Perhaps there was nothing in the 1980’s that catapulted knife collecting so much as the infamous “Rambo Knife”. In the 1982 movie First Blood, burned out and shell shocked Vietnam Vet John Rambo waged his own personal war against a small town sheriff, eventually involving the state police, the national guard and local militia wanna-bes. His only weapon? A hollow handled saw tooth backed bowie knife.

Perhaps no piece of equipment is so anachronistic on the battlefield as the bayonet. Mention fixing bayonets and you think of Gettysburg and the battle of Little Round Top, with Joshua Chamberlin and the 20th Maine executing a right hand wheel formation… well, OK, that is what I think of, anyway.Bayonets are seldom used anymore in actual conflict, with war being a much more hands off sort of business these days. The Marines, however, are always a very hands on group, so I was tickled to see their latest version of the bayonet.

Well, the shopping season is upon us, and while many folks (ok, let’s be realistic, most folks) will want electronics, household stuff or power tools, us knife enthusiasts are looking for that new knife under the tree when we get up on Christmas morning.

Personally, I would just love it if Santa could see his way clear to send me a new Spyderco Military, the last one I owned having grew legs on a recent hiking trip. However, I am a simple man.

If you could get any knife in the world for Christmas, which one would it be? Would it be a tactical folder?  A new pocket knife? A completely impractical fantasy sword?

Perhaps no knife has so entered into the American mystique as the Bowie Knife.

Colonel James Bowie was a soldier and pioneer who had a huge role in the battle for Texan independence from Mexico, and died at the battle of the Alamo. However, millions of people around the world know of him only because of his knife.

In 1830, Bowie went to Arkansas blacksmith James Black and presented him with a wooden model of a knife and asked Black to make it for him. Black did, and the result was the first real Bowie knife. That first knife is lost to history, but because of all the copies that were made, we have some idea of what it looked like.

While surfing about the interwebs, I came across this really neat forum for knife collectors over at All About Pocket Knives.

Despite that it is at a domain called All About Pocket knives, it also has forums for tactical knives, fixed blade hunting knives and much more.

Also of some note is that the forum has a site for trading knives. It is a much more genteel way to swap knives that just throwing them up on eBay.

Do you have any favorite knife collecting resources you like?

My first Pocketknife was a Schrade Old Timer that had been handed down from my Grandfather. It was your standard 3 blade stockman, just like thousands of others, but to a 10 year old boy, it meant passage into manhood.

Well, that was before The Schrade company closed their doors after 100 years of being in business, and before the name was bought and slapped on cheap knives from China that bear little resemblance to the wonderful knives of our memories.

Have you ever looked at something and thought, “Now, why didn’t I think of that”? That is the way I felt when i first saw the Leatherman Multitool.

The Leatherman is basically a folding pair of pliers, with a knife, screwdriver, file and other nifty tools in the handles. The whole thing folds up and fits in a small pouch that you can carry on your belt.

A lot of people think of the Leatherman as a knock off of the Swiss Army Knife, but while the Swiss Army Knife is a knife with a bunch of other tools, a Leatherman is more like a pair of pliers with a bunch of other tools.