How does Blackjack Knives restock?

C

Christian Aiken

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Oct 26, 2020
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I am relatively new to buying my own knives as my dad has always done the hard part for me. I was wondering if Blackjack Knives restock knives in there collection or if they only make a certain amount and then stop production?
 
Blackjack seldom purposely retires models / sells limited editions. They're owned by Blue Ridge Knives, who subcontracts out to Mike Stewart (Bark River Knives), the original owner of Blackjack to make the models. Usually if a Blackjack goes out of stock, the model was wasn't selling, or a material is too hard to find (eg - good stag).

Also, they tend to be batch made, so there might, and usually is, a lag time in restocks.
 
My understanding is that many of the blackjack knives are order specific relative to making new inventory.

I don't believe Mike Stewart EVER owned Blackjack although he has been making their classic knives under contract for a long time. Batch made.... of course, which is typical.
 
22-rimfire said:
I don't believe Mike Stewart EVER owned Blackjack
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He was the co-owner / owner of the original Blackjack 87 - 97, he did have other investors from time to time involved. Ken Warner (Knifeware) owned it from 1998 - around 2008ish, from there it went to Blue Ridge (I seem to remember SMKW having a little bit of it too, maybe rights to the imported line ?). Blue Ridge are the main guys for it now.

Anyway, the important part is that the US made part of the line has always been subcontracted to Stewart, no made who owned the brand.
 
Christian Aiken said:
I am really interested in the Blackjack classic model 7 knife with a stag handle.
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Ah yeah can't find that one with stag except on secondary right now with large markups. There are other model 7's with other handle materials available though.
 
brownshoe said:
The 7 is a copy of a Randall, buy the real thing.
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I absolutely disagree. Check out Bark River knives who make them. I have several of their knives, made in the USA, at absolute top notch quality for less than half the cost of a Randall.
 
There is absolutely no doubt it is a copy of a a Randall. Just for that fact alone I wouldn’t buy one. I don’t care how “good” it is I won’t buy knock offs.
 
Check out the GB&U threads about Bark River and it's owner, reason enough to buy Randall.
 
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I have several knives from Mike Stewart's shops, Bark River and Marble's when he was running things there. All are top-notch blades, some of the best in my collection. I have communicated with Mike a number of times (including for my review on my Bark River Professional Woodland several years ago) and have found him to be extremely knowledgeable on steels and heat treating.
 
eveled said:
There is absolutely no doubt it is a copy of a a Randall. Just for that fact alone I wouldn’t buy one. I don’t care how “good” it is I won’t buy knock offs.
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Respectfully, you are mistaken. Randall gave Mike Stewart the plans to make his BJs. Knock-offs means something completely different. It implies poorer quality, underhanded, and rip-off. That isn’t the case at all. You need to educate yourself my friend.
 
I don’t need an education to tell the difference between an original and a copy.

It’s my opinion and I’ll spend my money according to it. Feel free to do the same.
 
Turning it political. Real mature. You should probably review the forum rules.
 
Duba said:
Respectfully, you are mistaken. Randall gave Mike Stewart the plans to make his BJs. Knock-offs means something completely different. It implies poorer quality, underhanded, and rip-off. That isn’t the case at all. You need to educate yourself my friend.
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I've held both, and to paraphase Loyd Benson to Dan Quail "Black Jack is no Randall" :)

Stewart wouldn't need "plans" just 30 min with a real one.

Plus if it's authorized, then it's pretty weird that the dealers who sell it don't advertise it as an authorized Randall production knife made by Mike Stewart. Maybe 'cause it's a knockoff. Your education may have been incorrect :)
 
so randall as in company, has never given permission to copy his designs? I figured it was allowed since they are direct copies of randall classics..guess I got that wrong.

edit part...did some reading...appears randall doesn't like it from what I read and also appears while copies in looks of randalls......dimensions, thickness and grinds steels etc are different. so visually copies but as for specs not good copies if one wanted a randall copy to be like a randall cutting wise.
 
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Duba said:
Respectfully, you are mistaken. Randall gave Mike Stewart the plans to make his BJs. Knock-offs means something completely different. It implies poorer quality, underhanded, and rip-off. That isn’t the case at all. You need to educate yourself my friend.
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This never happened. Randall has given their premission to a few smaller custom makers that asked, and to Dietmar Pohl for the Pohl Force Quebec One Randall #14 inspired model. Gary Randall is on record in Fighting Knives Magazine, circa 1992ish, stating that he wasn't thrilled with Blackjack taking their designs, but there was nothing he could do about it, and he hoped that people would move up to a Randall after owning a copy.
 
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