Strangest Place that You Found a Knife?

[theotherwaldo]

I was looking in my knife drawer last night and realized that I had bought less than half of them. Yeah, I made or assembled a couple. A few were gifts.

But about half were found in one place or the other. Old tackle boxes. Used cars. Fishing holes. Old furniture.

That got me thinking. What was the oddest place that I found a knife?

That one was easy. I found a Ka-Bar pattern USMC fighting knife (made by Cattaraugus) in an elementary school sandbox. It was in Southern Oregon, while I was waiting to walk my little sister home from school. I eventually broke the pommel off, replaced the grip with horn, and sold it at a swap meet in Los Angeles.

So what is the oddest place that you've found a knife?

 

[bigfatdave]

I found a number of tools, knives, and parts in the bilge of the subs I was on, back in my seafaring days.
There was a bit of folklore about the "bilge being saturated" ... meaning that when you drop a tool/part/whatever and can't recover it, something else will become visible/retrievable elsewhere, because the bilge can only hold so much.

Beyond that, I find my own pocketknives regularly, I've given up on buying more, as my home has reached a similar saturation point ... lose one, find another shortly.

 

[Coyote3855]

The knives I've lost have been uniformly of better quality than the knives I've found. Found knives showed up mosly along trout streams. Some of the lost ones went there too.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Engine Room

I served as a deck hand on a couple or three (four, actually) ships in the early Seventies.

One of them was an old bunker-fuel-fired steamer that used to do the Stockholm-Helsinki run -- think of it as a kind of ocean-going bus/train that ran as a shuttle over the Baltic Sea. (Bunker fuel, if you've never heard of it, is essentially liquid coal. It's an oil that's so thick, it won't flow in pipes until it's been heated to somewhere around the boiling point of water.)

It was being re-commissioned for an outfit in Copenhagen, and I was one of a very sparse skeleton crew that sailed it from Stockholm to Copenhagen in the middle of December, 1973. (In case you're wondering, Stockholm harbor is frozen over to a depth of more than 3 feet at that time of year, and there's no shortage of ice floating in the Baltic.)

On arrival, I filled a vacancy in the Engine Room for a few weeks (wow, what a gig that was), while we cleaned it up and waited for the permanent personnel to show up.

During that time, I found a Mora #1, already "well used" under some E/R kludge that was being moved out. It was ratty-looking, paint nearly gone from the handle, edge in need of some care.

None of the other engineers claimed it or wanted it. It took its place among my gear.

Still have it. Looks ratty. Needs a new sheath. Edge no longer "needs care" and it cuts just like you'd expect a Mora knife to.

 

[doubleh]

I found one laying on a LACT unit. It is a very good kinife.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

Found my Puma Raven in the turning lane on a street I used to live off of. I found a John Primble knive in a gravel road after it got graded on summer when I was in Jr High. It has one of the bone slabs missing. Those are my 2 strange places.

 

[22-rimfire]

I have found knives out in the woods while hunting. I have lost knives in the woods while hunting.... it happens. Someone often finds them and they're used.

I'ver never found a quality knife. I have lost quality folders. My sense is that many people use junk knives.

Founds some knives inside dressers in a furnished apartment I rented years ago. Those were Case knives. Best I have found.

 

[leadcounsel]

I found a miniature Gerber knife on the ground near a chow line in Iraq.

I also found a well used and gritty Gerber multitool in Kuwait. I was returning to Iraq through Kuwait and was taking something to the amnesty box and someone had left it on top of the Amnesty box. The Amnesty box is actually a great place to look for stuff that people forget and take home on R&R.

Finally, I got a knife from a fellow Soldier who got a new one and was just going to leave his behind (he got his when he was coming home from R&R and a random Soldier gave him a really nice knife that Soldier couldn't take on R&R and was going to abandon). It's a very nice Cold Steel fighter with a kydex sheath, which retails for about $70. I couldn't believe this guy was just gonna leave it behind and didn't even offer it to anyone!!

And I found a nearly destroyed Spyderco folder in the street near the gutter. To Spyderco's huge credit, they replaced it for free. I'm a big Spyderco fan now.

 

[birdshot8's]

a knife i was given by my grandfather, lost for twenty years, in a pocket of suit i wore to his funeral. don't hardly wear dress clothes, somebody has to die.

 

[bikerdoc]

Weird,

Never found one, never lost one.

 

[gga357]

Found an old and cheap imitation swiss army knife. I have lost 3 leatherman and one nice Cold Steel voyager.

 

[jbkebert]

When I was a kid I bought a cheap set of throwing knives. I eventually lost them all. A couple years ago I was trimming trees for my dad after a ice storm. About 16 feet up in a sugar maple I found one of the old knives. The knife was in pretty bad shape and there was no way to pull it out. It had probably been there for almost 20 years. We also found the remains of a aluminum arrow if a walnut tree. We used to try and shoot tree rats as kids.

 

[woolfam]

Interesting thread. I lost a small, bone-handled, lock-back pocket knife in the parking lot of a local convenience store a number of years ago. It fell our of my pocket when I pulled out my keys to get in the car. I realized it was lost w/in the hour and went back to see if I could find it, but it was gone. Bummer. My wife had bought it for me early in our marriage when we visited Silver Dollar City.

A year or so after losing that knife, I found one exactly like it (w/o my scrimshawed initials) in the parking lot of another local convenience store.

I thought that was pretty cool.

 

[dev_null]

In my camera bag. After flying. =:-O

I'd forgotten about it, and apparently the TSA scanners overlooked it. Both times.

 

[FAS1]

STUCK IN THE SIDEWALL OF MY TIRE!!!!!!
Not what you think. I was driving my 79 Trans Am with Goodyear Wingfoot tires (in 1985)when I was distracted by adjusting the radio. When I looked up I saw something in the road that I was about to run over. It looked harmless so I didn't try to swerve to miss it as it happened so fast I probably couldn't anyway. The next thing I heard and felt was my tire was instantly flat. When I pulled over to look the knife was out of the sheave and still stuck in the sidewall of my very expensive tire! The sheave was on the gound bacck where I ran it over. The blade is about 7" long. I still have this knife and it's in very good shape. Probably the most expensive knife I have! Next time I'll just buy one.

 

[Marlin 45 carbine]

back about 20 yrs I was on ahunting camp trip and a fellow bagged a fat young buck that we immediately dressed for camp meat. I used a nice handmade minature bowie for the work which while we were doing some 'imbibing' of strong drink was going on (imagine that!).
next day I noticed my knife was missing and nowhere to be found - I gave up looking for it.
about 6 months later some of us was back at the same spot and one of 'em was just kicking leaves around and I saw the small antler handle of the knife sticking up. glad to retreive it, had a few small pits but no harm done it's a working knife, a 'patch knife'.
about 7-8 yrs back I had my metal detector around a n.f. campground and altho found some coins had gotten disgusted with the trash and about to give up when searching around a fire pit I got a solid signal of iron close to the top near a wood pile. investigation revealed a swiss army e.m.'s knife with the corkscrew out and a cork impaled. evidently the former owner had pulled a cork on a bottle of wine and set the knife down forgetting it.
a couple years back I went back to the same campground and found an officer's model with the can opener out in nearly the same spot! one of the best knives I have.

 

[Wolfebyte]

found Leatherman Side Clip about 10 years ago on the side of the road in an "S" curve. ..

2nd one was an old Case Stockman 3 blade that I found in the electronics box of my home AC.. AC was installed before I bought the house in 96, so who knows how long it laid there. A little Navel Jelly and a scotchbrite pad cleaned it right up.

Now if I could remember where I lost my Boker at..

 

[Mp7]

..in my Shirt pocket

while sitting in a plane from Sydney to Melbourne in 2003.
Apparently the Detector wasnt working - and they were
just pretending to search.

 

[xmanpike]

I have an old Puma Rambler that is constantly trying to get away from me. Had it for almost 20 years now, and I am only 30. First time I was fishing a tank on the land I used to hunt which is all brush country, the tank is surrounded by 2 ft tall grass. Realized as I was leaving, the pocket I put my knife in had a hole in it. Started to walk the cow trails around the tank and found nothing. Left after a few hours. Came back the day we were supposed to leave, tripped over a rock and my face basically landed looking at the knife in a clump of brush. Then about 6 years ago, was at my buddys ranch, all of a sudden knife was gone. Looked everywhere for it. Nothing. I spend about 80 days a year at this ranch. Looked for it everytime for about the first year. Nothing. Last deer season my buddy and I are moving a big hay trailer out of his dirt floop open sided barn and lo and behold there it is lying on the ground. No rust, no worse for wear. This knife means a lot to me and I refuse to lose it again!

 

[PandaBearBG]

Went to an auction and bought a big box of poker stuff, hundreds of chips, cards, dice, cards, big blind chips, etc, and in the bottom a really nice switchblade. Guess poker deal gone bad!

 

[JHansenAK47]

When I was younger I had a job mowing lawns. I lost my Gerber knife and couldn't find it and was mad about it. A week later I was mowing the same lawns again and mowed over my knife and stepped on it and that is how I found it. I don't know how the mower didn't suck it up and chew it up but it didn't. It was just out of no where too so I was pretty happy about it.

 

[theotherwaldo]

Early summer, '73. Our family was just starting our annual summer out - this time on the Rogue River trail of southern Oregon. Dad was setting up camp in the summer kitchen that was most of what remained of a miner's mansion (Thanks, Forest Service) and I was supposed to keep my little sister occupied. Sand's good for that, I figured, so we went to the river.

Now, this spot was the first slow water after a long series of rapids. The sand was soft and pretty clean. I let her dig and just sat back and watched the river. Then I heard a metallic scraping. Kid sister was down to bedrock and was scratching around with a Remington pocket knife that she had just found.

I eased it away by trading her a piece of driftwood. The knife was OK, a small 3-blade with the end broken off of the shortest blade. Not much rust, surprisingly enough.

I helped her dig after that. In the two hours before dark we found a well-worn 1885 double eagle, a bent and hammered $5 gold coin, a bunch of pocket rivets and buttons, and several big chunks of steel rail.

I wonder if it would be worth my time to go back there?

 

[thebaldguy]

I've dropped and lost a few knives over the years. I hope someone found them and used them.

I found a nearly new small Swiss Army knife on the ground next to a gas pump. It's my briefcase knife now.

 

[leadcounsel]

Forgot - I lost my very first knife. I was about 6 years old and got a swiss army knife. I put it in my alligator shirt pocket and went to a best friends birthday party. Lost the knife while sommersaulting down his hill in the front yard. Never found it.

 

[TimboKhan]

My best friends Dad told me one day a few months ago that he forgot to take his knife out of his pocket when he was flying out of DIA. He placed the knife above one of the entrance doors in the pickup area, and when he got back, by god, there was his knife.

Next time I flew, I checked up there, and sure enough, I found someones SAK. I just kind of laughed and put it right back.