I knew a man years ago who liked to give knives away, and he would give the knife away with a penny and then make you give the penny back.” Well-known knife dealer Jim Taylor, who grew up in Sheffield, England, remembered the penny for a knife custom as it was practiced in his family. In fact, the practice was so widespread at one time that according to Cutlery Hall-of-Famer Bernard Levine, one of the foremost knife writers and folklorists, Gerber knives were often sold in the 1940s with an accompanying card that explained the penny for a knife tradition.