Spyderco Forums

I was at a bushcraft meeting and the pocket knife subject pop up. At the time I carried a SOG Visionary 1 (3in blade with Arc lock, VG10). I loved the knife, and someone (who later became a good friend) told me "if you like that one maybe you'll like this one too, and handled me a Delica. I liked it, as I was really into (and still am) 3in folders. I ordered a grey Delica some days after that and now I have 7 Delicas, among other Spydercos.
The Delica is still my favorite folder and my EDC on 99% of the days (others being a Dragonfly Salt on summer brach shorts and a Byrd Meadowlark while in Hungary).

I blame it all on Thomas Harris' book Hannibal and Google. :D Was reading the book back in '03 and it mentions Dr. Lecter purchasing several Spyderco knives at a gun show in Virginia. Had never heard of the brand, wasn't sure if it was real, or something Harris made up, :o so I Googled it.

Back in the late 80's early 90's can't remember exactly, I was hanging at my brother's cabin (Coal Creek Canyon, CO) for a bit of a break from AK. Making grocery runs into Golden I would drive by the SFO, finally stopped in, much smaller place then, ended up grabbing something, can't even remember which model, ended up giving that one to my little sister, she still has it I think.

Fast forward about 25 years... No new :spyder:'s since that first one, kinda forgot about them, mostly carried low priced slip joints until one day I decided to try out a persistence and was hooked, figured if these best value pieces were that nice the higher end ones must be the shizz, boy was I right, grabbed a Vollotton next and was blown away.

It's been completely and utterly down/up hill since then, pushing 200 now, God I need help, perhaps an intervention. :rolleyes:

September 1981 - Buddy and I were gearing up for a 3 day survival adventure along the Olympic Coast Wilderness area. Walked into a cutlery store in Bellevue, WA and spotted the most unusual pocket knife we've ever seen. This was during a time when nearly all production pocket knives looked like a Buck 110, Case, etc...jig bone or wood scales, nail nick to open. The Spyderco "Clip-it" as it was called stood out with its all stainless steel construction, ergonomic handle shape, and unusual hole in the blade that enabled one handed opening. The thin, flat design with a pocket clip was a the other first and big attraction. The term "ergonomics" was still new then and Spyderco was one the of first pocket knife manufacturer to design and implement the concept well. It was the venerable C01 Worker. The shop keeper was eager to demonstrate the knife to us. It came in a plain white box and was accompanied by a separate Xeroxed data sheet describing Spyderco Inc and the "Clip It". My friend and I were instantly mesmerized by the knife and each bought one. Been hooked ever since. Still have the Worker, but the box and fly sheet are long gone, sadly. Eh, I would never sell the knife anyway.

The Worker has travelled with me to many wonderful places. Europe, China, Japan, Canada...during pre 9/11 days. Those were the days.

2014.
I was tired of my gas station flippers, and Chinese folders that broke on me, developed blade play or failed to lock securely. I was happy with my SAKs and Leathermans but wanted a decent OHO folder. It looked nice, and was inexpensive enough to try out: the Resilience

The hole quickly grew on me, the steel was better than the pot steel in my previous folders and the ergos were amazing, no hotspots like those old badly built, oddly shaped handles I had tried before.
It rusted on me, that was the main drawback. But I researched for more "Spyderhole" options with better corrosion resistance and heard many good things about H1.
The Pacific Salt was not extremely expensive and looked lighter, almost as long and ergos also were praised around the net.



I got one by the end of 2014. Carried as main EDC folder for 2 years. In 2016 i got a Tasman, Salt I, DF2, Spyderhawk(s), and another Pacific Salt.
I've expanded my "Salt" collection since then up to 12 folders and 4 fixed blades, and I couldn't be happier.



Today Spyderco and Cold Steel are my two favorites and represent 90% of my folders and fixed blades

I discovered Equipped.org and really enjoyed Doug Ritter's writings about the importance of carrying a dependable pocket knife. Prior to that, I had owned, but thought nothing special of, the classic Victorinox Swiss Army Knives.

Influenced by Ritter's writings, I lusted for and eventually obtained a Butterfly Company 556. A forumite on another forum told me that the Butterfly Company and Spyderco were both great, but on opposite ends of the spectrum, and to see the world correctly, you had to buy both. I soon purchased a Delica to compare, and soon after a Butterfly 551 and Endura to try out larger knives. Neither the Delica and Endura won me over, but they were easily recognized as fantastic quality at a great value.

I eventually discovered the original Paramilitary which became my favorite, time-tested EDC, and here I am, dozens of Spydercos later.

I'll quote myself here:

My first experience with modern pocket knives came as I was working a lab job that generated a lot of cardboard boxes. Over time, they started to pile up in the corner of the lab. Around this period, I was starting to get curious about EDC (having been into mechanical keyboards through massdrop) and bought something modest that would help me deal with the various things that needed cutting in my workday. So my first modern knife was a Kershaw Lifter. Heavy, with an odd blade grind for the short length, but it got me used to both flippers and framelocks.

The boxes started getting broken down. We recovered a lot of lab space!

I kept an eye on massdrop and when the CRKT Fossil was up for a drop, I hopped in on it - not because I needed another knife, but because I fell in love with the aesthetic. Thing looked like it had the soul of a T-rex.

When it arrived, I was impressed by how nice the action was. Ball bearing manual flipper was a big upgrade from a speedsafe flipper on plastic washers. I was also impressed at how much sturdier the tip was. The thicker blade contributed to this, but it was a nice improvement in piercing power for some of the triple and quadruple wall cardboard we had. The hollow grind kept the performance high.

At this point I was hooked. I started reading up on blade steels, and found that the industry had moved on to some of the latest processing and manufacturing techniques. This was a surprising and very relevant discovery, since I'm a materials engineer. I could appreciate not just the design and performance from a user perspective, but from a metallurgical perspective as well.

After buying a few more budget blades and dulling them pretty fast, I determined to get a premium knife in a 'super' steel. The only question was ZT or Spyderco, or more accurately, the 0562CF versus the Southard. Same steel (0562CF was using 204p at the time), same mechanism (flipper), but wildly different blade shapes. Indecision gripped me for a while, and I did get to handle a buddy's 0562CF, but eventually, I looked at my Fossil and knew. The flowing, slightly crazy lines of the Spyderco were a more refined version of the animalistic 'soul' I saw. In fact, every Spyderco seemed to have its own distinct 'soul', expressed in the design and performance.

So I bought the Southard, my first and most treasured Spyderco, and the rest is history!

I think the year was 1984 when I went to a demo where I could try out the 454 Casull revolver. Sal was there with two knife models. I chose the worker due to price alone. It took me about a week to decide to grind off the Spyderedge but I was definitely hooked. I've never been a collector but nonetheless I have wound up with a number of them over the years.

Back in 2006 I was into Benchmades, then I heard of this rust-free stuff called H1 and decided to give it a try. Bought a Pacific Salt and was blown away, not only was it rust-free as advertised, but it was light as a feather and I was able to carry it IWB of my swimming shorts, plus the ergos were out of this world. Then I bought a Military and it was a down-slope hill from there. Now I own around 100 Spydercos, out of which 20 are Millies and 4 are Pacific Salts. Not that it matters, but the only BM product I still own is a coffee mug :)

This is the Pacific Salt that started it all 11 years old, heavily modded but still going strong.

setldown wrote:My first purchase was the Sharpmaker. ...

Same here :D and followed by black FRN Delica 3 and Military. Now I'm +400 Spydies later and my needs are nearly met.

Oh, I forgot various sharpening tools from Spyderco in my number. :rolleyes:

Peter1960 wrote:

setldown wrote:My first purchase was the Sharpmaker. ...

Same here :D and followed by black FRN Delica 3 and Military. Now I'm +400 Spydies later and my needs are nearly met.

Oh, I forgot various sharpening tools from Spyderco in my number. :rolleyes:

Much like Peter it was Delica first then a Military, but I'm not as greedy as he is so I stopped before 400 :p

When I was 14, my first job was in a hardware store. We had a display case, where we kept the more expensive knives/multi tools (Leatherman, Victorinox, a couple nice Case traditionals). One day, the owner decided to start stocking some Spydercos, and we received approx 5 models or so. 

I just remember thinking, "man these are some far out designs"... summarily I picked up a Dragonfly and an Endura (in hindsight, wish I had picked up more, as the owner let us purchase items at cost, plus the shipping if we special ordered instead of buying directly from the store stock)

By the time I was 20-22, I had the above mentioned Dragonfly & Endura, along with a Q, a Salsa, and my pride and joy, a Smallfly.

Then, my apartment got broken into, and the lockbox with my Spydies in it was stolen.  :mad:

I was mad as all ****. Mostly for the violation of privacy that something like that entails, but losing the Smallfly and the Salsa got me real bad. I kinda took a hiatus from gear for maybe 5 years, thinking cheap knives would suffice, and if they went missing, oh well. 

Then one day, maybe 6 years ago, I was browsing around on Amazon, trying to get a good deal on a Leatherman Charge TTI, and in the product recommendations saw the Native... mostly, that spear like grind with the swede looked very appealing. Again, I thought, "man, what a far out design."  Decided to order a Native as a small folder, and the Tenacious as a larger one to EDC. 2 weeks later, I ordered a gen 1 Manix 2 (hollow ground w/ 154CM steel). 


As you can see, things may have escalated from there.

One day I decided that I need a good pocket knife. In my head I pictured a yellow handled knife with an opening hole (must have seen it somewhere). Somehow knew the brand was spider-something. Googled around and decided on a sage 4 ironwood.
Really abused it. It is now scratched, chipped, but still works perfect. Should have bought another seeing is how they are collector items now.

I have mentioned this on the forum before but my first encounter with a Spyderco knife was when I was at some public event years ago and saw one of the tech guys with a Spyderco all stainless Police Clip-It attached to his pocket and I asked him about it, he showed me it. I was absolutely amazed at the beautiful and functional design. I had grown up being an enthusiast of swords and cutting tools and a lover of history studies, and I had begun to collect knives from childhood. Until then I was mostly familiar with the old traditionals such as Barlow knives and Stockman folders, that sort of thing, when it came to folders, and a few unusual patterns like a Normark Super Swede folder (made by the company EKA of Sweden), Buck Folders and Puma folders. But the Spyderco was amazing to me. A knife beyond knives. A transcendent edged tool.

For years I looked around for them (I guess I wasn't looking in the right places) and asked people "Where can I get a Spyderco Clip It?" I did not know names like "Police" or "Mariner" or "Worker". Most people gave me a blank stare like "Huh? What's that?" and then I purchased my first Spyderco knife years later and the rest is history. I also was impacted seeing Sylvester Stallone's character use one of the early Spyderco Endura folders in the film "Cliff Hanger" where he is a mountain rescue worker who has to go up against some really bad guys.

Thank you Sal for the great knives! :)

I grew up as a typical boy in the south. Knives and guns are a staple for any real boy/man. My tastes were expensive and I was always on a budget. My first knives were Camillus, Old Timer, Buck and the like. Once into my later years of scouting I discovered CRKT knives as well as some other common brands. They were in my price range so i tried a few. Nothing ever really grabbed my heart though.

Fast forward about 8 years and I discovered a distributor catalog at lunch one day and began to flip through the pages. The original Spyderco Stretch caught my eye. Rubber handle overlays and a beautiful blade shape. I longed for that blade for what seemed like months, but eventually ran across a deal on a Native with black coated blade, PE.... i was hooked. This knife was unbelievable and that lead me to where I am today. 200+ Spydies later and still loving them. The time here on the forums has been terrific. A learning experienceas well as a community of like minded quality knife lovers. To this day, I really enjoy the interaction with those who impact the knives we see in the catalogs year after year. God willing, i will be here for a long long time to come.

Wow, I guess technically my first spyderco experience was as a very young child. One of our neighbors was the "knife sharpening guy". I saw his kit, I was too interested in his daughter to really know what it was, but in hindsight he had a spyderco sharpmaker.

My first "real" knife was a spyderco economy. I was maybe 8 years old, and bought it from money earned mowing yards and selling childrens books door to door. I cherished that knife so much, much time was spent whittling and doing little kid stuff. I wonder whatever happened to it

In the early 2000's, I started lurking around Bladeforums and noticed there was a buzz about the Emerson Wave. I always wanted one but could never bring myself to spend that kind of money one one. Then the Endura 4 Wave came out and I snatched one up. That was my gateway to Spyderco's. Then I started watching video reviews and stumbled across Nutnfancy's review of the Tenacious. Had to have it. The rest is history.

Came for the Emerson opener, found a whole lot more

I saw my first Spyderco back in the mid-late 90's in, if I remember right, a MidwayUSA catalog. I didn't get one then as it seemed so expensive. Not unnecessarily so, just that back then I didn't have the funds.

I was in the military and being from the Pacific NW, I was largely a Buck guy. On duty I typically carried a multi-tool and small drop-in-pocket single blade Buck that I had a para-cord lanyard tied off to my belt loop. Long enough to use for most things, I would roll it up and stuff it in my BDU pocket and then I could also quite easily unloop it from my pocket. In the field I would add a fixed blade of some sort, often an M9 bayonet.

I've always been a knife guy, even when I was a knife kid, but it was mostly budget oriented stuff and a lot of traditionals and hunting knives in my youth. But once I saw that Delica in the catalog I could never quite shake it. It look so bizarre but spoke to every function over form bone in my body.

At last my wife encouraged me to get one as a gift to myself and I did and that was that. Once I got that first saber-ground D4, nothing else mattered but Spydercos. It further led me into the world of better quality knives (Spyderco, Benchmade, ZT, etc.), better steels, design influences on function, greatly enhanced my sharpening knowledge, etc. in short, it really kicked my knife love into high gear. To this day I have very little interest in actually buying any other folder than Spydercos. I looked at a lot of stuff and often appreciate things about other knives but I just keep coming back to this brand.

Great knives. Great People. Great Community.

:)

I discovered Spyderco knives at the "Valley Indoor Swapmeet" in Canoga Park, CA back in 1991. There was a knife booth there and they were selling these "weird" knives with a hole in the blade and a hump in the spine. I thought they looked odd but as soon as I opened one with my thumb I was sold. In fact, I bought 2 that day and I still have them both today. The Delica and Endura I bought were used hard for years while I worked various construction jobs. After a while they were set aside as I bought new Spyderco knives. I don't know when exactly it happened..but at some point I had become a collector of Spyderco knives and my original Delica and Endura became sentimentally valuable pieces in my collection.

:spyder: :spyder: These knives still work beautifully today...26 years later! :eek:...26 years..makes me wonder if I might be getting old... nah :D :cool: