Kohai999
Second Degree Cutter
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2003
- Messages
- 12,554
Just got back...the show was AWESOME, one of the best that I ever went to. Rich Slaughter convinced me to go. Solvang is abougt 140 miles north of Los Angeles, and it takes about 2 1/2 hours to drive there from LAX.
It takes almost 5 hours of driving to get there for us. We left at around 6:30 am yesterday morning and arrived around 11:00 am and checked into the Hotel Corque. We had a double Queen room. It was $248.00. It's a nice, clean hotel, quiet and quaint.
The show room was more than big enough to accommodate the makers and collectors. There was an attached bar/lounge which was cool and different.....I mean a full BAR with maybe 2-3 bartenders, rather than a cart.....and couches/easy chairs/bar chairs if you wanted to stretch out and socialize. Food was good quality sandwich meats, cheeses, vegetables, a couple salads, rolls.....It was good, because if you were hungry, you could grab some food, make a sandwich or a chef's salad if you wanted and eat quick, rather than trying to plow through a meal, or wait for something to be prepared.
So, because Coop was there and he usually does such great photojournalistic reviews, I'm going to do something a little different, and only talk about the makers that I interacted with and give a little background...no insult meant to the makers in general NOT covered, but it would be a bit redundant. Coop was one of the first people that I saw, he was set up in a conveniently located spot, and if someone wanted to get a photograph taken, it took 20 seconds to get to him...which was smart!
The first maker that I spoke to was Les George. There were two knives he had that drew my attention....The Dovetail Dagger was made of CTS-XHP san mai damascus from Chad Nichols with a two piece copper handle that fit together with very tiny dovetails and then the tang of the blade is secured with a pommel nut. The sheath made of G-10 and masterfully formed. It was elegant, but a tad heavy...well balanced.
The Persian styled Sicario flipper was the one that I would have happily owned. CPM 3V/XHP damascus from Chad Nichols with color case hardened steel bolsters and vintage Westinghouse ivory micarta scales.
Here Les is posing for photographer Hiro Soga
Les brought some really nice knives
Larry Fuegen was right next to Les. He is one of my better friends, have known him for about 30 years....we both attended our first Ashokan Conference at the same time....but didn't compare notes on it until about 20 years later! Had a few copies of David Darom's The World of Art Knives IV, and gave one to Larry. He had four knives for sale, and his lovely wife Linda and their daughter/son-in-law and grandson came to the show as well. Larry's carved bowie knife was superb as was his Goblin folder.
Larry's got the book!
Bowie
Goblin Folder
damascus hunter and carved push dagger
John Young works in the Loveless style. I dropped tickets for his one-of-a-kind fighter, modified chute knife and hunter. Have known John for maybe 14 years. He's a very chill dude, came to the show with his wife Jasmine. John is still selling out at every show he attends and last I checked with him, had a 6 year backlog on knife orders.
These were John's knives
Have known Tim Wright since the first Knifemaker's Guild Show held in Las Vegas, NV after many years in Florida. Phil Baldwin, Tim and I went downtown to see the Fremont Street Experience, and it was really a mind-blower back then.
Tim is known for very thin kitchen knives that cut like lasers and lockbacks that can be completely disassembled with a tool he makes as well, and packages both knife and tool in a leather pouch. Both types of knives were on display.
Here's Tim wearing his best new Charles Bukowski t-shirt in celebration of the event!
Group shot of these beauties, tool on the left
Money shot, look at the shimmer on the pearl
David Crosby...yes THE David Crosby, got the cocobolo paring knife, old m-f'r!
So, that is my photojournalism contribution for everyone who always asks for pics, and as usual, I suck at photos!
After leaving Tim's table, went over to chat with Wolfegang Loerchner about slipjoints. He has been working on them for a short period of time, and amassed quite a selection of GEC versions. I have mostly customs and had brought them to show Wolfe what I enjoyed about them, we had a really nice conversation. His folding dagger was exquisite and was also five figure$, so I didn't gaze at it too long, lest the siren call of his expert craftsmanship leave me without the ability to pay the mortgage for a few months.
Elizabeth Loerchner also had some beautiful knives, and I was sorely tempted there as well.
Coop sent me over to meet Moro Corrado from Italy. Unfortunately, his interpreter was not with him when we met, so it was just about the knives. I was trying to explain to him that his Desmo-Blue Arrow button lock reminded me of a Paul knife, but we couldn't have a conversation, so I just looked at it. He had three knives, the Desmo, and another called "Legendary" and one called "Eternity". You can see the passion for making detailed and creative knives burning in his eyes.
Visited with Curt & Julie Erickson for a bit. Because of my friendship with Phil Lobred, I have been able to meet and talk with Julie for about 14 years(mostly at the Art Knife Invitational in San Diego, next one to be held in 2017), and have thoroughly enjoyed it. She is lovely, smart and talented. Julie remains at the forefront of engraving, as one of the best practitioners of bank note scroll, my favorite style of engraving. When she and Curt married a few years ago(jeez, it's like almost 10 now, I think!), her game stepped into the realm of making knives as well, and they are fantastic knives. As far as I can tell from the catalog, Curt made all the knives at the show, and Julie did all of the inlay and engraving. Their Elegant Fighter and Fancy Boot knives really caught my eye.....btw, Curt was smartly decked out in a well-tailored suit and raised the bar for knifemaker sartorial splendor!
Harumi Hirayama had one knife, and two groups of carved netsuke(little figures). My wife and I collect modern netsuke, so we were very interested, but the price was very high. This is a competitive market, as carving wood and inlaying shell, gemstones or ivory requires significantly less equipment than knifemaking, and if you can carve well, suffers a much lower learning curve. She has advanced skill for sure, just not aware of her position in the market, and would be shy of speculating. I thought she was pretty cute as well!
Kirby Lambert had, in my opinion, the BEST values for knives in the room. Damasteel or Chad Nichols metals, flipper folders mostly, lot of zirconium or mokuti bolsters. If you have never handled one of Kirby's knives, you should. Ergonomics, smoothness, design and elan' all come together in a package that is made for hard use, and almost too pretty to use, which makes for a nice conundrum if you are both a knife user and a collector.
Todd Rexford was at the show with two lottery knives that were very fairly priced. Todd is at the top of the tactical knife game and his work sells for an extremely high premium on the aftermarket, making his knives some of the more sought after at the show. Usually, I don't bother with the lotteries, but this one would have been stupid to ignore. His "Entropy" and "Gamma" knives were attractive and I have to admit, owning one or the other wouldn't have been too shabby!
Ken Steigerwalt had himself well represented with three knives, bearing pattern welded metals, immaculate pearls and lots of gold. Have to say I thought the work was some of the more reasonably priced at the show. Ken has been making knives for about a year longer than I have been collecting them, and there have been very few points in that time that I haven't had at least one of his in my collection. Right now, I have a ladder pattern damascus, black lip pearl handled lockback. Ken is an awesome maker and a very cool person!
Bob Terzuola charmed my wife with an examination of the amber necklace that I built and gave her this past Christmas. He had 8 knives and I got drawn for his Eagle Rock Variant Flipper, but I passed. Had debated keeping it for myself, but had missed some design elements that left me a bit lukewarm, and I know that the next person given the opportunity to purchase did so. Of the perhaps dozen or so lottery shows that I have attended, this is the first time that I passed on being drawn and it's a weird feeling. That said, I have owned over 6 Bob T. knives and they were all spectacular. He is truly the Father of the Tactical Knife.
Lastly during the show, chatted with Owen Wood and looked over his knives. He had produced four knives out of his otherworldly damascus, but in a modified Wharncliffe pattern, when for ME, this show could have been about his incredible daggers. Meant to ask him about his pattern selection, but it escaped my mind when my wife walked up.
The show was over before what seemed like a couple hours. Spent some time chatting with Mike Donato, Martin R. and Bob Betzner. Bob picked up a big ass d-guard sword from Ron Best, and the glint in his eyes was one that I have not seen from him in a long time. He was grinning from ear-to-ear, maybe he will show it off!
Here's a pic I snapped of Coop and Tim Wright after the show was over:
Hung out in the bar with Kirby and collector Axel for a couple hours and wanna thank them for putting up with my sleep-deprived babble!
We headed over to the after-show barbecue at Gainey Vineyards, and gotta say that this was a treat, and ALMOST worth the trip up to Solvang by itself. Was really excited when I found out about this when planning to attend the show. Gainey is a well known California producer of value priced wines, and that is not an insult by any means. They have some pretty expensive offerings, but generally, they produce a superior tasting wine for a reasonable price, so you don't feel guilty indulging regularly. The staff at Gainey was pouring with gusto and the food was AWESOME...really! Seasoned, grilled tri-tip, two kinds of sausages, barbecue beans and salad....all-you-can eat too. There was cake for dessert, but I just had another glass of wine, instead, tee-hee! We picked up two bottles of Chardonnay and two of Sauvignon Blanc while we were at it!
Here is the host of the Solvang Knife Show, Dave Harvey addressing the crowd at Gainey, holding a plaque for Best-of-Show winner Emmanuel Esposito:
After the barbecue, we went back to the hotel, and I crashed hard.
Solvang is a really, really nice town, the first buildings there were erected about 1911, and are kept as a throwback representation of a Danish village. There are about 1/2 dozen bakeries in this town, and it is easily explored on foot. We spent some time Sunday morning walking around, Dave opened his normally closed-on-Sundays shop, Nordic Knives, up and we visited. Then, Karen and I went to Los Olivos to check out Dragonette and Stolpman tasting rooms, and got home early Sunday evening.
Great knives, great people, great show.....we will be back, Dave, and thanks again for everything!
Best Regards,
STeven Garsson
It takes almost 5 hours of driving to get there for us. We left at around 6:30 am yesterday morning and arrived around 11:00 am and checked into the Hotel Corque. We had a double Queen room. It was $248.00. It's a nice, clean hotel, quiet and quaint.
The show room was more than big enough to accommodate the makers and collectors. There was an attached bar/lounge which was cool and different.....I mean a full BAR with maybe 2-3 bartenders, rather than a cart.....and couches/easy chairs/bar chairs if you wanted to stretch out and socialize. Food was good quality sandwich meats, cheeses, vegetables, a couple salads, rolls.....It was good, because if you were hungry, you could grab some food, make a sandwich or a chef's salad if you wanted and eat quick, rather than trying to plow through a meal, or wait for something to be prepared.
So, because Coop was there and he usually does such great photojournalistic reviews, I'm going to do something a little different, and only talk about the makers that I interacted with and give a little background...no insult meant to the makers in general NOT covered, but it would be a bit redundant. Coop was one of the first people that I saw, he was set up in a conveniently located spot, and if someone wanted to get a photograph taken, it took 20 seconds to get to him...which was smart!
The first maker that I spoke to was Les George. There were two knives he had that drew my attention....The Dovetail Dagger was made of CTS-XHP san mai damascus from Chad Nichols with a two piece copper handle that fit together with very tiny dovetails and then the tang of the blade is secured with a pommel nut. The sheath made of G-10 and masterfully formed. It was elegant, but a tad heavy...well balanced.
The Persian styled Sicario flipper was the one that I would have happily owned. CPM 3V/XHP damascus from Chad Nichols with color case hardened steel bolsters and vintage Westinghouse ivory micarta scales.
Here Les is posing for photographer Hiro Soga
Les brought some really nice knives
Larry Fuegen was right next to Les. He is one of my better friends, have known him for about 30 years....we both attended our first Ashokan Conference at the same time....but didn't compare notes on it until about 20 years later! Had a few copies of David Darom's The World of Art Knives IV, and gave one to Larry. He had four knives for sale, and his lovely wife Linda and their daughter/son-in-law and grandson came to the show as well. Larry's carved bowie knife was superb as was his Goblin folder.
Larry's got the book!
Bowie
Goblin Folder
damascus hunter and carved push dagger
John Young works in the Loveless style. I dropped tickets for his one-of-a-kind fighter, modified chute knife and hunter. Have known John for maybe 14 years. He's a very chill dude, came to the show with his wife Jasmine. John is still selling out at every show he attends and last I checked with him, had a 6 year backlog on knife orders.
These were John's knives
Have known Tim Wright since the first Knifemaker's Guild Show held in Las Vegas, NV after many years in Florida. Phil Baldwin, Tim and I went downtown to see the Fremont Street Experience, and it was really a mind-blower back then.
Tim is known for very thin kitchen knives that cut like lasers and lockbacks that can be completely disassembled with a tool he makes as well, and packages both knife and tool in a leather pouch. Both types of knives were on display.
Here's Tim wearing his best new Charles Bukowski t-shirt in celebration of the event!
Group shot of these beauties, tool on the left
Money shot, look at the shimmer on the pearl
David Crosby...yes THE David Crosby, got the cocobolo paring knife, old m-f'r!
So, that is my photojournalism contribution for everyone who always asks for pics, and as usual, I suck at photos!
After leaving Tim's table, went over to chat with Wolfegang Loerchner about slipjoints. He has been working on them for a short period of time, and amassed quite a selection of GEC versions. I have mostly customs and had brought them to show Wolfe what I enjoyed about them, we had a really nice conversation. His folding dagger was exquisite and was also five figure$, so I didn't gaze at it too long, lest the siren call of his expert craftsmanship leave me without the ability to pay the mortgage for a few months.
Elizabeth Loerchner also had some beautiful knives, and I was sorely tempted there as well.
Coop sent me over to meet Moro Corrado from Italy. Unfortunately, his interpreter was not with him when we met, so it was just about the knives. I was trying to explain to him that his Desmo-Blue Arrow button lock reminded me of a Paul knife, but we couldn't have a conversation, so I just looked at it. He had three knives, the Desmo, and another called "Legendary" and one called "Eternity". You can see the passion for making detailed and creative knives burning in his eyes.
Visited with Curt & Julie Erickson for a bit. Because of my friendship with Phil Lobred, I have been able to meet and talk with Julie for about 14 years(mostly at the Art Knife Invitational in San Diego, next one to be held in 2017), and have thoroughly enjoyed it. She is lovely, smart and talented. Julie remains at the forefront of engraving, as one of the best practitioners of bank note scroll, my favorite style of engraving. When she and Curt married a few years ago(jeez, it's like almost 10 now, I think!), her game stepped into the realm of making knives as well, and they are fantastic knives. As far as I can tell from the catalog, Curt made all the knives at the show, and Julie did all of the inlay and engraving. Their Elegant Fighter and Fancy Boot knives really caught my eye.....btw, Curt was smartly decked out in a well-tailored suit and raised the bar for knifemaker sartorial splendor!
Harumi Hirayama had one knife, and two groups of carved netsuke(little figures). My wife and I collect modern netsuke, so we were very interested, but the price was very high. This is a competitive market, as carving wood and inlaying shell, gemstones or ivory requires significantly less equipment than knifemaking, and if you can carve well, suffers a much lower learning curve. She has advanced skill for sure, just not aware of her position in the market, and would be shy of speculating. I thought she was pretty cute as well!
Kirby Lambert had, in my opinion, the BEST values for knives in the room. Damasteel or Chad Nichols metals, flipper folders mostly, lot of zirconium or mokuti bolsters. If you have never handled one of Kirby's knives, you should. Ergonomics, smoothness, design and elan' all come together in a package that is made for hard use, and almost too pretty to use, which makes for a nice conundrum if you are both a knife user and a collector.
Todd Rexford was at the show with two lottery knives that were very fairly priced. Todd is at the top of the tactical knife game and his work sells for an extremely high premium on the aftermarket, making his knives some of the more sought after at the show. Usually, I don't bother with the lotteries, but this one would have been stupid to ignore. His "Entropy" and "Gamma" knives were attractive and I have to admit, owning one or the other wouldn't have been too shabby!
Ken Steigerwalt had himself well represented with three knives, bearing pattern welded metals, immaculate pearls and lots of gold. Have to say I thought the work was some of the more reasonably priced at the show. Ken has been making knives for about a year longer than I have been collecting them, and there have been very few points in that time that I haven't had at least one of his in my collection. Right now, I have a ladder pattern damascus, black lip pearl handled lockback. Ken is an awesome maker and a very cool person!
Bob Terzuola charmed my wife with an examination of the amber necklace that I built and gave her this past Christmas. He had 8 knives and I got drawn for his Eagle Rock Variant Flipper, but I passed. Had debated keeping it for myself, but had missed some design elements that left me a bit lukewarm, and I know that the next person given the opportunity to purchase did so. Of the perhaps dozen or so lottery shows that I have attended, this is the first time that I passed on being drawn and it's a weird feeling. That said, I have owned over 6 Bob T. knives and they were all spectacular. He is truly the Father of the Tactical Knife.
Lastly during the show, chatted with Owen Wood and looked over his knives. He had produced four knives out of his otherworldly damascus, but in a modified Wharncliffe pattern, when for ME, this show could have been about his incredible daggers. Meant to ask him about his pattern selection, but it escaped my mind when my wife walked up.
The show was over before what seemed like a couple hours. Spent some time chatting with Mike Donato, Martin R. and Bob Betzner. Bob picked up a big ass d-guard sword from Ron Best, and the glint in his eyes was one that I have not seen from him in a long time. He was grinning from ear-to-ear, maybe he will show it off!
Here's a pic I snapped of Coop and Tim Wright after the show was over:
Hung out in the bar with Kirby and collector Axel for a couple hours and wanna thank them for putting up with my sleep-deprived babble!
We headed over to the after-show barbecue at Gainey Vineyards, and gotta say that this was a treat, and ALMOST worth the trip up to Solvang by itself. Was really excited when I found out about this when planning to attend the show. Gainey is a well known California producer of value priced wines, and that is not an insult by any means. They have some pretty expensive offerings, but generally, they produce a superior tasting wine for a reasonable price, so you don't feel guilty indulging regularly. The staff at Gainey was pouring with gusto and the food was AWESOME...really! Seasoned, grilled tri-tip, two kinds of sausages, barbecue beans and salad....all-you-can eat too. There was cake for dessert, but I just had another glass of wine, instead, tee-hee! We picked up two bottles of Chardonnay and two of Sauvignon Blanc while we were at it!
Here is the host of the Solvang Knife Show, Dave Harvey addressing the crowd at Gainey, holding a plaque for Best-of-Show winner Emmanuel Esposito:
After the barbecue, we went back to the hotel, and I crashed hard.
Solvang is a really, really nice town, the first buildings there were erected about 1911, and are kept as a throwback representation of a Danish village. There are about 1/2 dozen bakeries in this town, and it is easily explored on foot. We spent some time Sunday morning walking around, Dave opened his normally closed-on-Sundays shop, Nordic Knives, up and we visited. Then, Karen and I went to Los Olivos to check out Dragonette and Stolpman tasting rooms, and got home early Sunday evening.
Great knives, great people, great show.....we will be back, Dave, and thanks again for everything!
Best Regards,
STeven Garsson
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