I got to speak with Ryan Daniels yesterday at the Chesapeake Knife show. He had some Tuna Valley slipjoints and lockbacks which were made by Queen, and they looked and felt pretty good. A lockback, cotton sampler, and one that looked like a high end Mountain Man lockback, with stag scales. The lockbacks felt good, the cotton sampler felt good. Razor sharp. Excuse me while I have a duh moment, no pictures. Back to Ryan, he didn't really share any groundbreaking information with me, but he is excited in moving ahead with Queen. He and his father seem to have a good game plan, and they are well aware of problems with QC at Queen, and vowed that that would be a thing of the past. While his new products aren't on the same level of GEC fit and finish, they are better than the Queens I have. However, that is on Tuna Valley models with ATS34 steel blades and ebony/stag scales. They were a bit pricey, and I traded most of the slipjoints I had for a lockback, and one of the Daniels family collaborations with Blind Horse (one of their blades, but with D2 steel, buffalo horn scales and a fancy stitch leather sheath. He said their Tuna Valley line will have 154CM blades and exotic scales, their Schatt and Morgan will retain 420HC, their Queen line D2, and their Queen city classics 1095. He said they are in the process of acquiring lots of separate orders from companies. I showed him my Queen Burke small barlow, one of his favorite collaborations, and he said they are planning more collaborations from Dan, Joe Pardue and other makers. His excitement got me excited, as I like Queen, SM and their shop orders for other companies. He also wanted to me to let the members on here know that Queen is definitely interested in doing a Bladeforums Traditional forum knife. I told him that GEC did a great job on the 74 pattern, and let him know I still plan on buying any GEC product that turns my head, but I would support a Queen that turned out quality products. I also told him I would pass his request along, I did my duty. The local knife club member in charge of club knives asked him about prices on club knives from GEC, found out he and his father had bought Queen, and asked about Queen club knives. He had sold out of all of his GEC products (he was there selling for himself, not Queen, except for the Tuna Valley and BHK stuff). All in all, I look forward to seeing Ryan and his wife, at next year's Mason Dixon knife show, and hopefully a lot of Queen products on the table. I am looking forward even more to what he and his father come up with.
Don't fret, he did say the word tactical, but I mentioned Case's recent venture, and he said they were interested in making high quality knives, and they haven't even floated that off the ground yet, just an idea for down the road.
Two things that he stressed were, made in the USA product, and he also mentioned making knives more in the vein of what Buck is doing. Take that as good or bad, I didn't go there with the 3XX series, or 110/112 knives. Doesn't sway me from buying any new Queen products. I like this lockback, I'll see what else comes down the pike.
. More worried about the knives themselves.