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In what direction is your knife collection expanding?

I inventoried my knife collection the last few days. I've got a little over 500 knives in the collection ( and about 200 knives that aren't really in the collection).

What I discovered. About 1/6 of the collection is fixed blades. Of the fixed blades at least half of them are knives made for anglers (fish knives) if you include bird and trout knives it goes even higher!

Overall 1/5 of the collection, over 100 knives are fishing knives of some kind. If you include five inch toothpicks the number is closer to 140! I do not consider toothpicks a fish knife.

The most collected single pattern is the 4 blade camp knife or Boy Scout knife. Around 120.

Next in line are Marlin spike knives and toothpicks. Both around 40-45.

As for money spent on a single pattern
1 large toothpicks
2 marlinspikes
3 scout knives

Which brands I have the most of:
1 Rough Rider
2 Victorinox
3 Case

As for the direction that my collection is going
1 fishing related knives
2 issued military fixed blades, particularly bayonets
3 Swiss Army Knives.

I can expect my return on invest to be in the negative column!

What direction is your collection going?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by J.J. Smith III on May 24, 2017 at 9:23

Bucket list?

Is that like filling up a 5 gallon bucket first and then heading to the checkout counter?

LoL

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FeaturedPermalink Reply by dead_left_knife_guy on May 24, 2017 at 11:35

YES, I do this all the time at Home Depot... :)

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Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on May 24, 2017 at 18:53

You know, amount of time spent collecting has something to do with all this also. People are always asking how we got so many and so much "knife stuff"...short answer...because we have been collecting since the great flood ended!

Seriously, 40 years of amassing anything will net you a lot of stuff

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Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on May 24, 2017 at 20:34

And then you have this thing called the internet and eBay! For years my collecting of knives involved chance encounter and the lucky find at the flea market.

It was a slow go especially while raising a family. It's hard to justify dumping money in a knife when your kids need new shoes!
It was mostly drooling and wishing but not a lot of buying.

But the kids grew up and suddenly there was a little spare change and I had this crazy thought of replacing my Air Force survival knife that had been stolen a long time ago. I had this crazy idea that maybe I could find it on eBay. And then I saw all these other knives.

At that time I was mainly just interested in military fixed blades but on a whim I bought a knife by some company named Rough Rider. A big honking knife called a toothpick

And then I saw this show on TV called Cutlery Corner which was quite funny and then another show called Knives Live that was informative and also sold Rough Riders that was 2010.

In April I bought my first knife from the Knives Live TV show it was a Rough Rider Sowbelly for my son who was graduating from high school. Watching those two shows, especially Knives Live was how I learned the patterns and basic sizes of tradional folders.

At that time I had about 50 knives. Seven years and about 100 Rough Riders and 400 other assorted knives later... I think I've finally got some focus and am knowledgeable enough about knives to kinda- sorta know what I'm doing.

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Permalink Reply by J.J. Smith III on May 24, 2017 at 23:59

OK, I've got a question...

What about "spin-off collections"?

One of the main influences to my collection came about when I began carving peach seeds. This brought me to the CASE Seahorse Whittler.
When I started carving I became interested in Chinese carved olive pit boats. NOW, I've got another collection revolving around these (see my Junk Box), which also includes several knives.

Where will it all stop?

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FeaturedPermalink Reply by Charles Sample on May 25, 2017 at 1:04

That is an interesting question to me J. J. because my whole knife collection could be considered a spin off from my employment with TVA. Did I work with knives in my job? No. It all began when my work group at TVA worked three million hours without a lost time accident. TVA then gave each member of the work group a Buck knife. On my tenth anniversary with TVA in 1997, I chose a matched pair of Schrade knives as my anniversary award. After that I would try to get a souvenir of the places we would visit on vacation and it would usually be a knife. My family began giving me knives for my birthday and CHRISTmas. However until I joined iKC in 2012 I was more of an accumulator than a serious collector. There was no plan or direction to my collecting. I had very few knives that most people would call collectible. But now I have settled on three brands, Case, Colonial, and Rough Rider. I collect two patterns, Case Mini Blackhorns (a sub set of Case) and fish knives. I also collect Christian themed knives. I will collect any brand knife that has a Christian theme.

Here are the knives that started it.

The Buck-

The Schrades-

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Permalink Reply by Wally Guittard on May 26, 2017 at 11:18

I've kind of taken a break in purchasing knives and I've been doing a lot of reading on the different steels used used for knife blades and the different style knives.

I've been looking at quite a few fixed blade knives and there are plenty of them. However I'm more into what they are purposed for. So I've been looking at those that can be multipurposed. One that will hold a decent edge and can be sharpened with not a whole lot of effort.

Where you can clear an area with one, do a some chopping with it if need be. There are several that do fit the criteria but not all are equal. I like the KuKuri style very well but then again there are many other styles that are just as good.

I will keep looking and I do have more pictures to post but at present I'm tied up with a couple of other projects that should have been completed sometime back and now need my undivided attention

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Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on May 26, 2017 at 14:37

I collect quite a few different things ( shot glasses, playing cards) but these are not spin offs from my knife collecting.

However my collecting of fishing equipment probably is a spin-off of knife collecting as I've purposely bought lures and other older fishing stuff that will never hit the water just to use a display items with my fishing knives.

While I've been fishing for some time I never bought tackle without the intent of eventually using it until I started picking up older fishing knives. They looked lonely without period appropriate tackle to go with them.

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Permalink Reply by Ms Data on August 31, 2017 at 22:57

Wait . . . you're collecting fixed blades now? Tell me more.

Jan Carter said:

Our collection has taken a turn that may have seemed obvious to others but I was never a fixed blade nut. Nothing scarier that a lady walking around with one strapped to her hip LOL

I have however become a great fan and gone back to my roots of loving high carbon

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Permalink Reply by Ms Data on August 31, 2017 at 23:09

My primary collection has always been older Buck fixed blades. That started because when I was 14 and started deer hunting the best skinning knife you could get was a Buck. I got a Buck Woodsman. When I was an adult I began collecting other Buck fixed blades from the 1970's or earlier. Then I started getting new Buck fixed blades as gifts. Then I joined iKC and realized there were many other cool knives out there. I have some others but not nearly as many as my Bucks.

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Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on September 1, 2017 at 13:58

LOL my friend! Kind of hard not to be a fixed blade collector when they come out of the knife shop downstairs

Ms Data said:

My primary collection has always been older Buck fixed blades. That started because when I was 14 and started deer hunting the best skinning knife you could get was a Buck. I got a Buck Woodsman. When I was an adult I began collecting other Buck fixed blades from the 1970's or earlier. Then I started getting new Buck fixed blades as gifts. Then I joined iKC and realized there were many other cool knives out there. I have some others but not nearly as many as my Bucks.

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Permalink Reply by Ugly Old Guy on September 2, 2017 at 11:53

I'm sticking with the inexpensive (but not "cheap") knives like Rough Rider, Marbles, Sarge, new Schrade Old Timer/Uncle Henry, and Rite Edge.
The main patterns I like are the Stockman (I prefer the 3 7/8 or larger), Barlow (2 blade only), Canoe, Sunfish/Toenail, and Scout Knives, although I do have others.
(I appriciate your reviews in the Rough Riders, Toby. You might be interested to know that on the newer Large Sunfish and Toenails _I have two of the 'Outdoorsman' Sunfish and a Zombi Nick Toenail) they've lightened the pulls. Mine are all a 5 to 5.5 on both blades. The small one I had was around a 12 or 13 for the main blade, and a 18 plus for the secondary. Personally, I don't think there is any excuse for that. Other 3 inch closed knives have far easier pulls.)