Barry the Bear
Member
We all have a favorite knife brand, yeah they're nothing but Steel and whatever Grip material but some brands transcend just being a knife, for me that brand is Cold Steel much more to do with my father than Lynn Thompson and crazy marketing videos (though they did have a part).
My father carried a three inch Voyager knife that he used for everything... and I mean everything, I saw him once skin a deer and then use the knife to eat a steak once or twice. He would slice apples with it. Fast forward and I was given my first "blade" a leatherman clip, I eventually got a spyderco something I don't remember the model but nothing else. One day in 8th grade I got into a fight (boys doing stupid things insulting each others others leads to nothing good), since I didn't start the fight my father was not angry at me, I was in my room when dad was cleaning up his shop and called me in. "If you swear to me you will never take this to school, you can have it" a Cold Steel Bushman was placed in my hand, I never had a fixed blade knife and I thought the 7 inch blade in my hand was a sword like the knights of old would carry.
I'm addition to the knife he gave me a copy of Cold Steels Solid Proof DVD they used to send out with their catalogs and I was hooked. I saw it over and over again, making my list of various folders and fixed blades I would dream about that night. When I was 14 I told dad of my intent to join the service and that even though it was three years away I wanted to get a good service knife to take with me if I got deployed, dad lowered the Spurs game on tv and went into his closet and came out with a Cold Steel Gunsite tanto. I loved that knife! If I wasn't in school you can bet that blade was in my right side pocket. That was the last blade dad ever gave me, a stroke took him the following year. And for a time knives were the only thing I had an interest in especially Cold Steel ones, after all that was dad's brand. At 16 I lied to the phone rep on the Cold Steel catalog about my age and ordered a Riflemans Hawk.
Years have gone by and several dozen knives from various makers always lead me back to Cold Steel, now they have sold to GSM, either for better or worse the brand I knew may change, drastically or not much I don't know. But today is my 28th birthday and my wife decided I should finally get that nice knife always wanted, the Cold Steel Espada, I had the regular one but always wanted the fancy version to carry, the other one lost the thumb plate that I'll eventually replace someday, reminds me of dad in a way, and I opened the box today with the old Voyager and saw my son look at the Espada unboxed, like a proverbial kid in a candy store he was hooked on wanting a knife, maybe when he's older I'll get him a Cold Steel of some sort, the Bushman isnt that expensive...
My father carried a three inch Voyager knife that he used for everything... and I mean everything, I saw him once skin a deer and then use the knife to eat a steak once or twice. He would slice apples with it. Fast forward and I was given my first "blade" a leatherman clip, I eventually got a spyderco something I don't remember the model but nothing else. One day in 8th grade I got into a fight (boys doing stupid things insulting each others others leads to nothing good), since I didn't start the fight my father was not angry at me, I was in my room when dad was cleaning up his shop and called me in. "If you swear to me you will never take this to school, you can have it" a Cold Steel Bushman was placed in my hand, I never had a fixed blade knife and I thought the 7 inch blade in my hand was a sword like the knights of old would carry.
I'm addition to the knife he gave me a copy of Cold Steels Solid Proof DVD they used to send out with their catalogs and I was hooked. I saw it over and over again, making my list of various folders and fixed blades I would dream about that night. When I was 14 I told dad of my intent to join the service and that even though it was three years away I wanted to get a good service knife to take with me if I got deployed, dad lowered the Spurs game on tv and went into his closet and came out with a Cold Steel Gunsite tanto. I loved that knife! If I wasn't in school you can bet that blade was in my right side pocket. That was the last blade dad ever gave me, a stroke took him the following year. And for a time knives were the only thing I had an interest in especially Cold Steel ones, after all that was dad's brand. At 16 I lied to the phone rep on the Cold Steel catalog about my age and ordered a Riflemans Hawk.
Years have gone by and several dozen knives from various makers always lead me back to Cold Steel, now they have sold to GSM, either for better or worse the brand I knew may change, drastically or not much I don't know. But today is my 28th birthday and my wife decided I should finally get that nice knife always wanted, the Cold Steel Espada, I had the regular one but always wanted the fancy version to carry, the other one lost the thumb plate that I'll eventually replace someday, reminds me of dad in a way, and I opened the box today with the old Voyager and saw my son look at the Espada unboxed, like a proverbial kid in a candy store he was hooked on wanting a knife, maybe when he's older I'll get him a Cold Steel of some sort, the Bushman isnt that expensive...