"sole authorship" - from a collectors point of view

I am more than willing to talk about the topic , In fact I think that Im about the only one left that remembers what the topic is...LOL
But I dont think there is any need to sink down into personal stuff, I dont go there, I dont read it or pay any attention to such stuff. It just has no place here.

Now when talking about the topic of "Sole Authorship" there is always the question of if sending a knife out to be heat-treated means you must give up the claim of making a sole-authorship knife?

Thinking about it, I would tend to say that you do not need to give up the claim of a sole-authorship knife just because your steel can not be correctly heat-treated at home. The fact is that many modern steels have very tricky needs for the Heat-treater to use. I think it's asking too much of a knifemaker to be able to correctly HT every type of steel in his little shop.

Yes, it's nice to pick out a steel that you can HT yourself like 5160, but the world turns and steel design changes overtime and the Knifemaker has to change with them or be forever stuck with leaf springs and nothing else.
 
What about helpers?
does having a shop helper mean you cant claim a knife is of your "Sole Authorship"?

I would say , no.
Part of the fun of being a knife maker is when we get the chance to pass on what we have learned about knives to the next generation....Even if you dont know much it's still fun to pass on what little you have learned to a son who knows nothing yet.

There has to be some room to allow for helpers in their support role for even sole-authorship knives or we are going to not have teachers we need. And there are some forms of forge work that one guy just cant do alone, thus it's nice to have a helper now and then.
 
I think it would depend on how much work the "helper" does , if the helper does alot of the work yet the maker puts his name on the blade , that is not sole authorship in my mind.

How many custom makers actually use helpers ?

If a helper allows one to still claim sole authorship , then so should using an outside HT service ( Paul Bos ) , as well as pre-made damascus.
 
John T Wylie Jr said:
I think it would depend on how much work the "helper" does , .
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Yes, I agree,,,
I guess Im thinking of all the Japanese sword smiths that sign their names on the tang, yet if you ever watched them forge a sword you would see that each smith has a few guys under him who bang the steel with the hammers while the swordsmith controls it's movements and calls the shots.

The helpers in this case do a lot of the heavy hitting work, but their names never appear nor do they get credit for the finished blade being that they are just there to learn.
 
B.Buxton said:
Of the last 20 posts he's posted 9 of them, he's having fun.
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He's just up for a flame war, I never bother with the ignore button but I've been skipping past his posts.
 
There comes a time when a man has to admit he spoke too quickly and too harshly. This is that time, for me. My previous post has been edited accordingly. I think you guys know why :o
 
But when dealing with a knife collecter that seeks sole authorship works we should be able to come to some sort of agreement as to what a normal person would concider "sole authorship" and what other works are to be concidered a "joint effort'
 
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