Do you ever purchase or commission a knife to commemorate an important event?

Me, no.

 

5 years ago I was talking to Alan Davis about a knife commemorating 25 years brain tumor free 2/27/1991) but due to the expenditures of my now ex-wife, it never happened. This February will be 30 years, but I doubt I will spend that much on a knife now.

 

Not necessarily the most important, but I almost always buy a new knife when I get a new job. My career progression has been a wild zig zag so often the knife I had that worked in my prior job is wildly impractical for my new job. Recently I swapped out a Victorinox Swisscard for a Cold Steel AD10, that kind of thing.

 

Gave all the groomsmen in my wedding a nice knife. Gave the best man a mop Bulldog Brand stockman. Bought my dad a custom shop Buck 110 for his 60th birthday. I give knives for gifts all the time. Knife people are weird like that.

 

I've only done it once. I never purchased a CRK before. The Sebenza was kinda the "grail" folder when I first got into knives hot and heavy a couple decades ago. Even when I had the means, $450 for a folder seemed steep.

A couple of years ago I decided to go back and get an official business degree to go along with the one I had earned from Hard Knox U over my professional career. My mentor suggested setting a small reward goal to spur me along. I decided that I would purchase a CRK as soon as I graduated.

October 2019 I earned my BS in Business and purchased a large Inkosi from Spark in November there after. I ended up with a knife that will last for generations that I have promised myself I will carry and used (and I have). Everything i pull it out to cut something i remember what I had to go through to earn it.

 

Yes I commissioned 2 katanas when my last 2 daughters were born

both identical is size but very different in style

one by the late great Phill Hartsfield and the other a collaboration piece from the late great Louis,Mills and Rick Barret






When I got my pup Maximus my dear friend Sam Lurquin made me a white Maximus as a present

 

Yes - back in January of 1998, I quit smoking and used my cigarette money to finance the purchase of a Darrel Ralph Krait.
Sadly - just as I was about 2/3 of the way to saving the $495 - my mother passed away & I went back to smoking.

About 35 years earlier in my life, I had gone on a business trip to Philadelphia with my dad. Mom and I went shopping around the antique stores there & I ran across a place that sold swords. I whined and pleaded and tried my best to worm $25 out of my mother to buy one of the swords - but - the best I could do was get a promise that if I saved my money, we'd come back next year and see at that time.
I scrimped and saved every penny I earned & as much of my allowance as I could spare for a year.
I managed to save about $23 or so - and when we returned, mom talked me into getting a sort of beat-up looking old civil war era saber instead of a modern new looking display sword.
Since she was putting in the balance required to buy the thing, I went along with her suggestion.

 

On my Dads birthday. The year after he died I ordered my Randal model 1.

The second year I let my son design and order his own Randall he was 13. I told him it was for his high school graduation. If he stayed on the straight and narrow path. It arrived a couple of months ago and is still unopened. Even though I wanted to check it out. He said he wants to wait till his Graduation in the spring.

I ordered another for my daughter that is a couple years out.

When I got my Journey man plumbing license I bought a Stag handled Randal model 21 little game. From an authorized dealer

Then two years later when I got my Masters license the same dealer had a Randall Model 19 with a matching stag handle. They look like a matched set.

I’m going to try to order a Bowie timed to arrive for my retirement. But that is a long time from now.

Everyone complains about the wait for a Randall. But if you time it right they make great gifts. Your $50 deposit locks in today’s price. Figure roughly a $25 increase each year. When the knife comes in you get it for a bargain price.

 

It’s not that big of a deal, $50 down, put $2 in a jar each week to pay it off in 5 years. It goes by faster than you would think. Have fun, going through the options.

If you haven’t found it, there is a Randall sub forum here under “Collector forum”

You can start a thread there and people will help with the options and build the perfect knife for you. Then we can all wait 5 years for a picture.

 

That’s what they said for my sons. It came in at about 5 years. It was actually quicker than the previous one. So you never know.

 

For my 55th birthday I asked Gene Shadley if he’d consider making me an authentic copy of Abraham Lincoln’s pocketknife. Lincoln has always been one of my heroes and he is a hero to Gene as well. Lincoln had his 6 blade congress in his vest the night he was assassinated.

Gene agreed. He took his research seriously and even traveled to the Smithsonian Institute in DC where the knife is on display to examine it. Every aspect of the knife is an exact replica except for the steel. Gene used stainless for the blades (CPM 154). The frame, bolsters, escutcheon and pins are all nickel silver. The scales are ivory (pre ban). Just an amazing piece. 6 blades and it is only 5/8” thick. He has made a handful of others in this pattern (mine was the first) but mine is the only example with nickel silver and ivory, same as Lincoln’s

 

I used to do a lot of ocean kayaking and white water canoeing in extreme places ( before I became an old fat man with health problems ) and I used to buy or commission a knife to commemorate some of the good trips. The first one was a custom camp knife in 52100 by the great Canadian mastersmith Wally Hayes to replace my Carbon V Cold Steel Trailmaster that performed so badly for me on a trip to the Nahanni River in the Northwest Territories. I quickly learned that I had neither the heart nor the money to actually use a knife like Wally's on a hard trip When I bought two Busses I never really needed to buy more after that, so I switched to less expensive keepsakes, like a paddle or hat, reserving a nice knife for other special occasions like "I have money and see a nice knife Day"- always my favourite day.

 

I've got a CRK made on the day each of my kids are born . CRK were really good catering for me .I was just lucky the kids were all born on days the CRK factory was working .

 

I've purchased plenty of knives to commemorate a special occasion*, but I'd not commission a knife ever again that had to be ready by a specific date. I've not had good luck with it personally, and I don't want to say that knife makers are generally unreliable, but man, there sure are an awful lot of stories out there of makers missing deadlines. No way I'd put my trust in that nowadays.


* Which hey, occasionally might be something I completely made up in order to justify buying a knife LOL