My first Blade show.

tknife · Oct 11, 1999

I went on Saturday and thought it was great. I got to meet some legendary makers, and cool knife knuts. Rob Simonich was just as nice in person as he is via email, it was good to put a face with the man (the man who will get even more of my money too!) Pat Crawford, Allen Elishewitz, Ernest Emerson, Jot Singh Khalsa, Jim Oyoung- what a great group of people! I will definitely be back next year.

Don G · Oct 11, 1999

I loved the show too!

Brian Lavin · Oct 11, 1999

Yup, I agree , Rob is a very personable guy. I also met James Mattis, Matt Harilstad, Will Fennel and Bob Taylor. James was usually buried behind folks buing things but paused to say hello, Bob Taylor showed me some simple handling transitions that looked a lot simpler than they really were. Got a couple of good deals courtesy of a couple of the above and got to see a lot of incredible stuff. All in all a good show, wish I could have stayed longer.

Longden · Oct 11, 1999

My first knife show too, and I got to watch the sword cutting demo and Wayne Goddard's sharpening demo (a perennial favorite it seems).

Also met and put faces on a variety of knife makers (besides Goddard) including a 17 year old maker from Malibu (actually, I just met his older sister

and his knives).

Managed to make one round thru the tables and bought a Spyderco Calypso Jr from James Mattis (thanks James, the engraved "Chai" looks sharp) before I had to cut my visit short when my wife reported that she had her wallet stolen at the local mall.

Had to depart to deal with the particulars (police report, notifying credit card companies, etc)... an ugly end to an otherwise great day. Good news was that the loss was minimal and didn't include her id.

The only other loss was in not having a chance to revisit all those tables I had made notes and promised to return to

Bright side to that is that I still have the money. Anyone know when is the next knife show within 200 miles of LA?

James Mattis · Oct 11, 1999

Actually, I was usually buried behind people fondling the Chris Reeve and William Henry collections and putting them back, but enough people bought stuff to make it worth the effort.

And it was good to meet the faces behind the forum names, even if I didn't get to talk to any of them as long as I would have wanted to, since I was sometimes talking to three people at once, and faces blurred together!

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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001

Don G · Oct 11, 1999

Longden - the next show near LA is the Temucela show.

I too checked out the knives from the 17 year old guy from Malibu. Very nice stuff. And his 25 year old sister is sooooo cute!

Longden · Oct 11, 1999

James, it was nice to meet Toni (aka the salad fork weapons specialist).

Don, any date/details on the Temecula show?

Roger on that sister ... I'm sure she brought a lot of traffic to his table. I'm not into the custom stuff yet, but was surprised at what he's been able to do given his experience. Pretty impressive that he'd started at 11, tho I'll confess I don't know enough about knifemakers in general as to whether this is unusual or the norm (if it was computers, I'd yawn... a 17 yr old is an old man). Those curious should look at his site: www.mckann.com

And no, there's no picture of his sister

[This message has been edited by Longden (edited 11 October 1999).]

EW · Oct 12, 1999

I was there on Sat. too. Get to put a lot faces to the names. It was great!!

Shawn R Sullivan · Oct 11, 1999

James,
It was great to meet you. And I am very happy with the knife that I bought from you.
I had a great time looking at all of the knives and meeting so many makers!!
I am looking forward to my next knife show.
Shawn