I got my first pocketknife at 4, and my first sheath knife (dagger) at 7. I’ve had many blades since then. I’ve known of Busse since the early to mid 90’s. I always knew I wanted one someday, but with a $10 a week allowance, I knew it would be many years later, so I didn’t pay too much attention to what was being released. I’d talk to the Busse family & reps at the shows though, and I always appreciated that even though I was a kid that couldn’t afford their knives, (which I’m sure they knew) they always treated me like a valued potential customer and didn’t ignore me, but talked to me and answered my questions.
In my teens, my sheath knives were mostly Ontarios. I had LOTS of folders from throughout the years, but my good ones in my teens were my Cold Steels. Several years ago I decided to take the plunge and buy a “good survival knife”. I bought a satin CS Recon Scout for $70 or so on eBay. At the time it was the most expensive knife I’d ever bought. I searched Yahoo to see if I could find any nicer sheaths for it. When I was searching, I came across the infamous link on BF where the guy snapped his Recon Scout batoning in the winter. As I read through the thread, I saw several people mention that he should have bought a Swamp Rat.
With a little more searching and reading, I found out about Swamp Rat. As I said, I knew I couldn’t afford Busse, so I wasn’t really following them that closely so I hadn’t heard about Swamp Rat before then. I did some more reading at Rat Chat, and realized what an impressive group of outdoorsman and survival experts resided there, so I joined. After I saw the CS knife break, I realized I wasn’t so confidant in batoning with it. I’d had no trouble so far, but I knew CS has a crappy warranty, and if I broke it I’d be out the money, which was a lot for me and as I said the most expensive knife I’d ever bought. I decided it was better to pay a bit more, and get a knife that was nearly indestructable, and with a lifetime no BS warranty so I wouldn’t have to worry about breaking it. So, my first Rat was a Rat Mastiff.
As to how I found the Yard…well, I was here from day one. Actually, before day one. At first, we’d only heard mention of it, and the first Scrap Yard posts are on Swamp Rat’s forum, because at the time the SY forum didn’t exist. It took a long time until SY’s link was active, and at first when it was, there was only the giant logo pic, and you couldn’t click on anything. Eventually, someone made a post at Rat Chat that the site was live, and we all rushed over here to hurry and sign up for the forum. I ended up being member # 32. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> All us “old timers” that were here from the beginning thought it was cool that we were here from day one, because most of us had discovered Busse and Swamp Rat somewhat recently, but we were here from the beginning. It’s not very often you get the chance to participate in a Busse Kin business from day one. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
BTW, if you’re curious what your member number is to see how many members we’ve had before you joined, just move the mouse over your forum name on the left and hold it there (don’t click) and it will pop up with your member number.
