Is this an "old man's hobby"?

Jens Nordlunde · 26th April 2020, 04:37 PM

Come on Ariel, I have been retired (early due to the sale of my firm) for more than 22 years. As long as you have hobbies/interests it is no problem.
In a year or so I am closing in on 80, so the rest of you youngsters should take it easy:-).

ariel · 27th April 2020, 12:19 AM

Yessiree! :-)

Cthulhu · 30th April 2020, 06:09 AM

I keep thinking how old everyone seems, till I realize I'm right up there with them at 50. How did I get so old?

I was always interested in knives as a boy, and would drool over those horrible catalogs of goofy survival gear and production knives. I ended up, with great difficulty, finding a copy of Stone's guide, which fascinated me. When I was 17 I was vacationing in the UK with my family, we saw various swords and blades, including a nice kukri on display in the basement of someone's family castle. Later that trip we saw a sign for a Gurkha army museum, and my mom said "Maybe they'll sell you a kukri." Being a teenger I rolled my eyes and said "Right, Mom, they'll have a sign saying kukri knife, 20 pounds." It turned out it was actually 15 pounds, and my parents were nice enough to buy it for me. Back home I started haunting the local pawn shop and buying any bladed junk that caught my eye. After several years of that I found out there were knife shows, and at the BAKCA show in South San Francisco met Dave and Lonna Schmiedt, which started me on keris, Indian, and Philippine weapons, and after a bit I started buying Indonesian blades from Alan Maisey.

That all ended when I got married and got the look of death for spending money on things that were not my wife. So there was a very long pause in collecting, but eventually I ended up with a different wife who encouraged me to mount the swords I already had on the walls of our living room, and maybe get a few more to fill out the display. (I still get the look of death, just for other reasons)

Since then, I've decided Indian weapons are by far my favorite, and with the internet and easily accessible auctions I've been collecting a lot more. I'm trying to avoid just collecting to collect; I want each piece in my collection to be something I didn't have before, or to be an upgrade, and I'll get rid of the old piece. At least so I tell myself.
Anyway that's my history. I did have the pleasure of talking to a friend's son recently who had made his own replica panabas, and we talked blades for an hour. I recommended to his parents that he get a copy of Stone's. Hopefully he'll become part of the next generation of caretakers of these pieces of history.

Ian · 30th April 2020, 10:38 AM

I can't remember if I've posted in this thread before--must be getting old timer's disease.

Anyway, I'm 73 in a month and been retired for five years. I guess that's old, although I don't feel old. My first knife was a Boy Scout pocket knife with a sheep's foot blade and a spike (still got it!). Started collecting in SE Asia while backpacking in the early 1960s, and never really stopped. There was a period in the 1960s when I was studying medicine and I collected little, but work trips to mainland SE Asia in the 1970s and 1980s, and to the Philippines in the 1990s and 2000s got me fired up. Then along came eBay and the whole world became possible. ...

Now I have over a thousand pieces and the wife is telling me they have to go before I die because she doesn't want to deal with them.

26th April 2020, 04:37 PM	#1
Jens Nordlunde Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Europe Posts: 2,713	Come on Ariel, I have been retired (early due to the sale of my firm) for more than 22 years. As long as you have hobbies/interests it is no problem. In a year or so I am closing in on 80, so the rest of you youngsters should take it easy:-).

27th April 2020, 12:19 AM	#2
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Yessiree! :-)

30th April 2020, 06:09 AM	#3
Cthulhu Member Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Central Valley, California Posts: 46	I keep thinking how old everyone seems, till I realize I'm right up there with them at 50. How did I get so old? I was always interested in knives as a boy, and would drool over those horrible catalogs of goofy survival gear and production knives. I ended up, with great difficulty, finding a copy of Stone's guide, which fascinated me. When I was 17 I was vacationing in the UK with my family, we saw various swords and blades, including a nice kukri on display in the basement of someone's family castle. Later that trip we saw a sign for a Gurkha army museum, and my mom said "Maybe they'll sell you a kukri." Being a teenger I rolled my eyes and said "Right, Mom, they'll have a sign saying kukri knife, 20 pounds." It turned out it was actually 15 pounds, and my parents were nice enough to buy it for me. Back home I started haunting the local pawn shop and buying any bladed junk that caught my eye. After several years of that I found out there were knife shows, and at the BAKCA show in South San Francisco met Dave and Lonna Schmiedt, which started me on keris, Indian, and Philippine weapons, and after a bit I started buying Indonesian blades from Alan Maisey. That all ended when I got married and got the look of death for spending money on things that were not my wife. So there was a very long pause in collecting, but eventually I ended up with a different wife who encouraged me to mount the swords I already had on the walls of our living room, and maybe get a few more to fill out the display. (I still get the look of death, just for other reasons) Since then, I've decided Indian weapons are by far my favorite, and with the internet and easily accessible auctions I've been collecting a lot more. I'm trying to avoid just collecting to collect; I want each piece in my collection to be something I didn't have before, or to be an upgrade, and I'll get rid of the old piece. At least so I tell myself. Anyway that's my history. I did have the pleasure of talking to a friend's son recently who had made his own replica panabas, and we talked blades for an hour. I recommended to his parents that he get a copy of Stone's. Hopefully he'll become part of the next generation of caretakers of these pieces of history.

30th April 2020, 10:38 AM	#4
Ian Vikingsword Staff Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: The Aussie Bush Posts: 4,041	I can't remember if I've posted in this thread before--must be getting old timer's disease. Anyway, I'm 73 in a month and been retired for five years. I guess that's old, although I don't feel old. My first knife was a Boy Scout pocket knife with a sheep's foot blade and a spike (still got it!). Started collecting in SE Asia while backpacking in the early 1960s, and never really stopped. There was a period in the 1960s when I was studying medicine and I collected little, but work trips to mainland SE Asia in the 1970s and 1980s, and to the Philippines in the 1990s and 2000s got me fired up. Then along came eBay and the whole world became possible. ... Now I have over a thousand pieces and the wife is telling me they have to go before I die because she doesn't want to deal with them.