As a child, I used to collect knives. They were never expensive knives because even back then, I was on a budget.   I’m probably dating myself, but I remember when you could get a little novelty pen knife in a bubble gum machine for 50¢.  I wish I still had those little knives. They’re probably still worth about 50¢ but they were priceless to me then and would still be so today. 

Many years later, I was visiting family in Cawood, Kentucky and the subject of knives came up.  At the time I owned about six or seven knives, mostly the knives I had used while serving in the Army.  My Uncle mentioned he had small collection of knives and asked if I cared to see them. He proceeded to show me a small roll of very old American made pocket knives. I’m sure to some people they just looked like a bunch of old pocket knives, but if the outside observer was paying attention they would have seen they were much more to my Uncle. They spoke of part of his life.

I’ve never been one to express my emotions clearly so I’m not sure if my Uncle realized how much I appreciated seeing his collection of knives. Yet in that brief moment my desire to build on my stagnant collection of knives was rekindled.  Unfortunately my desire to collect ran headlong into my childhood ignorance of just what to collect. I quickly realized I knew nothing about knife collecting. I knew a little bit about my old Army Knives and I also knew a thing or two about Swiss Army Knives but beyond that I couldn’t tell one folding knife from another.

What was worse, the few books I could find on the topic were written by collectors for collectors and did very little to assist the beginning collector. I had to do a whole lot of reading for very little information. I was left picking up a piece of information here and another piece there.  The Internet was also less than helpful. Too many of the news groups devoted to knife collecting are over run withknife snobs and know it alls who make the un-initiated feel foolish and unwelcome. Often the information one gets from the newsgroups seemed contradictory often leading to more confusion.  Finally I decided the only thing to do was to write a journal and include in the journal all the information I accumulated while re-entering the hobby of knife collecting.

I’ve tried to remain objective while writing about the various knives and knife companies and have also tried to point out when I know my personal biases are tainting an opinion of a particular brand or knife type.