, half-submerged in the river bend, twenty feet off the mountain road. Keys still in the ignition. Driverās door open. No sign of her.
No broken glass. No blood. Just a red swatch of cloth caught in the doorframe.
The authorities said she mustāve been thrown clear or wandered off in the cold. Maybe a bear. Maybe she slipped. The cold does strange things to the mind.
Tom said nothing. Not to the sheriff, not to the neighbors, not even when they brought him the red swatch of cloth. Dolores always wore that red wool coat, the one she made herself when the money dried up. He remembered the last stitch. She'd sewn it by lamplight, humming, as if it were armor.
The third chunk of coal, Tom did not touch.
The room grew colder. The shadows didnāt flicker with the hearthās glow. They held steady, too steady, as if the fire warmed only him and left the rest untouched.
He turned the knife in his palm. A whisper scratched behind his ears, not heard but felt, like wind in a mine shaft too deep to breathe. āWe remember you.ā
Tom had been a young man when the shaft collapsed. He had told the foreman not to report the cave-in. Said the boys had gone home early. That was the truth, heād said. To the company. To Dolores. To himself. But sometimes, in the thick dark of sleep, he still heard knocking from the wrong side of fallen rock.
Six men never found. He had needed the job. He had needed the quiet. He carried their names like stones in his pocket, worn smooth by guilt and time. And though no one ever accused him outright, there were eyes that watched too long, and silences that seemed to stretch
The knife twitched in his hand. His fingers clenched tighter, knuckles white, as though he might drop it or fling it into the hearth and watch the flames devour the past. But his wrist trembled, as if the blade had its own slow pulse.
Was it forged by guilt, or simply waiting all this time? It felt as though something forgotten had returned to finish its task. Maybe he had seen this knife before. On a foreman's belt. On a desk, beside forms he signed without reading.
His hand slackened, the last warmth draining from his fingers. The knife settled into his palm as though it had always lived there.
The whisper again. āDig.ā
Tom went out into the cold, red pouch in one hand, knife in the other. The wind howled through the trees. Something like time softened moans and sobs followed it.
By morning, there were only footprints in the snow, leading to an abandoned mine. The tracks simply stopped at the dark entrance. The snow had not filled them. No tracks returned.
And on the cabin mantel, the last piece of coal cracked open by morning light. Inside: a wedding ring. Doloresās.
When the snow melted, the knife was found at the entrance to the abandoned mine, lying flat on the stone threshold. It bore no blood, no rust. The handle was an echo of the darkness below. The blade: sharp with what was left unsaid, and memory, honed to a point.
The coal was real. Not plastic, not painted rock, but cold and black with that oily sheen only the earth could birth. Three chunks from inside a red pouch sat on the mantel of the old minerās shack beside a yellow box that read āKissing Cranesā in cheerful lettering.
Tom Fletcher found them on Christmas morning, delivered by no one. Except the calendar said July. Tom didnāt question the seasons. He lived alone now, had since Dolores died twenty-one years ago, under mysterious circumstances. No one came up the mountain these days unless they wanted something buried. Tom didn't mind the quiet. Not anymore. The silence had learned to live with him.
He opened the box first. Inside, a pocket knife, gleaming despite the cabinās gloom. The blade was etched with a man wearing a safety helmet, and the words COAL MINER as though it had always belonged to him.
Tom held it up to the gray light trickling through the frost-blurred window. German steel, razor sharp. On the blade, it read: KC43CM Germany.
He thought of Doloresās voice, warm and warning. āThings from nowhere belong to nowhere.ā He hadnāt heard her voice in years, not even in dreams. But here it was again.
The knife felt right. As though meant for him alone.
He turned to the coal. Picked one piece up. Heavy. Solid. Too clean for something dragged from the bowels of the earth. Then he noticed something odd. A glint beneath the surface.
Grabbing the poker, Tom split the coal in two. Not rock inside. A tooth. A human molar.
His breath hitched.
The second chunk split the same. Bone, this time a finger joint, blackened but unmistakably shaped by tendon and toil.
Dolores had died in winter.
The roads had iced over that day, and Tom remembered the sound of the tires crunching gravel as she drove off in the truck they couldnāt afford, down the winding mountain path toward town. Said she was going to speak with the sheriff. Said sheād had enough of half-truths and missing men and the way Tom wouldnāt meet her eyes when he came home from the mine. She always asked questions. Always looked too long at the boots he left by the door.
Dolores never made it to town.
They found the truck the next spring, half-submerged in the river bend, twenty feet off the mountain road. Keys still in the ignition. Driverās door open. No sign of her.
No broken glass. No blood. Just a red swatch of cloth caught in the doorframe.
The authorities said she mustāve been thrown clear or wandered off in the cold. Maybe a bear. Maybe she slipped. The cold does strange things to the mind.
Tom said nothing. Not to the sheriff, not to the neighbors, not even when they brought him the red swatch of cloth. Dolores always wore that red wool coat, the one she made herself when the money dried up. He remembered the last stitch. She'd sewn it by lamplight, humming, as if it were armor.
The third chunk of coal, Tom did not touch.
The room grew colder. The shadows didnāt flicker with the hearthās glow. They held steady, too steady, as if the fire warmed only him and left the rest untouched.
He turned the knife in his palm. A whisper scratched behind his ears, not heard but felt, like wind in a mine shaft too deep to breathe. āWe remember you.ā
Tom had been a young man when the shaft collapsed. He had told the foreman not to report the cave-in. Said the boys had gone home early. That was the truth, heād said. To the company. To Dolores. To himself. But sometimes, in the thick dark of sleep, he still heard knocking from the wrong side of fallen rock.
Six men never found. He had needed the job. He had needed the quiet. He carried their names like stones in his pocket, worn smooth by guilt and time. And though no one ever accused him outright, there were eyes that watched too long, and silences that seemed to stretch
The knife twitched in his hand. His fingers clenched tighter, knuckles white, as though he might drop it or fling it into the hearth and watch the flames devour the past. But his wrist trembled, as if the blade had its own slow pulse.
Was it forged by guilt, or simply waiting all this time? It felt as though something forgotten had returned to finish its task. Maybe he had seen this knife before. On a foreman's belt. On a desk, beside forms he signed without reading.
His hand slackened, the last warmth draining from his fingers. The knife settled into his palm as though it had always lived there.
The whisper again. āDig.ā
Tom went out into the cold, red pouch in one hand, knife in the other. The wind howled through the trees. Something like time softened moans and sobs followed it.
By morning, there were only footprints in the snow, leading to an abandoned mine. The tracks simply stopped at the dark entrance. The snow had not filled them. No tracks returned.
And on the cabin mantel, the last piece of coal cracked open by morning light. Inside: a wedding ring. Doloresās.
When the snow melted, the knife was found at the entrance to the abandoned mine, lying flat on the stone threshold. It bore no blood, no rust. The handle was an echo of the darkness below. The blade: sharp with what was left unsaid, and memory, honed to a point.
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