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I was 12 in 1984 when I was given a Rizzuto swinguard (11" I think) with a black handle by my best friends dad( my neighbor who bought alot of them in Mexico) I had to get my dads permission
That doesn't count the switchcombs that I "converted"
and some red handled otf d/a knife (don't know the brand) that I paid a different friend a week worth of my lunch $ ($10) for in the 5th grade. We were caught in the sale at school and I only got to watch the teachers amusement with it after he flicked it in and out a few times and confiscated it.
Anybody else want to mention their first?
I was 12 when I got my first balisong, of course at that age- all I knew it by was 'butterfly'. And I was 13 when I got my first switchblade, which was an OTF that was ordered from a magazine. When it first came in I had to install the blade. I remember how excited I was about checking the mail after school. 22 years later- I'm excited about checking the mail after work
I was 11 in 1956 when I bougth my first switchblade stiletto at a knife shop in Florence just off the Ponte Vecchio. Remember it just like it was yesterday! A nice fat 8" picklock with greenish horn scales and carbon steel blade. Thing was way over-sprung and kicked like a mule. Had to hold on tight or it would fly out of your hand. By the time it was stolen 15 years later, it was really loose due to the strong spring. Nonetheless, I would welcome it back home.....
Great stories.. I remember Natcherly's from a previous thread- what a great way to be introduced to autos..
Have had small pocket knives forever, but my mother gave me a keychain stiletto when I was probably 10 or 11. It broke after a while..
Secretly had a bali at age 12, but when I dropped it and cut the couch, my parents figured it out, and my stepdad destroyed it w a hammer. man was I bummed..
Wasn't until a little over 2 years ago (or is it three) that I wandered into Ross Cutlery and handled a real automatic knife (PT Stinger) and it changed my life..
My story as knife addict started at a schooltrip to Hamburg, Germany, back in 1969, when I was 16.
In a shop I found a very nice 6 3/4" Italian stiletto with bayo blade and dark horn scales, button o/c, tangstamp Rostfrei/Patent. Just knew I got to have it!!! Still have it and still love it. Passing the border on the way home was a scaring experience.
When getting a new switchblade today, fourty years later, it still brings the same joy.
I got my first one from my late uncle which was a white acrylic 9 inch stiletto,I was 7,my parnets took it away for a few years then it ended up stolen shortly after they returned it to me.
Growing up in a "good neighborhood" in NYC, it wasn't easy finding a switchblade. Didn't get my first one until I was around 22-23 years old. A NATO type OTF that I paid $25 for. A few months latter, I received POS leverlock ots as a gift from a friend.
It wasn't until 1999, when I first got online, that I was able to get autos whenever I wanted.
Got my first "switchblade comb" at about age 9 in a trade with a buddy for a water gun, it had a popsicle stick taped to it for a blade. He found the actual comb for it and gave to me a while after. I used a nail for a pin and presto it worked! What followed was a succession of combs which were "converted" using any blade that I could get to work. My mother was reading "The Cross and the Switchblade" at around this time and I was mesmerized by the photos showing the switches. At age 26 I stopped at a truck stop in Ohio and went into the knife shop there and there they were, four Milanos in black, white, green, and blue acrylic. I was so excited to finally see a real switch and promptly paid $45 for the blue one (I probably would have paid $145 if I could have afforded it). Long story short, the love affair continues to the tune of 22 knives and counting, long live the internet!
My first was a cheap little Venetian gondola knife that I got in Italy on a trip with my parents in 1962 when I was 13. I also discovered a knife shop near St. Mark's Square in Venice that had every variety of stiletto a 13 yr. old could imagine but I didn't have the money to buy any. Three years later my parents took us to Europe again. I bought my first real knife in Germany, a stainless Bonsa leverlock. Later on the same trip we went back to Venice and I found the same shop that I had discovered 3 years before. I bought 5 assorted stilettos. I sold 2 and the rest all disappeared (stolen) over the years.
The only thing I take seriously in life is death but I haven't gotten there yet!
I was 18 when I got my first switchblade. Someone gave it to a friends wife. He told me about it and I asked if I could look at it. It was a Mexican leverlock and had bright, colorful plastic scales. a Matador on one side and a bull on the other. She then asked me if I would like to open. Of course I did. I opened it about 3 times and I was in love with it. It must have been the way my eyes lite up as she asked if I would like it.I said yes as fas as I could. the spring broke after a year or so of constant flipping. Used it as a gravity knife till I was 21 or so and it disappeared or was stolen, I don't know which. Little did I know at the time it would start a life time love affair with knives of all kind that could be opened with one hand. Funny it's been 47 years since I thought about the knife that started it all.
I always liked knives in general and longed for a switchblade. I finally got my first, a 11" Rizzy, from a friend who went to Mexico and brought two back. I think I paid $15 for it from him and I was about 15 at the time. Still have it !!! Works well and no peek, but I never did abuse it and rarely carried it. I too went to Italy, Germany and Spain and bought a few there back in the 70s. Always loved them.
The first switchblade I ever held in my hand was a German Shell puller like Gunners that my older brother brought home from Germany on leave from the army....it was the coolest thing I ever seen...that was back in the 60s....a few yrs later in about 1971 my other older brother married a woman from Mexico City and they lived there and when he came home to visit family he brought me a souvenir...it was a BO/BC 8 switchblade made in Italy...I loved that knife...it got so much lint and dirt in it from me carrying it in my levi's that it quite opening all the way....my older bro told me how to clean it and it would work good as new....I had some friends over and one of them pinched it...never did find out which one stole it.
Hi,I got my first switchblade on a school trip to france in 1973 i was ten years old ,it was one of those cheap tourist
button open/close ones from italy. I only had it for a few hours before a teacher caught me flicking it on the train home and
confiscated it .But that didnt stop me, i now have fifteen in my collection.
My fascination started when rifling through my uncles desk drawer back in the early 1960s. My uncle Chet owned a diner and Sinclair gas station at the intersection of two 2 lane highways before interstates. The diner / truck stop was called Chet's Place and there were signs peppered all ver the highways of northern indiana "If you haven't et at Chet's yet, ya haven't et yet".
The gas station part attracted a really diverse group of people and uncle Chets desk drawer was full of ALL SORTs of things that would be interesting to a 9 or ten year old boy. Silver Salutes, M-80s, a deck of cards with naked women, sinclair memerobilia that wasn't memerobilia yet and all sorts of neat stuff. Among the ephemera I found a 6-7 inch Italian stiletto with black horn scales. WOW!! A switchblade!!! I flicked it open and I was hooked. My quest began. Dad wouldn't let uncl Chet give me a switchblade then but by the time I was 11 or 12 I had my first, a Hubertus leverlock. I was TOO cool for school!! Every time I flicked it open I half expected to be arraested and that was part of the thrill. I don't even recall how or where I aquired my huby. As with Davids first, mine grew legs and disapeared within a few years too.
“Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance.”
I bought an OTF switchblade from a buddy when I was 23 for $10. It was one of the coolest things I had ever had. I had wanted a switchblade since I was a little boy. And I made up for lost time by playing with it constantly! It was always in my pocket, and it would rarely go more than an hour or 2 without being cycled in and out. Until I had a run-in with a law officer who confiscated it and some other illegal items that he (luckily) did not report. I got another OTF a couple of years later, but still wanted a classic stiletto.
Fast forward to about 2 years ago when I discovered the magical availability of autos on the internet. I've got about 25 now, with a wish list longer than my arm. And wish I had thought of looking on the internet a long time ago.
Passing the border on the way home was a scaring experience.
