Hi to all of you

Hey there, nice to meet you /well, meet virtually/

My name is Davis Nikolov, currently 26 and I'm a knife fan since I remember. Both my grandfathers carried pocket knife all the time and since I've spent so much time with grandparents as a kid - I've got the "infection". Was really hard to get your parrents to buy you a knife at the age of six, so I was carrying around what ever I found in the house which were smaller fixed blades from the kitchen. At that point I had more cuts on my hands than the normal for the age bruises on the knees.

Later on, I think it was on my 10th birthday, I've recieved some cash from my grandmother so I basically stated to my parrents that these are my money and I'm going to do with them whatever I want. Luckily for me the sellers back then didn't bother to sell folding knives and fireworks (withouth the most powerfull ones, but they were out of my pricerange anyway) to minors. So I went to a hunting & fishing equipment store and bought myself my first knife - a knock off of Buck 110. I loved it, I carryed it everywhere until I droped it in а cesspit. Needless to say I wasn't happy about it. But I realised that I've won a hudge battle - the right to get another one. I got another one. For about 8-9 years I was happy knife fan - I went to the fishing & hunting equpment store, buy my self a couple of dollars worth knife and carry it all around. I just didn't knew there were something better than these cheap ones. I used them for couple of months until they started to fall apart (I was and am folding knife fan, I apreciate a good fix but the fold is in my heart) and went to get another one. I didn't like it that these were so cheesy but that's all there were.

Untill one of the phone operators started offering a small red knife as a gift to their new customers... One of my friends got one and it turned out to be something very cool, sharp and strong. I googled the strange name on the blade - Victorinox and found a knife forum from my country. Did not realised that clicking there is going to change so many things. So many cool knives, so many brands that people say they last for years if handled properly :what!: Only thing I didn't like about them was the price tags. You see, when you've spent your time untill this point buying only 3-4 bucks knockoffs is a bit of a cultural shock to be asked 30 for a small knife with a corkscrew in the back. But I quickly overcame it and bought myself a Vic Spartan. Well, I was really impresed with it - sharpest thing I've touched, strong backspring with great sound when closing, NO bladeplay. Was really happy about it and didn't feel a need for another knife for a long time /like couple of months/. I kept visiting the forum and then saw a "test" of the Spyderco Tenacious - they were punching a barrew with it and then cutting paper. Again - really impressed. Looked it up in the net - costed like half month worth of minimal salary in my country back then /minimal wage were about 220 levs, the tenacious was about a 100 because of the import taxes/. Decided it was too much. But that video was in my thoughts all the time. So again around my birthday I decided to make myself a nice present and ordered it. Years has passed since then and my collection has grown. Now I've got too much to know what to do with but keep getting more once in a while :biggrin:

I think here is the place to mention something more about the knife forums that has influenced my life. In 2013 my old wallet started to fell apart. It was nice and expencive but it obviously had an expiration date. I was looking at new ones but there were always something that I did not like about the model. At the same time, in the forums which grew to be huge part of my life someone posted great tutorials how to stitch a sheath. And it got me - hey why don't I make a wallet for my self. I watched some youtube videos, and looked through some more tutorials, bought some leather and after couple of days trying my new wallet was born. It wasn't perfect but it looked good and I loved it. Soon after that having some leather leftover I made a tooled heychain with a message for really important person going away for couple of months. And the rest is history - I'm now 4 years into leather craft, making and selling a variety of accessories. So, thanks again to knife communities. Later I might add a thread to show off some of my knife sheats and cases, I just need to find where exactly in the forum it belongs.

Sorry for the long post and if there are any misstypes /as you might guessed I'm not a native speaker/. Hope someone finds my story interesting and can identify themselves in parts of it.
 
Back
Top