To the OP: Congrats on getting your gift!
About the pennies -- A lot of old folks believed that giving a knife to someone was an omen of bad luck.
Instead of justing giving the knife as a gift, the person would "sell" it to the recipient for a few cents or maybe a nickel.
It sounds like the beliefs of the Darlings, a fictional mountain family who were on a few episodes of The Andy Griffith Show...(if a man in black rides a white horse east to west under a full moon in front of a bride and groom, the betrothed are cursed and the union is cursed...)
About the pennies -- A lot of old folks believed that giving a knife to someone was an omen of bad luck.
Instead of justing giving the knife as a gift, the person would "sell" it to the recipient for a few cents or maybe a nickel.
It sounds like the beliefs of the Darlings, a fictional mountain family who were on a few episodes of The Andy Griffith Show...(if a man in black rides a white horse east to west under a full moon in front of a bride and groom, the betrothed are cursed and the union is cursed...)