My very modest Automatic Knife Collection...

[SwingShift]

In the words of Austin Powers: "Please allow myself to introduce myself"...Joe G. here - 66 years old, born and raised in New Jersey (back when if you lived through your teenage years there, you were considered extremely lucky or had a bunch of badazz friends); graduated from Rutgers College in '78 and then high-tailed it outta there for North Carolina, where I lived for 25 years. Wife got a new job in SoCal, so we moved there for 18 years. Thanks to Covid and being able to work from home, my wife hankered to be back near family in NC, so we moved back here ~18 months ago. I just received a new Benchmade 9101SBK yesterday as my "work knife" - I can't shake the solemn advice I got from my 3rd grade friend; to wit: "ALWAYS have a knife on you that you can open with one hand...". This was all too true growing up in NJ in the '60's, regrettably...
Okay, enough blowhardedness; on to my modest collection:

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[jim d,]

Welcome from a fellow North Carolinian, and thanks for sharing your collection. Feel free to ask any questions or jump into discussions.

Jim

[SwingShift]

Grazie; will do!

[whippersnapper]

Welcome aboard!

[rock-n-roll$$$$$$]

glad to have you here.

[LD57]

Welcome to TalkBlade!

[SwingShift]

I'm currently scrolling through the "Movie Switchblades" thread - the Rizzuto certainly is/was "The King Of Switchblades" in Hollyweird! Makes me wonder just how many times the exact same Rizzuto was checked out from the Props Department for use...

A little history on mine, from top to bottom - The Rizzuto Estileto Milano I acquired in high school as a default from a dude that couldn't pay me back the $20.00 I loaned him. Regrettably the blade appears to have been heavily polished and prolly sharpened at least once; the good news is that it has the squared off kick spring, the blade tip is 100% enclosed when folded, the blade and guards are quite tight, it opens 1st time every time (although a little "weak" sometimes), handles are tight and uncracked, bail is tight and also is etched...
The Edgeco I bought new in ~1986 at a gun show in Charlotte NC - I bought it on a whim, impressed with the quality. My police officer buddy bought a pearl white variant of the same knife..
The Benchmade I just HAD to have, LOL. I'm a big movie fan, and remembered the scene in "Heist" where Danny DeVito opened it to check the uprights on Gene Hackman's yacht to see if they were gold-plated or solid. Quite impressed with it from every standpoint so far; unlike the others, I WILL be pressing this one into service around The Ponderosa...
The green Bullfighter was given to me by the aforementioned police officer buddy of mine; he took it off a miscreant during a search - Oopsie! It's virtually "mint" - the blade snicks out so fast and loud it's almost scary! The very tip is a bit "compromised", however...
The FES Rostfrei was my very first automatic knife - I paid WAY too much for it back in 6th grade from one of my hoodlum friends, after being threatened by an older, bigger hoodlum; luckily that proved to be an "idle threat". The blade is a bit loose, but otherwise it's excellent and springs out with authority...
Except for the just-acquired Benchmade, they all been sitting in my gunsafe (opened, of course!) for ~152 years. None are "For Sale", but the only one I'm "married to" is the Benchmade; j'es sayin'...

[NorthCarolinaDude]

That's a nice little collection you got going there brother. If I had a choice I'd pick the EdgeCo. I am partial to, and primarily collect, stilettos. Mostly the more modern Italians. I have a couple of Edge stilettos, manual operation, from the 80s I got through their catalog. They're white Pearlex, or I think they called it "cracked ice" in the catalog back then. I also have one of their lever-locks of the brass and wood variety that was sold as a "kit." Basically, you received the knife and a metal "spring" that looked like a piece of unpainted coat-hanger with a poorly printed instruction sheet smaller than an index card that set about to showing how you could wrench that piece of metal down between the liners and it was all fun after that! I still have those knives too. Treasures from one's youth.

I'm an immigrant to the Carolinas as well. I grew up outside of Washington D.C. before it got too crazy up there. I moved down here when I was 30 and never looked back. Somewhere in the 80s things started changing. There was the Crack Epidemic, and when Reagan came onboard the politicians seemed to double in number as did the area's population, and the general craziness! When I was a kid, we'd Trick or Treat at Hickory Hill, one of the Kennedy homes, and I shit you not but their kids would drop candy and water balloons on the Trick or Treaters from the second floor. And security amounted to a retired former police officer, unarmed, shuffling around the driveway. But those days didn't last. I can remember when I got a little older, just 5 miles from where we lived, and a mile or so from Hickory Hill, was the CIA. And Mir Khansi found his way there with an AK and shot a bunch of CIA people commuting to work and waiting at the stoplight. It was around that time that I decided it was probably a good idea to get away from that area. So when I met a Carolina girl, I married her and relocated here, to a much more laid back lifestyle with a far less amount of crazy! And I've never really desired to go back. My father moved down here to Newton in 2002 or so, and my sister not long ago, the last holdout, her family moved out of there for Florida.

Sorry to ramble, just so damned appreciative to be living south of all that crazy!

Anyhow, you've found your way to a great place here. There's a wealth of knowledgeable folks on this site and a compendium of old posts that contain information on just about every aspect of the hobby. There are guys here who not only know the answer to nearly any knife collectors' question but are also makers of some beautiful knives themselves. It's all things sharp and pointy here, or as I see it, an art-form for metal.

Welcome aboard, if knives are your thing then you've found your way to one of the best places for information in nearly everything to do with the hobby, and awesome folks to boot!

Scott

[gravknife]

Welcome SwingShift

Always great to have new Switchblade enthusiasts join.

Interesting knives ,like all of them .The Mexican/Spanosh bullfighter knives are great ,as is the Rizzutto an Icon from many films and to be blamed for many here to start up collecting these blades I am sure.

Good to meet you

gravknife

[Tom19176]

Welcome aboard. I am a big Andy Griffith fan. Are you near Mount Airy NC at all?

[SwingShift]

Welcome aboard. I am a big Andy Griffith fan. Are you near Mount Airy NC at all?

How could you (or ANYONE, for that matter) NOT be an Andy Griffith fan?! That was back when men were MEN and women were GLAD of it! I'm here in Pittsboro, literally "in the woods". Hell, I can take one of my .45ACP's out in my back yard and discharge it with impunity! Having said that, there's SOMEBODY lives not too far from us that must burn through $1K worth of 7.65 ammo per month, ever' other Saturday; it's a bit off-putting, but that's the price you pay for living in the sticks...

[Tom19176]

Sounds like a great place to live! Maybe you neighbor is scaring off Bigfoot!

[Killgar]

I'm currently scrolling through the "Movie Switchblades" thread - the Rizzuto certainly is/was "The King Of Switchblades" in Hollyweird! Makes me wonder just how many times the exact same Rizzuto was checked out from the Props Department for use...

I thought of this post last night. I was watching an episode of The Rockford Files. Rizzutos have appeared in several episodes. A hired killer pulled a Rizzuto out of his pocket, and fired it. It was one of the most pathetic performances by a switchblade I've ever seen. The knife was supposed to embody pure menacing evil, with the camera focused on the knife. But the thing barely opened, and it looked like it was about to fall apart.

They could have used any type of knife, but they clearly wanted "the switchblade effect". Instead of "menacing", it was just...sad.

[SwingShift]

I'm currently scrolling through the "Movie Switchblades" thread - the Rizzuto certainly is/was "The King Of Switchblades" in Hollyweird! Makes me wonder just how many times the exact same Rizzuto was checked out from the Props Department for use...

I thought of this post last night. I was watching an episode of The Rockford Files. Rizzutos have appeared in several episodes. A hired killer pulled a Rizzuto out of his pocket, and fired it. It was one of the most pathetic performances by a switchblade I've ever seen. The knife was supposed to embody pure menacing evil, with the camera focused on the knife. But the thing barely opened, and it looked like it was about to fall apart.

They could have used any type of knife, but they clearly wanted "the switchblade effect". Instead of "menacing", it was just...sad.

I guess that Rizzuto could have benefited from some "Switchblade Viagra"...