Big thanks to Sal and Sypderco

[UW Mitch]

Last night I read a thread in Simonich's forum that was discussing collaborations, specifically relating the MikeT's Boss knives. In my response I realized that Spyderco is what started it all for me. I'll quote myself from that thread, as I don't think I could put it any better than I did last night:

When I first started college some four years ago I had a Gerber EZ-Out in ATS-34 (I splurged for the really good steel). I couldn't imagine spending more than $50 on a knife. Then a friend showed me his Spyderco Wegner, and I got one of those. I did a little searching on the internet and found out that Tim Wegner was only 45 minutes away from me in Tacoma, WA! Then I found out that Spyderco had other "custom collabs" with other knifemakers. I went to a custom knife show having never seen a custom knife before. I saw people like Bob Lum, Jess Horn, and many other makers whose names I recognized only from the Spyderco website.

Fast forward to now, I've got this huge addiction to handground steel, and am proud to call many knifemakers my friends. I think without custom collabs the run of the mill knife user might never find out about custom knives.

For me Spyderco opened me up to a whole new world with their collaboration knives. Sure one could say "the kind of guy that buys a factory collab isn't going to spend $550 on a custom" but that's BS, 'cause I now have (among others) a custom Boguzweski, who makes Tim's Folding Hunters.

Thank you Sal and Spyderco!
Mitch

 

[Sal Glesser]

Thax for the kind words Mitch. We've also learned a great deal working with the custom makers and designers.

sal

 

[Mike Turber]

Working with custom knife makers is just a natural way to progress and reward the cutom knife maker for their hard labor and design efforts. Sal among others should be congradualted for leading the way as if it were not for people like Sal Glesser, Les De Asis, Paul Gillispi, David Hall (perhaps the first) and others I know I would not be here today.

BOSS is to China as CRK&T is to Taiwan. It is a hard uphill battle I face, but without those who traveled the hills before me I would not have a path to follow. Thanks Sal for all your efforts and inspiration.