2015 Blade Show Knife of the Year Awards Winners

RamZar

RamZar

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Mar 3, 2013
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  • Overall Knife Of The Year®: LionSteel T.R.E. (Three Rapid Exchange)
  • American-Made Knife Of The Year®: Zero Tolerance 0999
  • Imported Knife Of The Year®: Spyderco Nirvana
  • Most Innovative American Design: Koenig Zenaida
  • Most Innovative Imported Design: Fox Knives Desert Fox
  • Best Buy Of The Year: Spyderco Byrd Knife Cara Cara 2
  • Kitchen Knife Of The Year®: KAI USA Shun Limited Edition Chef’s Knife
  • Investor/Collector Knife Of The Year®: Pro-Tech Warenski Ultimate Godfather Knife
  • Collaboration Of The Year®: RMJ Tactical/Bawidamann Blades
  • Manufacturing Quality Award: Chris Reeve Knives
  • Accessory Of The Year: Wicked Edge Generation 3 Pro
  • People’s Choice Knife Of The Year®: Taylor Brands Schrade SCHF36 Frontier Knife
  • Industry Achievement Award: Shepherd Hills Cutlery
  • Publisher’s Award: Elephant Protection Association
  • BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame© Inductee: Chris Reeve
 
Congrats to all the winners. You earned it.

Although I do question the People’s Choice Knife Of The Year winner. Out of all the possible choices the majority chose a plain jane, cheap priced Schrade fixie?
I may be calling shenanigans on that one. Or ballot stuffing at the very least.
 
Seeing that the Spyderco Nirvana picked up 'Imported Knife of the Year' only makes the wait tougher... Congratulations to Spyderco and Peter Rassenti, and I hope to see it soon!

Balance has been restored to the universe, apparently, as Chris Reeve retakes the 'Manufacturing Quality Award', after 'loaning it out' to Lionsteel in 2014; that was the one year out of the last dozen-or-so it hasn't went to CRK. He also takes his place in the Blade Hall-of-Fame, so congrats.

Way to go, Lionsteel! Two years in a row! The Hi-Jinx win for 'OKotY 2014' goes to them, IMO; all CRKT did was vandalize it with their logo.

Kai has to make due with two: I'm still not sure about the 0999, but the more I see of it, the more I like it. The same goes for the RJ Martin 'Factory Custom'. I'm surprised the 0606 didn't take 'Collaboration of the Year'.

I agree completely that the People's Choice Award seems like a bizarre pick, but in all fairness, I haven't seen it. I don't pay much attention to Schrade. Maybe the last few folks buying Blade Magazine do? Actually, I still read Blade, but it's more out of habit than anything else. I haven't seen pics yet of the Lionsteel that took the big award, but it beat some stiff competition.
 
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Actually, the Lionsteel winning is a product of the import koty category being weak.

If 500 people are voting and for import koty there are only two real front runners (nothing in the case was anywhere close to as nice as the Lionsteel or the nirvana) both knives are going to rack up a bunch of votes.

If those people then vote for American koty and there are 4 or 5 real front runners (0999, small sebenza 25, new microtech and a couple others I can't remember) their total votes are going to be less than the weaker import category.

Its weird how it works. Remember overall koty is determined by the top vote getter in American and Import. Whichever has the most votes total wins.

If you have a year where one category has one decent knife and a ton of garbage and the other category is filled with 10 absolutely stunning amazing knives, that adequate knife is winning overall koty because it's going to get almost all the votes for the category.
 
LionSteel T.R.E. has great products

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I'm just glad Chris Reeve got his award back as it should be. The world is back to normal again.
 
Three of my favorites won again like last year: LionSteel, Zero Tolerance and Spyderco (Taichung, Taiwan).

Chris Reeve Knives ruled again deservedly in Manufacturing Quality which it has won almost every year since 2000 except for 2002 (William Henry?) and 2014 (LionSteel)!
 
Thanks for posting this information, I was wondering about the winners:thumbup:

Congratulations to all the winners!
 
Nellem said:
I'm just glad Chris Reeve got his award back as it should be. The world is back to normal again.
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Yep. I missed seeing his name in the highlights. I was looking for it...and delighted to see it where it belongs.
Thanks, Ram
 
NorthernSouthpaw said:
Congrats to all the winners. You earned it.

Although I do question the People’s Choice Knife Of The Year winner. Out of all the possible choices the majority chose a plain jane, cheap priced Schrade fixie?
I may be calling shenanigans on that one. Or ballot stuffing at the very least.
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The only thing I question about the SCHF36 is why the short one? The 37 will do everything it can and more because it's longer. But I own a SCHF37 so I am a little biased. I bet it was them pesky bushcrafters who think short blades are better than long blades.

If you ever use one all day the only question you will have at the end of the day is why you would pay 2-3x more for lesser knives because of their name. They are that good. You won't even worry about its price at the end of the day.
 
Scurvy092 said:
Actually, the Lionsteel winning is a product of the import koty category being weak.

If 500 people are voting and for import koty there are only two real front runners (nothing in the case was anywhere close to as nice as the Lionsteel or the nirvana) both knives are going to rack up a bunch of votes.

If those people then vote for American koty and there are 4 or 5 real front runners (0999, small sebenza 25, new microtech and a couple others I can't remember) their total votes are going to be less than the weaker import category.

Its weird how it works. Remember overall koty is determined by the top vote getter in American and Import. Whichever has the most votes total wins.

If you have a year where one category has one decent knife and a ton of garbage and the other category is filled with 10 absolutely stunning amazing knives, that adequate knife is winning overall koty because it's going to get almost all the votes for the category.
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:thumbup: That's interesting stuff, Scurvy, I wasn't sure how it worked. So ZT, Benchmade, Microtech and the American Spyderco's, etc. have a tougher time of it, splitting the vote counts in their category too evenly, while knives like the Hi-Jinx (last year), Lionsteel TRE, and Nirvana were probably blow-outs in the Import category. I didn't realize the Overall was selected based on votes drawn from those two pools. And thanks for posting the winners, Ramzar. :)
 
Thanks for the info Scurvy
Although, in fairness to the TRE, It did lose out to the Nirvana (Which should've won overall too IMO) for imported KOTY. So there was at least some catching up to do.
 
Best collaboration is definitely deserving of RMJ and Bawidmann! The Ragnarock is an amazing Tomahawk! If I could have got the funds together in enough time I would have put money down for one. If one of the 12 inch size ever becomes available, will have to make the purchase!
 
People's Choice is interesting.

A $25 imported piece in 1095 steel. Order one from KC and the note on the bottom states "**Please note: Grind may be uneven from factory."

The style isn't innovative (sharpened prybar, really), it isn't well finished, you could pretty much pick up its twin at your local gas station.

The people have spoken, I suppose.
 
Velitrius said:
People's Choice is interesting.

A $25 imported piece in 1095 steel. Order one from KC and the note on the bottom states "**Please note: Grind may be uneven from factory."

The style isn't innovative (sharpened prybar, really), it isn't well finished, you could pretty much pick up its twin at your local gas station.

The people have spoken, I suppose.
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oK I've changed my mind. I'm callin' it......

SHENANIGANS!!
 
NorthernSouthpaw said:
Thanks for the info Scurvy
Although, in fairness to the TRE, It did lose out to the Nirvana (Which should've won overall too IMO) for imported KOTY. So there was at least some catching up to do.
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No it didn't. Whatever category the winner is drawn from, second place gets that category's award.

TRE was the top vote getter in imports. The Nirvana was the second. The zt0999 was the top vote getter in American koty. The TRE got more votes for Import koty (because the Nirvana was the only real competition) than the 0999 got votes for American (because there were 4 or 5 really solid entries that diluted the votes).
 
Technically you could have overall knife of the year be some really crappy knife if one category is super super weak and the other category is a murderers row of epicness.
 
NorthernSouthpaw said:
oK I've changed my mind. I'm callin' it......

SHENANIGANS!!
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Hahahhaa, perhaps so. But just maybe there were enough people who were impressed by a simple nylon sheath with a ferro rod and stone in it. Perhaps it was the price tag that people marveled over. I don't know, but I'd love to sit down with a beer and ask some of the voters what they saw.

Now Abba and Madonna getting into the Rock & Roll hall of fame before KISS, Metallica and Alice Cooper? THAT, my friend, is SHENANIGANS.
 
Velitrius said:
Hahahhaa, perhaps so. But just maybe there were enough people who were impressed by a simple nylon sheath with a ferro rod and stone in it. Perhaps it was the price tag that people marveled over. I don't know, but I'd love to sit down with a beer and ask some of the voters what they saw.

Now Abba and Madonna getting into the Rock & Roll hall of fame before KISS, Metallica and Alice Cooper? THAT, my friend, is SHENANIGANS.
Click to expand...

A bunch of people dig overbuilt knives, 1095 has the reputation to help it sell and it retails for $25. It's not my cup of tea, but I wouldn't be shocked if it outsells every one of my favorite knives combined.
 
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