What was the first pocket knife you bought?

The first knife I bought with my own money was either a slipjoint from a table at the county fair or a small boot knife from the local flea market. I think they were Pakistani steel. Neither were particularly nice. That was when I was too young to know better and the internet wasn't a thing.
 
marcus52AR said:
The first knife I purchased was a Boker karambit off kijiji. The seller showed me a Spyderco caly3 that I ended up buying after a little research.

The caly3 was my gateway knife.
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The Caly3 is the knife that moved me back to Spyderco and away from other makers. I was Looking for a pocket knife replacement that had to have the same specs or dimensions as the one I was replacing. The Caly3 met all of those specifications and exceeded the other knife in materials and had a better lock.
 
Something similar to this one from a Bazooka Joe Bubblegum Comics offer in the mid 1960's (I was around 10 years old). I paid for it with loose change sent in a standard envelope. The small amount of change that I sent for it was easier on me than chewing several hundred pieces of gum would have been.1-56-34.jpg
 
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It was a little keychain knife, while on vacation to VA/DC, with my family. I was only 10
 
My 1st knife came from a little 2nd hand store where our road met the main road in the tiny little town I lived in, pop. 1169. It was just a little house someone gutted and had stuff all over. This would have been in the summer of '69, I was almost 8 yo. There was a fixed blade, Bowie knife w/a 5" blade and red tortoise shell looking handle in an old leather sheath that had a greened over snap on it in the display case. I would walk to the store almost everyday during the summer just to look and always stopped and looked at that knife for way too long. I don't recall the price but after a few times viewing it the old guy said I could have it for $2.50. In passing I mentioned it to my dad who let me know that is was NOT going to happen. That was more $$ than I thought had and I knew my parents wouldn't let me have the $$ or the knife. After a few more visits I couldn't stand it anymore and went home and emptied my piggy bank, counted out 250 pennies, put them in an old sock and headed for the store to do the bad thing. The old guy counted out my pennies, reached into the case and set the knife on the counter, I was almost afraid to touch it. I carefully put it in my old sock and headed home with no intention of telling my parents. There was a hole in the back of the sheath where someone had put the knife through at some point. I couldn't put it down whenever I was alone, I think I even hid it outside somewhere for a while so I didn't have to keep sneaking it out. It was never very sharp luckily but I could do some damage to a soft stick.
When I was 8 my uncle gave me a Camillus Boy Scout knife that I wasn't really fond of, it didn't look like a cool hunting knife to an 8 yo. Shortly after that I got careless and the Bowie got discovered, I got in a little trouble, mostly for emptying my piggy bank. It was confiscated but returned a year later.
Some years later I busted off the plastic handle and put it in a deer antler. I still have both the Camillus and the old Bowie.
 
A really good friend of mine has been trying to get me into knives for 2-3 years and I never bit because I thought they were a waste of money.

When DLT trading came out with their last release of red pm2’s in m390 3 weeks ago, he called me to see if I could buy one for him because he had to be in a meeting at the time and knew they would sell out fast! I had a free moment in my work schedule to get online at time of release.

I figured... hmm. why not get one for myself (they allowed maximum 2 per order). Friend said if I didn’t want it he would gladly take it off my hands or I could sell it above cost easily.

Started to read and watch videos about why pm2’s were so handy and especially in m390....

10 mins of playing around and flipping it... I fell down the rabbit hole.


3 weeks later...

I now have 10 spyderco’s, 4 ZT’s, and 1 WE....

I got bit hard... REALLY hard..

Needless to say my friend is a proud papa of the monster he created...
 
The earliest one I recall actually paying money myself for was when I was eleven or twelve. I was at a summer camp and purchased a Victorinox Pal? Pocket Pal? It was just a jackknife. It was $7 and the cheapest one they had and the only one I could afford. It was a good knife but it was stolen that summer anyway. I understand why, as I remember coveting the supertinker, or whatever fancy expensive knife it was, that one of my cabin-mates had that same summer.
 
Really can't remember either a poorly made Pakistani lock back knife,an import lock back stiletto or a one of those cheap import cloned swiss army knives. All really bad stuff compared today's
 
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I remember the first "good" folding knife I bought - a Benchmade Kodiak with serrations (because I didn't know any better then and they were all the rage - so tacticool!) Lost it somewhere along the way, unfortunately, many years ago.
 
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