The Amazing Virginian
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- Joined
- Feb 24, 2010
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I will try to supplement this over the next few days, but for those of you who could not make it to the Blade Show, I thought I would post my impressions, and see if anyone else wants to chime in.
* Attendance seemed strong to me on Friday and Saturday. Better than I remember the past 4 or 5 years anyway. I wasn't there Sunday so I can't speak to that.
* As usual, I just did not have enough time or energy to see everything there. There was just so much more I wanted to see, but not enough time. The time just flies . . . it is a bit frustrating.
* I saw more good quality mammoth ivory, fossil walrus ivory, and especially stag than I remember seeing in the past few years. I even found some nice large pieces of black lip and gold lip pearl. Prices were high in many cases, but at least there was some availability. I had a much more difficult time finding nice large pieces of African blackwood.
* There still seems to me to be a market dichotomy with high demand and long wait lists for certain makers with expensive (several thousand dollar) knives at the very high end of the market, and slower sales for many makers of more modestly priced fixed blades.
* Every year it seems to me that a few more top makers abandon this show. In fact, of the 25 or 30 makers whose work most interests me, at this point we are down to about ten who attend this show. Just a few of the makers who I missed are Rodrigo Sfreddo, Tim Hancock, Larry Fuegen, Thad Buchanan, Bruce Bump, Van Barnett . . . And of course many of my favorite makers who were there had nothing for sale, or maybe one knife for sale. But at least they did bring knives we could see and hold, and I appreciate that.
* Some memorable pieces to me . . . a spectacular art knife by Arpad Bojtos (my favorite knife of the show), John Horrigan's Persian hunter, Kyle Royer's enormous ivory Bowie, Ron Newton's epic carved Chinese dragon dagger and his "Texas Filligree" dagger, John White's take-down dagger with gold inlay and engraving by Brian Hochstrat and his fancy Bowie with an amazing fossil walrus ivory handle and rust-browned Damascus fittings, Sam Lurquin's Tsavo Project prototype, the collaboration Tembo Bowie auction knife for elephant preservation, J.R. Cook's carved pearl handle knife, Grace Horne's scissors . . .
* Atlanta is a great venue for this show IMO, but I guess I would like to see it rotate to some other venue out west at least once every few years . . . maybe Dallas or Denver or Vegas or even LA.
* Attendance seemed strong to me on Friday and Saturday. Better than I remember the past 4 or 5 years anyway. I wasn't there Sunday so I can't speak to that.
* As usual, I just did not have enough time or energy to see everything there. There was just so much more I wanted to see, but not enough time. The time just flies . . . it is a bit frustrating.
* I saw more good quality mammoth ivory, fossil walrus ivory, and especially stag than I remember seeing in the past few years. I even found some nice large pieces of black lip and gold lip pearl. Prices were high in many cases, but at least there was some availability. I had a much more difficult time finding nice large pieces of African blackwood.
* There still seems to me to be a market dichotomy with high demand and long wait lists for certain makers with expensive (several thousand dollar) knives at the very high end of the market, and slower sales for many makers of more modestly priced fixed blades.
* Every year it seems to me that a few more top makers abandon this show. In fact, of the 25 or 30 makers whose work most interests me, at this point we are down to about ten who attend this show. Just a few of the makers who I missed are Rodrigo Sfreddo, Tim Hancock, Larry Fuegen, Thad Buchanan, Bruce Bump, Van Barnett . . . And of course many of my favorite makers who were there had nothing for sale, or maybe one knife for sale. But at least they did bring knives we could see and hold, and I appreciate that.
* Some memorable pieces to me . . . a spectacular art knife by Arpad Bojtos (my favorite knife of the show), John Horrigan's Persian hunter, Kyle Royer's enormous ivory Bowie, Ron Newton's epic carved Chinese dragon dagger and his "Texas Filligree" dagger, John White's take-down dagger with gold inlay and engraving by Brian Hochstrat and his fancy Bowie with an amazing fossil walrus ivory handle and rust-browned Damascus fittings, Sam Lurquin's Tsavo Project prototype, the collaboration Tembo Bowie auction knife for elephant preservation, J.R. Cook's carved pearl handle knife, Grace Horne's scissors . . .
* Atlanta is a great venue for this show IMO, but I guess I would like to see it rotate to some other venue out west at least once every few years . . . maybe Dallas or Denver or Vegas or even LA.
