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.

Is and Isn’t: Memorial Day

May 30 is a grass roots holiday.  It was first started in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania in 1864 when local people decorated the graves of Civil War soldiers.  The trend spread and soon became a “ritual of remembrance and reconciliation.”  Following the War-To-End-All-Wars, Congress included the dead from the First World War.

Now the reality is that it honors all our brothers and sisters who served, many of whom died in service to our country.  We call it Memorial Day.

It never was meant as a sales promotion for Mega-Mart.

It’s a time to reflect on the sacrifice the living and dead have made for our country and, by extension, us.

It isn’t just a day off to mark the beginning of summer.

It is a time to have family around you.  The death of each of these men and women ended a family line of possibilities.  Who knows what other friends and family would gather with us if these lives were not cut short.  Their sacrifice makes us their spiritual descendents and we should honor that every day.

It’s not a time to catch up on house or yard work, but it may be a time to tend to forgotten service mens’ graves.

Use Memorial Day to celebrate your freedoms any way you want including the sale at Mega-Mart.  Just remember that someone paid the price for that freedom.  Spend it wisely.