Back in early 1977 at age 13, I bought my first knife at a local, family-owned hardware store. It was a large Schrade stockman. The plastic tube it came in said Schrade Walden. I still have it. I carried it to school for awhile, but ended up going back to the store and buying a Schrade medium stockman marked "razor blade stainless". The first knife felt a bit heavy in my pocket, and I liked the corrosion resistance on the blades of the second knife.
Even back then, not every business would sell a knife to a 13 or 14 year-old. Besides that hardware store, I learned which places I could buy knives from on my own. Other places in the area sold pocketknives made by Ka-Bar, Camillus, etc. The first SAK I bought that same year was a tiny Wenger with a pen blade and a nail file, and I didn't really get into SAKs until a few years later, when I bought a Victorinox Spartan.
Jim