Blade Show West Cancelled for 2010

Blade Magazine cancels the Pacific Northwest knife event

F+W Media President, David Blansfield, cites economy for canceling this year’s show. Blade Magazine is owned by F+W Media.

“Given the state of the exhibitor economy at present we have decided not to produce Blade Show West in 2010, but we will produce the event in subsequent years when we’re confident exhibitors will be able to support it.”

David Blansfield President, F+W Media

The good news is their 700 exhibitor Atlanta Show, the world’s largest knife show, scheduled for June 4, 5 and 6th 2010 is not affected by this decision and is full steam ahead.

Knife Museum fundraiser declared a success

Knoxville paper covers knife museum fundraiser

As a publisher of electronic knife collector news, I love it when the traditional print media covers happenings in our knife world. You know, when a newspaper prints a story about a collector trend, an event or even a significant aspect of our hobby.

This morning, as I was writing/struggling in an in-depth CNJ article on Knife Condition Grades, an email pops in my Inbox alerting me about new knife news. I stopped immediately, clicked though and found a great story in the Knoxville News Sentinel about the National Knife Museum fundraiser held weekend before last.

The event was co-sponsored by Smoky Mountain Knife Works, W. R. Case & Sons Cutlery Company and the National Knife Museum in Sevierville, Tenn.

The point of the story is over $4000 was raised for the Knife Museum. While the museum is a sister organization to the National Knife Collectors Association, it is a totally separate entity and survives from donations and exhibitor fees.

As an aside, yours truly did go to this event but was too busy buying knives to cover the event 🙂 Had my collector hat on that day. Well, what can I say……other than- I had success there too.

Source: Knoxville News Sentinel- Knife swap meet raisers $4000 for museum

2009 Blade Show- everything I hoped for!

2009 Blade Show

The Blade Show is the real deal.

Very few things in life live up to my expectations (sad, but true), however, the 2009 Blade Show was everything I hoped.

I could feel the excitement the minute I stepped into the huge hall. Imagine standing in an indoor football coliseum-sized room crammed full of folks buying, selling and talking knives!

The room was totally high energy. Everywhere you looked was cutlery- from knives dating back to the Viking age, to cool customs and traditional pocket knives too, but the center of attention was the tactical knives. Thousands attended along with 700 exhibitors and most everyone had good traffic, and yet it was the knife companies displaying their hottest new tacticals that saw the throngs of consumers lined up three and four deep that dominated the show.

The tactical excitment was very contagious, and this coming from an old knife guy- pun intended- the latest hi-tech designs are off the charts. Needless to say, I heard the siren’s song too and bought my first-  from Mantis Knives. It is their just released Jyro. Way too cool.

After spending almost 20 hours in the exhibition room, I was overwhelmed with the friendliness of everyone there- from the executives of the major manufacturers, to the established custom maker and other attendees. It was close to a class reunion, even though the 2009 Blade Show was my first!

I’ll be reporting over the next week about other impressions and happenings, but wanted to provide you a high-level perspective of this killer show. The folks at Blade know how to run a show. It was perfect. I appreciate them allowing me to record the show from a collector’s and industry perspective.

Batson Bladesmithing Symposium

Weekend Edition

Our Weekend Edition called for CNJ to send a reporter and video crew to cover Baston’s Bladesmithing Symposium near Birmingham, Alabama today. Serve weather is coming through now, so we’ll see.

Demonstrations run til noon, then a show, followed by an auction. Maybe we could cover it for the Weather Channel while we’re there. It should clear up later today, but right now it is just a matter of going from Point A to Point B.

The event is going on at Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park.

Later that same day…..

I have good news and bad news.

The Good News is about mid-day, I finally got the all clear on the weather, so took off for the hour and a half drive to Tannehill Ironworks State Park.

The Bad News is once I got there I found out it was not this weekend, but the next.

Normally, I would be a miffed doing something dumb like this, but it was OK because it gave me a chance to spend some quality time with Shelby.

Best of Show- NCKA Knife Show

Weekend Edition

We are all winners when knife folks support the knife community by taking the time and preparation to enter knife show contests.

Earlier this week, we focused on knife displays and their benefits to collectors and the exhibitors. There is also another contest held at most knife shows, and it is the Best of the Show Custom Knife. So, without further ado allow me to present the two Best of Show winners of the NKCA’s show in Dalton earlier this month.

BEST OF SHOW- KNIFE DISPLAY

Gary Kennedy's Hunter & Trapper Display

Gary displayed an excellent collection of Case hunters and trappers.

BEST OF SHOW- CUSTOM KNIFE

Doug Casteel's Dark Shadow (click to enlarge)

Knife maker Doug Casteel of Monteagle, TN describes the knife and making process for us-

Doug Casteel- Best of Show Winner

“First, the blade is 12 inches long and overall the knife is 16 1/4 inches. The handle is of Picasso marble and resembles bare winter trees at dusk in colors of black and gray.

The blade is carved and pierced in a scroll pattern. The pattern was first cut into the steel with a graver and the material between the scrolls was removed with drills.  Once this was finished, I detailed the holes to match the scroll with small burrs and diamond carvers, this took a very long time. I use very fine pure sand and blast the areas I wish to texture.  These areas are then rubbed with black enamel until the proper shades of black and gray are complete.”

6th Annual NW Georgia Knife Show

Future NKCA President

This weekend, the National Knife Collectors Association sponsored Dalton Knife Show finished strong and the Association declared the show a resounding success.

Even in the midst of a serve economic recession, knife folks turned out, both dealers and collectors. The current conditions didn’t seem to have a measurable impact. In fact, dealer participation surpassed the NCKA’s expectations. I don’t have access to the door receipts, but witnessed a good crowd overall for the show that started mid-day Friday and ran through 2:00 today.

The crowd of buyers ranged from the hard-core serious collectors on Friday to the general public on Saturday and Sunday. The NKCA reached out to the Boy and Girl Scouts in the area and I saw several youngsters in attendance over the weekend.

There was a good mix of knives for sale from everyday carry knives, to high-end antiques and customs. I even saw several antique knife displays available also.

Additional information from the show will be topics later this week, but allow me to say, the show was FUN. Make plans to attend one of the others scheduled throughout the year.

2009 Shot Show News Update

CNJ’s roving reporters were out on field assignments this past weekend, so we weren’t able to cover the 2009 Shot Show in Orlando. The official daily news summaries provided by their news reporters and are loaded on their site.

Looks like some good knife stuff got introduced. I know Case was rolling out their 09 product line there too. 

I was able to find out Case officially introduced a new TrapperLock, as reported in ShotDaily.

 

“The new Case TrapperLock offers a more modern liner-locking clip blade that opens with just one hand. It is offered with a stainless-steel saber blade, concave ground and fitted with a specially engraved torque screw for smooth one-handed opening. Other features include nickel-silver end bolsters and a Case oval shield on the handle. The new Case TrapperLock measures 41/8 inches when closed and weighs 3.4 ounces.” 

Knife Shows are Fun

Weekend Edition

Parker’s Knife Show Sevierville, Tennessee

In last week’s post, we concluded Knife Shows are the lifeblood of our hobby, and the longer we collect, the more enjoyment we receive from the people who like knives as much as we do. The knives are good too, but without other folks it wouldn’t be much fun- now would it?

Well as promised, I attended Parker’s Knife Show in Sevierville, Tennessee and captured the essence and characters of the show.

By “characters” here I’m not meaning that these people are “actors,” though they do play their parts, instead I mean they are “interesting and amusing individuals”- as in real characters!

If you have been around collecting for very long, you will know many of these folks, and will agree, boy are they characters. The knives are pretty cool too.

Knife Weekend Recap

Weekend Edition

Parker's Knife Show Nov. 2008

If you have been following CNJ the last few days, you know I have been at Parker’s Knife Show. 

I was able to spend Wednesday through mid-day Saturday “playing” with knives (that is the way my wife looks at it anyway).

I made my rounds and talked with lots of folks about a wide range of knife related topics.

Had my first opportunity to tour the National Knife Collectors Associaton’s Knife Museum while I was there too. Got some good footage of the museum I’ll be adding to the CNJ YouTube Channel later this week. If you haven’t toured the museum yet, you gotta go. 

From my conversations the Knife Show attendance and dealer sales did very well, despite the down economy. Lower gas prices helped the turnout and all the tables were sold and packed with dealers displaying their knives.

I’ll work up my findings and some additional observations for posting this week.

Knife Shows are the lifeblood of Knife Collecting

 

One of the best parts of knife collecting is going to the shows, but I have to tell you, I used to not feel this way. Instead, I thought shows were just a remnant of the old days (old timers swapping knives among themselves) and that their days were numbered. 

The first time I went to a show I drove 3.5 hours one way. I made my way up and down the rows and then was ready to go- partly a result of my personality (Type A- Task Oriented), but the other was I didn’t know any of the guys behind the table.

Then I began to meet knife folks and now I realize why knife shows are so important. Knife shows are for the people- on a personal level. Knife Shows fill the need of the social side of our hobby. It’s kinda like a reunion, of sorts, and in a way it isn’t really about the knives at all.

As much of a fan of the Internet (and knife forums) as I am, nothing substitutes for the one-on-one fellowship knife shows provide. Now instead of thinking they are leftovers from an era gone by, I now realize knife shows are the lifeblood of the hobby.

It wouldn’t be much fun, or very rewarding, if we just sat behind our computers buying knives without being able to see and experience the real heart of our hobby. Knife Shows are every bit as much a part of our hobby as the knives.

Today I am headed to Parker’s Show in Sevierville, Tennessee. If you come look me up. I’ll be the guy walking around with a video camera & recorder capturing the essence and characters of the show.