Ethan Becker
Moderator
- Joined
- Sep 1, 1999
- Messages
- 3,564
It is really difficult to sum up Blackie Collins in several volumes let alone a few paragraphs but I am gonna try........Greatest knife designer of the twentieth century--- sure----Almost a given.... If anybody has another candidate I would love to hear who it might be......He and his brother Michael (another great knife talent)either alone or together ( I get confused sometimes) started Collins Brothers and produced and designed one of the very best skeleton dive knives ever (a project for Jaques Cousteau), Blade Magazine (genesis for the Blade Show)...He worked for Pete Gerber and did a bunch of very successful designs (the bolt action comes to mind)....He did clever stuff for RB Jenkins at Benchmark, one of the industries most innovative companies.....Meyerco produced a bunch of his stuff......The list goes on and on and on....
It was rumored that Blackie had half a dozen patent attorneys on speed dial and that after walking the SHOT Show he had them all busy.....Apocryphal, probably but, his mind was so inventive and threw out so many really GOOD ideas and held so many patents that it COULD be true......He was AWESOME.......
I first became aware of Blackie(and Michael) at a National Sporting goods Show before the shootin' and huntin' guys split off and created SHOT Show......I was Making mountain climbing gear and Blackie and Michael were a few booths down.....I went over to see that damn dive knife so often that it severely cut into my selling my own stuff.....I ordered one and called the brothers bitching loudly and repeatedly until they shipped (Michael and I had a good laugh over that several decades later).....At a Show in Atlanta when I first started to make Machaxes I ran into Wallace Fennell at the Gerber booth.... Wallace was a childhood friend of the Collins brothers and after he ordered a Machax on the spot he introduced me to Blackie by saying "look at the knife this boys got".... Blackie gave me a purchase order for two Machaxes with the words," I will USE this knife" and my head swelled so damn big that I had trouble getting it into my car.......At that point I knew diddly squat about the people in the knife business but I KNEW who Blackie Collins was and I knew he was big time !!!.....
Blackie and I saw each other at numerous shows over a lot of years and were friendly but not close...... I wish that I had known him a lot better....One of the impediments to that, I think, is that by the time we could have become closer his hearing made communication in large noisy venues where we ran into each other almost impossible..... TAKE NOTE......WEAR HEARING PROTECTION....
Blackie lived life in a big way and really loved his Harleys He went out quick on one, doing what he loved and still playing the game he was so incredibly good at and playing it really well....
Gonna miss Mister Blackie, I am gonna miss him a lot.....R.I.P........
ethan
It was rumored that Blackie had half a dozen patent attorneys on speed dial and that after walking the SHOT Show he had them all busy.....Apocryphal, probably but, his mind was so inventive and threw out so many really GOOD ideas and held so many patents that it COULD be true......He was AWESOME.......
I first became aware of Blackie(and Michael) at a National Sporting goods Show before the shootin' and huntin' guys split off and created SHOT Show......I was Making mountain climbing gear and Blackie and Michael were a few booths down.....I went over to see that damn dive knife so often that it severely cut into my selling my own stuff.....I ordered one and called the brothers bitching loudly and repeatedly until they shipped (Michael and I had a good laugh over that several decades later).....At a Show in Atlanta when I first started to make Machaxes I ran into Wallace Fennell at the Gerber booth.... Wallace was a childhood friend of the Collins brothers and after he ordered a Machax on the spot he introduced me to Blackie by saying "look at the knife this boys got".... Blackie gave me a purchase order for two Machaxes with the words," I will USE this knife" and my head swelled so damn big that I had trouble getting it into my car.......At that point I knew diddly squat about the people in the knife business but I KNEW who Blackie Collins was and I knew he was big time !!!.....
Blackie and I saw each other at numerous shows over a lot of years and were friendly but not close...... I wish that I had known him a lot better....One of the impediments to that, I think, is that by the time we could have become closer his hearing made communication in large noisy venues where we ran into each other almost impossible..... TAKE NOTE......WEAR HEARING PROTECTION....
Blackie lived life in a big way and really loved his Harleys He went out quick on one, doing what he loved and still playing the game he was so incredibly good at and playing it really well....
Gonna miss Mister Blackie, I am gonna miss him a lot.....R.I.P........
ethan
