Pocket Knives

My recent bout of KAD (Knife Acquisition Disorder) is somewhat under control now. I have accumulated an acceptable collection of knives, and I'm not really itching to make another purchase just yet. Of course, I'd love me one of those Chris Reeve Sebenza knives, but the price tag keeps my fiscally responsible side well-grounded in reality. I don't think that last sentence makes sense, so let me rephrase it: I can't afford it.

When I was a wee lad I carried a pocket knife to be cool, carve my initials into wooden objects, and play mumblety-peg with the neighborhood degenerates. I recall having a cheap single blade folder and a medium sized Swiss Army Knife way back when. However, I stopped carrying pocket knives after getting out of high school (yeah, back then pocket knives were allowed in school), and never really missed them or gave them much thought until a few years ago.

So what happened a few years ago? I was on a weekend hike with another family, and my friend broke out an absolutely enormous Swiss Army Knife that I immediately ridiculed and scoffed at. No, it wasn't THIS monstrous, but still. After getting my friend on the defensive, he explained all about the practical utility of having an EDC pocket knife: sawing logs for a lean-to; spontaneous tooth picking; and blah blah emergencies blah blah. He was very convincing. So, I dug my old Swiss Army Classic out of my drawer and started to carry it on the regular. I soon decided to get something different, and that led to the acquisition of a Buck Scholar knife.

KAD took over in 2012, and I really went haywire that year. My knife purchases went like this: Spyderco Dragonfly2 in May; Spyderco Manix2 Blue Lightweight in June; Benchmade Mini-Griptilian in July; Coldsteel Tuff Lite in August; Gerber Dime in November (returned to Amazon in November); Leatherman Juice S2 in early December; and Spyderco Native5 ordered on December 31, 2012. Wow, that's a little overboard, but the lineup looks great:

The knives are shown in chronological order according to when I got them: top row left to right, then bottom row left to right. So my oldest knife is the SAK Classic, and my newest is the Native5. I don't really carry the Classic or the Scholar these days, simply because I prefer the other knives as EDC items. I rarely carry the Manix2 because I don't want to scare or intimidate any sheeple in the neighborhood. Seriously, the Manix2 is only a "pocket" knife in theory or if you're rockin' giant baggy MC Hammer pants.

I guess that I can do some retroactive posts related to the Dragonfly2, Manix2, and Mini-Griptilian knives. So be on the lookout for those posts. Unless, of course, KAD kicks in again and/or a Sebenza magically appears in my mailbox. If that happens, I'll write about it immediately.