doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT / Pocket knife

I'm looking to get a vintage pocket knife fitting someone of my age. Not a new military or even a large one.What do most of you guys carry around and what do you recomend?
Of course I'm thinking of something of quality and that will always have some value.

Look for the model Eisenhower carried and gifted to many. It's very sweet. Can't remember name at moment, but it will come to me.

Made by Case, now called the Eisenhower Model. Good selection of them on eBay, ranging in price from $20 to $150 depending on age and condition.

As a boy you knew you were grown up when you were given a Barlow knife. Then you spent countless hours sharpening it. If your mother or father was worried you would cut your fingers off you learned to not oversharpen the large blade. Mom or dad would check that one but often not the other. It was much harder to open the smaller blade. So it will often went unchecked. Mine was sharp enough to shave with. Well both were after a couple days. A boy must sharpen a knife or he felt cheated.

After that I had many others. Buck in multiple forms. Schrader, puma and
Case as well. But that Barlow was my first.

victorinox swiss army knife...

https://www.swissarmy.com/us/en/Victorinox-Homepage/cms/home

If it is not Spyderco how can it be a real knife ?

O.M Fan boy

I'm 67, and I first had a Barlow. But, Grandaddy carried a "German made" Tree Brand. There were two Tree Brands sold, and the "German made" one had different steel, superior steel, IMO. Even though my Dad owned a very big country store and sold knives, it was many years before I saved up enough to buy myself a German Made Tree Brand three blade Stockman's knife.

I still have one of my Grandad's. That is the knife that I remember from my childhood.

SRH

There's a lot of imported junk in the marketplace.

Fortunately, there are still good American pocket knife makers at work, some of them very good indeed.

I prefer an overall length of about 3 1/4" in a 2 blade knife, the typical clip and pen blades.

Case knives of this general pattern were my favorites, as was a green scale Remington for many years.

Then I discovered Queen and Great Eastern Cutlery. End result is a drawer full of nice American made knives to choose from daily.

My favorite is a GEC 'White Owl' with American Elk scales and 2 blades of 440C. It's a little jewel.

I'm betting once you discover the online vendors like 'Knives Ship Free' your collection will grow.

My two favorite styles of pocket knives are the 3-blade Stockman & the 2-blade Trapper. I have each of these styles in different sizes & also my different makers. Some may not be considered "Elitest" but have had good results with most, including Case, Schrade, Uncle Henry, Buck, Camillus & others.

I once had a 3-blade stockman by Schrade that had the prettiest Red bone handles I had about ever laid eyes on. When I got it the large blade had been about sharpened away but the others were all very good, hardly used. I made a new blade for it out of D-2 tool steel as I recall & it was one fine knife. One day at work I went to the tool crib to get an end mill & needed one which had been sharpened down to a particular size. When these were sharpened they were dipped in a plastic coating. I got this knife out to cut the plastic away from the flutes so I could mike across them & when I found the right size I went back to my machine but failed to pick up the knife. As soon as I got to the machine I realized I had left the knife & went back to get it, & was gone. I enquired all over the shop for it to the extent one co-worker told me if I would just Shut Up he would give me a knife. Told him that wasn't the point, I didn't want his knife I wanted the Low Life who Stole mine to Fess up & return it. It never appeared. That other gentleman did bring me a knife over & laid it on my toolbox. I tried to give it back but he would not take it. I knew him well enough to know he wasn't the Theif. This was a 2-blade Camillus trapper & is a good knife, it just didn't have those pretty bone handles.

Remington