Blade Show: T minus 1 And Counting Down

We’ve arrived at the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly Hotel, the home of the east coast Blade Show. It’s a very nice hotel, big and comfortable, deserving of a big name. I’m going to call it the hotel.


The Blade Show is setting up and only vendors and display staff are allowed in the hall. Mere mortals like myself are shunned from paradise, at least until tomorrow. I’ve got two Blade VIP passes from a friend at Spyderco which will grant us early entrance tomorrow at noon. This elevated status ends at 2:00 when everyone is let in.


What does it take to be a VIP? Do you have to write an article, sell/buy $20k in knives a year? Nope, just throw money at them or know someone in the business.


Everyone thinks the best deals are made during this 2-hour interval. Nope. The best deals happened prior to the show. Buyers and sellers are just meeting to consummate the deal. It’s like an arranged marriage, but no crying on the wedding night. The second best time is tonight and tomorrow after dinner. People will wander down into the hotel lobby, drink, tell tall tales and show off knives. If you’re in the right place and time with some stories of your own and wad of cash, you could score big.


Here’s the first photo of the Blade Show, the main entrance. From this point on it will never be this empty. Tomorrow through Sunday the entrance will be alive with people.

The trip down here through the rest of Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia wasn’t bad. Hot, but overcast which is not a bad combination for travel by car. I must be used to Georgia drivers. They didn’t seem too bad, so far. Last year I almost got a ticket for safe driving, but I convinced the state trooper to let me off with a warning and a promise to never use my turn signal to change lanes. Seems the local drivers don’t know what to make of proper lane changes.

Blade show 2001

Blade Show – T minus 2

The Knife Guy is on the road. My destination is not Atlanta, Georgia but the Blade Show held just outside of Atlanta. It’s been a good trip. My wife and I stopped in Cincinnati to have dinner with my brother and then it was on to the overnight stop in northern Kentucky.


So far my biggest problem is deciding which knives to carry. The initial decision was to have travel knives and show knives. This resulted in two major decisions. (Hey! To me they were major.). This process is moving me in the wrong direction, but I’m going to stick with it.


Last year I noticed most of the attendees had several knives on them. It was the polite icebreaker to ask, “So what are you carrying?” This required you to be able to show the knife off. More than one person had a belt hatchet but I didn’t see any swords so I figured I’d be safe with pocket knives.


I selected my SOG Spec Elite and my byrd Pelican. The lower case 'b' on byrd is correct. The trade name does not have a capital letter. The Pelican with its sheepsfoot blade has been discontinued, but I still think it’s a fine knife.


The show knives were not as diverse. I selected Spyderco’s PPT and a Santa Fe Stoneworks reworked Police model in blue-dyed mastodon molar. For a third knife I selected Ka-Bar’s original TDI fixed blade self-defense knife.


Since Benchmade is going to be present, I brought a Benchmade auto that has 'pre-production' marked on the back of the blade. I hope to find out what that is about.


It’s been a hot day and beer has been iced down for about half an hour so it’s time to sign off. Tune in tomorrow for another report.

Old and New Friends

I’m looking forward to seeing old friends at the Blade Show.


Santa Fe Stoneworks will be there and their work is hard to beat. I own several and I can’t bring myself to use them. They’re made to be used, but they are just too nice. I’m not one to carry an unusable knife. I recently cut my lawn and pondered the growing dandelion population. I don’t like to use weed killer, but I do. Unfortunately bad weather prevented me from dosing the lawn. My pocket knife let me cut the subsurface roots and remove the weeds. That made the blade butter knife dull. And that’s okay, 'cause they’re tools I use and I can resharpen.

Of course my favorite knife company Spyderco will be there. I like these people. I like their products, and I have a sweet spot for them. After I wrote my first article on the Bob Lum (green) Chinese Folder they mailed me a congratulations card for getting published. It meant a lot to me.

Ka-Bar is another company that has helped me and I look forward to seeing them. John Benner from TDI is a classic and I recommend his school to everyone. I hope he’s at the Ka-Bar booth. Both my wife and I look forward to seeing him.

There’s a few companies not listed that I’ll miss. Blind Horse Knives doesn’t have a table or booth, nor does James Pengov. I met James at a gun show, admired his engravings and helped get him a table at the yearly WRCA Show. No, I didn’t pull any strings. I just lent him my cell phone and encouraged him to call and reserve a table. His work does the rest and I have no question about his success.

I’m not a dedicated collector. I buy, save or use knives that catch my eye, fill a need or a concern. Because of this, it’s doubtful I ever have the type of collection relatives will fight over. I take a perverse sense of pride in this. So it’s interesting to see a new venue at the show.

This year’s Blade Show, sponsored by Tactical Gear Magazine (tactical = $$$ + black), will also be the Tactical Gear Show. Your Blade Show ticket is good for the gear show which runs the same time. If you are confused about the connection between knives and tactical (I’m not, but some of you may be) check the equation above.