Western Reserve Cutlery Association Knife show

I had a lot of fun at Western Reserve Cutlery Association annual knife show. This year it was held at the Dover Armory. Nothing can beat the atmosphere of the Warther Museum, but the Armory had a lot more space.



Parking was crowded, but at lot of us parked down the street and walked back to make more room for customers.

I meet a young man who bought a Boker ceramic bladed folder with a Titanium handle at a flee market for $10.00. It’s a little worn, but the new list price is $285. He was hoping to find a good deal at the show, I doubt it , but you can never tell.

Surely, there must be a treasure in this display.  Actually there was.  I fould a spatula knife marked "Arthur Thomas Co." (A famious name in scientific equipment)  At $80 it was out of my price range.

The hall was packed with vendors and potential customers, as well as a few tire kickers. I sold quite a few Rough Riders, chiefly Sunfish and Elephant Toenails as well as CRTK new Ken Onion design Ripple. I was planning to keep that one, but someone wanted it too badly.

                                                                 My favorite table

I’ve heard a lot of questions over the years. “Who makes that knife?” “What’s the steel?” “Who are they? I never heard of them before?” One I hear and dread is “Where’s it made?” For many people it is less of a matter of the company reputation as it is not-made-America. I usually remain polite, but I stop trying to help the customer.  They are usually after inexpensive non-existant American knife.

Of course, American made knives tend to be expensive.  Benchmade is now made in America as more and more of Buck. The prices go up. High prices aren’t epidemic only to made-in-American companies. Spyderco, who I think has some of the best knives around, come from Seki-City Japan. They are excellent quality but the prices are hitting new highs.

It’s not often I can be surprised, but I heard a question I never heard before. The vendor next to me sells only high end knives. He had a custom made knife from South Africa, with warthog ivory inserts and an anodized blade. The prospective customer heard Africa and wanted to know if a black man made the knife. I’m still amazed by that question.

CDI FACTOR

Are assisted openers passé?

I sold a lot of them several years ago, but the trend seems to be tailing off. The number of prospective customs asking about them is down. I don’t carry an assisted opener. My Spyderco or SOG opens fast enough for me. And somehow, despite the quality seen in Buck, SOG, CRTK and so many others they feel delicate to me. I guess the CDI* factor is cooling off.

I haven’t noticed manufacturers reducing the numbers of assisted openers made, but I suspect they often lag behind everyone else. It takes time to bring a new knife on line and while closing a line is easy, you got to have something to replace it.

Assisted openers are illegal in Canada and knives are just about illegal in England. The scarier trend is seen in Spyderco’s new catalog. They have been making for a couple years that they call slip-its, non-locking pocket knives. But now they are making small blade slip-its. This is in response to cities, like Cleveland and Chicago; they have laws against knife blades longer than 1.5 inch. Of course these laws only apply to non-criminal.

By the way…Benchmade is making all their knives in the USA. I found only one or two Harley brand knives identified as imports.



* Chicks Dig It

Forcasts: Weather and Economic

The federals report the economy is picking up, but the knife index say not yet. I don’t know about you but I trust knife index better that anything the fed puts out.

What is this index? It’s difficult to explain as Lucy use to say to Ricky. It’s a complicated formula that looks at the amount of quality knife sales ($25 bucks and up) minus the square root of E raised to the power of cheap knife sales (under $25 bucks). This sum is divided by the sum of linear inches of knives re-sharpened. You look that number up on the T-A chart factoring outside temperature and total number of attendee to the knife show and well, there it is.

And right now it doesn’t look to great.

I think knife sales are a great indicator. Most people have one or two. Most people don’t mind adding another one to the collection if they have a few extra bucks to spend. So depressed knife sales points to a depressed economy.

A couple weeks –ends ago I went to a show outside of Pittsburg. We took a chance; the forcast was for light dusting of snow. My wife and I arrived just in time to settle in to the Red Roof Inn befor the dusting grew to clumping. We woke up to 21 inches of show, a semi plowed parking lot and no electrical power. At least my knives were safe. They were at the show where they had electricity heat and guards.

The hotel had one cracked snow shovel that the 20 or 30 of us had to use to dig out our cars. Finally the motel, in response to out pathetic cries for help, broke out their ultimate snow removal tool: a long handled coal shovel. Woo Hoo! Now we’re making progress. I’d shovel until I got tired and pass the shovel to the next guy, who would shovel until he got tired and passed it on to the next guy.

It was one of the few times I was convinced a bigger knife would not have helped me.