I'm down to just a few dozen knives now but, over the years, I've owned too many to count. Starting with one of those hatchet-and-matching-bowie knife combos that are so useful to an 8-year-old growing up in Chicago, a J.C. Higgins from Sears. Then my Finnish mother gave me a Pukko. I always carried a sheath knife on my belt when fishing when I was young and still do.
More than a hundred bayonets over the years, mostly US issue for Trapdoors, Krags, Springfields, Garands, Carbines, and some combat knives - and a 10th Mountain Division five-blade Ulster ski troopers' pocket knife that I found on a gun show table for $5. I helped my wife when she was collecting fish knives in the 1990s, and still have 20 of the prettiest ones that I can't let her let go of. I liked folding hunters and used to find some of the best brands in pawn shops twenty years ago, before the internet vacuum sucked up all local opportunities. There was a time when it seemed like every Japanese Arisaka rifle offered for sale included a bayonet, because the rifles were difficult to find buyers for.
I never collected knives, but the way that they combine utility, history, and beauty has alway been irresistable.
More than a hundred bayonets over the years, mostly US issue for Trapdoors, Krags, Springfields, Garands, Carbines, and some combat knives - and a 10th Mountain Division five-blade Ulster ski troopers' pocket knife that I found on a gun show table for $5. I helped my wife when she was collecting fish knives in the 1990s, and still have 20 of the prettiest ones that I can't let her let go of. I liked folding hunters and used to find some of the best brands in pawn shops twenty years ago, before the internet vacuum sucked up all local opportunities. There was a time when it seemed like every Japanese Arisaka rifle offered for sale included a bayonet, because the rifles were difficult to find buyers for.
I never collected knives, but the way that they combine utility, history, and beauty has alway been irresistable.
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