# Your Oldest Hunting Knife?



## Haggis (Mar 11, 2004)

Tell something about your oldest, longest used, best loved, most dependable hunting knife.

I've had two hunting knives for a very long time: one I bought in 1971, though I rarely used it after 1974, and another I bought for $5.50 in 1974. The latter has a real stag handle, a blade in the form of the "Nesmook" knife (with a sharpened "swedge" on the top 1/3), and it has a 5 1/2 inch blade. I cannot begin to imagine the number of deer, cattle, and hogs I've field dressed and butchered with it, though it must well into the hundreds. The only name on it when I purchased it was "Solingen" stamped in ink on the blade and that has long since vanished. I yet have and use the original sheath, it is held together with copious amounts of duct tape, but I use it.

Over the last 30 odd years I've picked up and/or had bought for me a great stock pile of expensive folding hunters, pocket knives, and fixed hunters, (most of them never used) but it is always the old stag handled hunter I reach for when off to the hunt, or something is needing field dressed.


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## Homesteadwi5 (Mar 16, 2008)

mine is one of the original buck's my grandpa had it for many years and gave it to me over 20 years ago,it's still the only one i use.


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## Ed Norman (Jun 8, 2002)

My dad gave me his dad's Case trapper when I was about ten. I used it to skin every animal I trapped, carried it for years, including every day of high school. I was using it a few years ago to cut in the pattern on a gunstock I was checkering and a Case collector saw it. He looked up the marks on the blade and said it was made in 1921, I think, and was worth lots of money. I said it ain't for sale.


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## foxfiredidit (Apr 15, 2003)

I was given a knife made by Bo Randall 39 years ago. It has seen me through thick and thin. I make a point of skinnin' a couple of bucks with it every year just so it don't get lonely.


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## radiofish (Mar 30, 2007)

I carry a 4 inch fixed blade KA-BAR, that my father gave to me as a present back in 1972 when I started hunting. I also have a folding Uncle Henry stag handled two bladed pocket knife that was given to me used in 1976, and it now resides in my backpack. I also have my KA-BAR USMC Fighting Knife from when I joined the Marine Corps back in 1978. I have had to replace the leather sheath, but it can still shave the hairs off of your arm!!

Does a bayonet for a 1898 Krag-Jorgensen in .30-40 Krag (.30 caliber Army that Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders used in Cuba) dated 1903 count??


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## Bear (Jan 25, 2005)

My oldest, that I bought new is a Buck 110 folder that I bought in a little store in New Hampshire 1972 on a bear hunt. It got so much use that I sent it to Buck, and they replaced the blade free of charge. I also have some old Case folding hunters, 5265's that I use.


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

radiofish said:


> ....Does a bayonet for a 1898 Krag-Jorgensen in .30-40 Krag (.30 caliber Army that Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders used in Cuba) dated 1903 count??


Perhaps if you're field dressing a moose or caribou, but I'm not sure. I'll have to ask Sarah Palin.

My oldest hunting knife is a 5" Buck I got from my brother back in the early-70s for being his best man.


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## jross (Sep 3, 2006)

Uncle Henry my BIL gave me years ago. Not made anymore, I think.


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## poorboy (Apr 15, 2006)

Oldest one I use a large two bladed schrade folder.Oldest one a Western cutlery out of Colorado drop point. D'Holder offered to make me one fer 35$ back in 72..to much money I thinks..been kickin my self in the butt fer the last 30 yrs.!At least I have the pleasure of remembering talking to him( He's a heck of a fine fellow). He was a rep. for the Oil company I was driving truck for at the time..


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## Oldcountryboy (Feb 23, 2008)

Old timer pocket knife is all I use. When I was younger I use to carry hunting knives strapped on my belt when I went hunting. I found I could do most everything I needed with a pocket knife, so I ended up selling or giving away my hunting knives. 

However I might have to start carrying one. Mountain lions and bears are moving into my neck of the woods and I'd hate to meet one face to face when carrying nothing but a recurve bow and a pocket knife. 

I someday hope to make my very own hunting knife and carry it with me.


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## tn_junk (Nov 28, 2006)

Schrade Sharpfinger that I got as a 14th Birthday present in 1971.

alan


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## jnh (Oct 4, 2007)

fixed blade case about 5 inches i got in 67


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## cowboy joe (Sep 14, 2003)

Fixed blade, 5", hand made leather sheath...my Grandpa's, handed down to my Father, handed down to me.


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## diamondtim (Jun 10, 2005)

I got a fixed blade sheath knife that a co-worker made for my dad, out of a mill bastard file, in the late 1940's. Dad had loaned him his deer rifle for a hunting trip. Back then, they were hard to come by if you didn't already own one.

That knife is beautiful, well crafted and sharp as a straight razor. Also gives me good memories of my dad when I use it.


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## Haggis (Mar 11, 2004)

Many thanks for all the stories. 

It always seemed to me that an old, but favorite, pocket knife or a hunting knife were more of a companion than a tool, certainly I am quick to make sure to have my pocket knife about my person each morning, and loath to leave my hunting knife behind when I'm afield whether it be on a hunt, a sylvan stroll, or off for a time at camp.


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