Arfin--
If I had to categorize the Sharpfinger's blade shape, I would call it a trailing point skinner.
25 and 30 years ago, I remember watching and "helping" my dad design and make skinning knives for guys that wanted trailing point skinners, and the more belly and point, the better. These were hunters, or at least folks that wanted a custom knife on their belts when they went to hunting camp.
Then they started wanting Bowie knives, and he did those, too. Some wanted more rustic looking, some wanted longer blades, whatever. Mountain men re-enactors, folks that saw "Iron Mistress", and others were making those orders.
Anyway, that's what I'd call it.
Steve, I can relate to that lost knife. I remember the day I lost my first "good" knife. And it was such a good one, too. Oh, I regret that day.
My sister's high school graduation, and my grandparents drove 1000 miles to come. I put on my little pin-striped Sunday suit, first one I ever had, I think I was twelve or so. Just wore slacks and tie before that.
My dad got me a Boker Whittler the year before for my birthday. It had delrin handles, sure, but they looked like real stag. More important was the angle the little blades were at, making whittling and such easier than with the cheap Ranger medium stockman I had before that. Still had it for a good while after -- rough duty knife vs. my "good" knife.
Put this little Boker Whittler in my right front pocket, where I always carried a knife. Couldn't carry that old Ranger in my suit! I had a good knife to carry, and I was going to a graduation and dinner after with my grandparents.
Knife always has been pocket jewelry for me, I guess.
Anyway, when I got out of the car at the restaurant after the graduation, I stuck my hands in my pockets and -- my knife was gone. Oh, I was upset. Well, everybody started getting back into the car to go back and look for that knife when my grandma asked me what pocket I had it in, and where we were sitting, and we started thinking about the folks that were sitting around us at the graduation, and, "I'm sorry, honey, but that knife is long gone." We went on into dinner, and my pocket was empty.
I was one sad boy. Wasn't three, but -- that was my
good knife! First time in my life I had more than one.
My dad slipped an identical knife into my hand on my birthday the next week. I was tough, I didn't cry. In front of anybody.
Couple of months ago, my little boy was out riding his bike with his big sister, and he's had this little Buck knife for 9 months, and it fell out of his pocket. He noticed maybe half an hour or an hour after, and he and his sister went all over our neighborhood, wherever they were riding, looking for his knife. He was upset! He picked that knife out months before his birthday, and I bought it right then and stuck it in with my knives.
Now it's gone, and he was so proud of it.
Me, I've got more knives than I could wear out in my life right now. I'm blessed, or dumb enough to keep buying them when they catch my eye. Anyway, I pulled out a Swiss Army knife I bought when I was just out of Basic training and had him show that he could open and close all the tools on it safely, and then handed him a Recruit -- similar to mine, but just a bit smaller and better for his hand size. Last summer, he helped me and my brother fix a door on the house my brother rented when he came out from Japan to visit, and the tools we used were the ones on my SAK. Both of them thought that knife was so cool! Gave my little bro an SAK to take home with him, and when his very cute little Japanese wife mentioned that his new knife made two that they owned (and I knew the other one, because my dad gave it to him when he was fifteen), I pulled another one out and gave it to her so she'd have her own.
We put a 550 cord lanyard on my little boy's SAK, and he loops it to his belt or belt loop and puts it in his pocket every day when he gets home from school, and all day on the weekends. Not gonna lose another one! Sleeps with it -- under his pillow, he says, but I've walked into his room and seen him holding it in his sleep.