- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
- Messages
- 14,942
Well, I can't promise that I'll be able to do this every day, but I will try my hardest.
Gus, Raechel and myself arrived at the show at around 8AM. Raechel and myself spent 40 minutes getting our passes (that's the last time we don't preregister!) and then it was off to the exhibits.
Most of today was spent covering the main cutlery area, exhibit halls A, B, and C. We started out at CRKT and met up with Kit Carson, and looked over his new designs. We then proceeded to head all over. Will Fennel's booth for EDI became the rally point for the day, we checked in there several times, and Will suprised me with a black bladed Genesis (pictures soon to come), which was a very nice treat indeed. Will also has some neat suprises in the works, something I'll let him break the news about.
We moved up and down the aisles, checking out the plethora of new and cool products. The Cannon camera/optics booth had the prettiest babes so far, but there are still 6000 booths to hit!
Next on the list was Benchmade Knives, Les DeAsis and his wife Roberta were very happy to see us, and hopefully we will see their prescence here more often in the near future. Dave Mallory of the Benchmade Support Team was also on hand, and is getting ready to leave for a rep group. Allen Elishewitz and his wife Val were also present, and Allen showed me his new 3.5 inch Nimravus model. Also, the Sentinel is being redesigned and being redesignated the Dark Star: the Titanium is now gold anodized and the G10 scales have a different sculpt. Personally, I liked the old version better, but that's just me. Interesting side note: Benchmade had several of their knives stolen from the display case today. Les's response was, "Hey, it just shows how much they like the knives!" Me, I just dropped my jaw when I heard that they had been walked off with.
Next stop was Emerson Knives. Ernie and his crew were very happy to talk to us and show off their new fixed blade, as well as the Fred Perrin collaboration that they have developed, a very cool neck knife. Also the CQC7 trainers and the Commander trainers will be out relatively soon, and Ernie is hard at work trying to fill the custom knife backlog. He is very aware of the problem but expressed to us that his new crew has exceeded his expectations and really taken a lot of the load off of him, giving him much more time to work on the custom orders.
Outdoor Edge had Kit Carson and Darrel Ralph production knives debuting at the show. Kit's knives and the production Krait's look sweet, they are definately going to be good buys for this year. Outdoor Edge will be more visible here in the near future as well, they want a forum with Rob Cude as their moderator.
KaBar has come out with a smaller version of their classic USMC fighting knife, overall length is about 7". Case Knives has come out with a new series 6 with new colors on the handles, overall they look great as well.
Next stop was Tim Wegner at BladeTech. Wait until you see the Concealex line that they are coming out with, you won't believe the accuracy of the patterns they are able to reproduce. As a concept piece, they made a sheath and a holster with Star Trek logos and scenes on them that you'll have to see to believe.
Microtech was the next stop on the list, where Kestrels and Joel Pirela's Vecktors were in abundance. Some of you may remember the concept design that Joel posted here a while ago, well Tony kept as close to it as possible, and it looks very nice indeed. No luck on getting DA versions of these knives any time soon, it's not going to happen. New items were Silver handled SOCOM's and the return of the Tanto Bladed SOCOM's. Tom Kyle (Frogman) was on hand and was laid back and relaxed, and nice to talk to.
Masters of Defense was the next logical step, where we met up with Jim Ray, Chief Watson, and several of the crew, including Mark Olsen. New products included the Auto versions of the Masters of Defense series, and also Silver handled versions, as well as Black coated blades, and Mother of Pearl inlaid versions. The Ladyhawk in particular was very nice in Black or Silver, but for those of you who were waiting, get ready to buy those Auto Tridents. All models will be either Auto or manual action, not both. The thumbstuds will still be present on both models, but act as blade stops on the autos. Masters of Defense was nice enough to take a stack of fliers for distribution as well, which made me very happy!
Chris Reeve Knives was the next stop, and to tell you the truth I didn't get a good look at the knives because I was so busy talking to Anne Reeve, a very nice lady.
Typical of the major shows, there were a lot of food items on display, perhaps more than usual due to the upcoming Y2K situation. Everyone and their brother had Jerky samples out, with only Dog and Ostrich absent from the selections!
We finally hooked up with Mike Turber at the Spyderco booth. Sal wasn't present, but we did encounter Bob Taylor of REKAT there. Next stops were Camillus, where we met Phil Gibbs and dropped off a lot of fliers there as well. Since Camillus currently has no website, this actually helped them as well, since it gives the shoppers a chance to talk to them. New from Camillus: Hawkbill, Damascus, and several other blade styles for the CUDA.
Leatherman has two new Multitools: One that I call the Yuppie, which has a corkscrew, pate fork, and other items, and another that has an actual set of locking vise grip pliers that actually fold into the handle.
After all this, Kit and his son Jody, Darrel, Allen and Val Elishewitz, Chris and Anne Reeve, Mike and Lori, Raechel and myself, Gus, Sid Post, the entire Chris Reeve Crew, and more than a few members of the TKC-L emailing list having dinner at Daily's restaurant. Unfortunately, we lost Howard Korn of the KnifeCenter somewhere along the way, and couldn't find him again.
As per usual, there were a number of great knives passed around, including a Ray Appleton folder that went from closed, to push dagger, to fully open, which was worth about $10,000. Chris really liked a Koji Hara friction lock knife. Dinner was very good and there was a lot of story telling about various aspects of the industry, it was a very good time.
Finally, on a personal note, the downturn of the evening came. First, we got back to the car, where I found my car keys next to Gus's car where they had been lying for over 13 hours. I personally was very glad that I had no damn clue I had lost them until I found them, it would have made me a nervous wreck all day. Then, we got back to Gus's house and found that our smallest dog had escaped from his yard. We immediately started searching, and it turned out that she was two doors down; a neighbor had found her and took her in. He came out when he heard us screaming her name...
She was scared and shaking, but calmed down eventually.
Personally, I think I walked 20+ miles today. I do know that I'm not getting up as early tomorrow. But it's great fun!
More later, and yes we have some photo's.
Spark
------------------
Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
Insert witty quip here
Gus, Raechel and myself arrived at the show at around 8AM. Raechel and myself spent 40 minutes getting our passes (that's the last time we don't preregister!) and then it was off to the exhibits.
Most of today was spent covering the main cutlery area, exhibit halls A, B, and C. We started out at CRKT and met up with Kit Carson, and looked over his new designs. We then proceeded to head all over. Will Fennel's booth for EDI became the rally point for the day, we checked in there several times, and Will suprised me with a black bladed Genesis (pictures soon to come), which was a very nice treat indeed. Will also has some neat suprises in the works, something I'll let him break the news about.
We moved up and down the aisles, checking out the plethora of new and cool products. The Cannon camera/optics booth had the prettiest babes so far, but there are still 6000 booths to hit!
Next on the list was Benchmade Knives, Les DeAsis and his wife Roberta were very happy to see us, and hopefully we will see their prescence here more often in the near future. Dave Mallory of the Benchmade Support Team was also on hand, and is getting ready to leave for a rep group. Allen Elishewitz and his wife Val were also present, and Allen showed me his new 3.5 inch Nimravus model. Also, the Sentinel is being redesigned and being redesignated the Dark Star: the Titanium is now gold anodized and the G10 scales have a different sculpt. Personally, I liked the old version better, but that's just me. Interesting side note: Benchmade had several of their knives stolen from the display case today. Les's response was, "Hey, it just shows how much they like the knives!" Me, I just dropped my jaw when I heard that they had been walked off with.
Next stop was Emerson Knives. Ernie and his crew were very happy to talk to us and show off their new fixed blade, as well as the Fred Perrin collaboration that they have developed, a very cool neck knife. Also the CQC7 trainers and the Commander trainers will be out relatively soon, and Ernie is hard at work trying to fill the custom knife backlog. He is very aware of the problem but expressed to us that his new crew has exceeded his expectations and really taken a lot of the load off of him, giving him much more time to work on the custom orders.
Outdoor Edge had Kit Carson and Darrel Ralph production knives debuting at the show. Kit's knives and the production Krait's look sweet, they are definately going to be good buys for this year. Outdoor Edge will be more visible here in the near future as well, they want a forum with Rob Cude as their moderator.
KaBar has come out with a smaller version of their classic USMC fighting knife, overall length is about 7". Case Knives has come out with a new series 6 with new colors on the handles, overall they look great as well.
Next stop was Tim Wegner at BladeTech. Wait until you see the Concealex line that they are coming out with, you won't believe the accuracy of the patterns they are able to reproduce. As a concept piece, they made a sheath and a holster with Star Trek logos and scenes on them that you'll have to see to believe.
Microtech was the next stop on the list, where Kestrels and Joel Pirela's Vecktors were in abundance. Some of you may remember the concept design that Joel posted here a while ago, well Tony kept as close to it as possible, and it looks very nice indeed. No luck on getting DA versions of these knives any time soon, it's not going to happen. New items were Silver handled SOCOM's and the return of the Tanto Bladed SOCOM's. Tom Kyle (Frogman) was on hand and was laid back and relaxed, and nice to talk to.
Masters of Defense was the next logical step, where we met up with Jim Ray, Chief Watson, and several of the crew, including Mark Olsen. New products included the Auto versions of the Masters of Defense series, and also Silver handled versions, as well as Black coated blades, and Mother of Pearl inlaid versions. The Ladyhawk in particular was very nice in Black or Silver, but for those of you who were waiting, get ready to buy those Auto Tridents. All models will be either Auto or manual action, not both. The thumbstuds will still be present on both models, but act as blade stops on the autos. Masters of Defense was nice enough to take a stack of fliers for distribution as well, which made me very happy!
Chris Reeve Knives was the next stop, and to tell you the truth I didn't get a good look at the knives because I was so busy talking to Anne Reeve, a very nice lady.
Typical of the major shows, there were a lot of food items on display, perhaps more than usual due to the upcoming Y2K situation. Everyone and their brother had Jerky samples out, with only Dog and Ostrich absent from the selections!
We finally hooked up with Mike Turber at the Spyderco booth. Sal wasn't present, but we did encounter Bob Taylor of REKAT there. Next stops were Camillus, where we met Phil Gibbs and dropped off a lot of fliers there as well. Since Camillus currently has no website, this actually helped them as well, since it gives the shoppers a chance to talk to them. New from Camillus: Hawkbill, Damascus, and several other blade styles for the CUDA.
Leatherman has two new Multitools: One that I call the Yuppie, which has a corkscrew, pate fork, and other items, and another that has an actual set of locking vise grip pliers that actually fold into the handle.
After all this, Kit and his son Jody, Darrel, Allen and Val Elishewitz, Chris and Anne Reeve, Mike and Lori, Raechel and myself, Gus, Sid Post, the entire Chris Reeve Crew, and more than a few members of the TKC-L emailing list having dinner at Daily's restaurant. Unfortunately, we lost Howard Korn of the KnifeCenter somewhere along the way, and couldn't find him again.
As per usual, there were a number of great knives passed around, including a Ray Appleton folder that went from closed, to push dagger, to fully open, which was worth about $10,000. Chris really liked a Koji Hara friction lock knife. Dinner was very good and there was a lot of story telling about various aspects of the industry, it was a very good time.
Finally, on a personal note, the downturn of the evening came. First, we got back to the car, where I found my car keys next to Gus's car where they had been lying for over 13 hours. I personally was very glad that I had no damn clue I had lost them until I found them, it would have made me a nervous wreck all day. Then, we got back to Gus's house and found that our smallest dog had escaped from his yard. We immediately started searching, and it turned out that she was two doors down; a neighbor had found her and took her in. He came out when he heard us screaming her name...
Personally, I think I walked 20+ miles today. I do know that I'm not getting up as early tomorrow. But it's great fun!
More later, and yes we have some photo's.
Spark
------------------
Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
Insert witty quip here
