Blade Show 2014

The 2014 Blade Show is over.

A sick laptop prevented me from reporting from Atlanta, GA.  Over the next couple of weeks I’ll review some of the highs and lows of Blade.

But here’s a taste.

While not the providence of the Blade Show, one has to reflect on the Cobb Convention Center.  I will say that if the standard of Atlanta is poor service, the Cobb lived up to it.  The adjoining hotel was overbooked, so everyone associated with the show had to check out Sunday morning because a new convention was arriving that day.  The breakfast area in the hotel, which was open only for a rather nice, but expensive breakfast, was torn down and under construction.  I don’t know where hotel guests ate breakfast.  I was lucky.  I stayed off-site and will again.

At the Cobb Convention Center, the escalator down to the poorly staffed and unorganized food court was partially broken.  You could get down, but not back up to the show.  The elevator for wheelchairs and elderly was also broken.  If there were stairs they were well hidden.  So you had to walk out of the building, around to the front, reenter the building and take the (soon to be also broken) lobby escalator up to the show floor.  Despite it being Friday, no evidence of workers was present.

The restrooms were poorly managed.  Several restrooms off the beaten path were clean and quickly locked once the staff discovered people were using them.  Fortunately there were no riots over toilet paper.  In the hallways there were no places to sit, except in the one-way food court, and most of the meeting rooms with chairs were kept locked.  Soon people sprawled on the floor and leaned against walls.  I spent so much time on my feet that they felt like sore marshmallows every morning despite icing them down in the evenings.

What about the Blade Show, or am I going to just bitch about the facilities?

The VIP line 3 hours before the show opened!

The first thing you need to understand is there aren’t many changes you can make to a knife.  A knife is basically a sharpened edge and a handle.  Normally some way of protecting the edge from the environment and your fingers is included.  The two most popular ways are a sheath and folding/retracting the blade into the handle.  Most manufacturers use one or both of these methods.  But not always.  Busse Knife Co. sells all their knives sans sheath.  Just a cardboard tube to protect you from the edge.

Given this basic concept it quickly becomes apparent that most if not all the tables have some variation on this, like everyone else.

The differences become apparent in the types of material used, the skill of the craftsman, the artistic vision and the execution.  Truly originally ideas are rare.

The next most exciting thing to see is the positioning of each company in the knife market.  For example:

Kershaw has purchased several designs from Emerson.  It’s always best to talk to people on Sunday at Blade.  By then they’re tired and often the true story, or at least part of it, is told.  More on that later.  Just know that:

• Emerson’s CQC-7 with Wave retails at $225
• Kershaw’s CQC-7K with Wave retails at $60.

Spyderco reports that more and more countries are banning friction folding knives as well as locked blades.  The slip joint market is growing.  New designs like Spyderco’s PITS (Pie in the Sky) by British knife maker Mike Read show promise.  Mike’s design is such that the more pressure you place on the spring while cutting, the harder it is to close the blade.  Was this a purposeful design feature?  I asked Joyce Laturi about that.  Joyce suggests,  “…People decide to do what they can within the letter of the law so they can carry a knife…”

Still waiting!  

Are you a criminal?  Maybe not, but you could soon be an outlaw.  The domestic ivory ban, President Obama’s directive 210 makes it illegal to sell ivory harvested before the 1980s ban passed by Congress.  While the directive is focused on elephant ivory collected after the ban, enforcement is given sweeping powers to declare you guilty and force you to prove your innocence.  While the US Fish and Wildlife service stated in Sept 2012, “...Illegal ivory in the U.S. was not significant,”  they are now working for the “virtual elimination of all commercial trade in elephant ivory,” according to Dan Ashe, Director USFWS.  You’ll being seeing more on this later.

CRKT Imported Knife of  2014.  It's a nice knife!  

I learned how to turn an impossibly dull knife into a workable dull knife with 'mud-on-a-stick.'  I'll have more on that too!

The Blade Show isn’t about knives.  That’s just the excuse.  It’s really about people and their knives.