The twice a year big gun and knife show was this past weekend. I went on Sunday. The gun shows are a chance for me to actually handle many of the spydies that we talk about on the list. The first time that I actually held many different knives was at various gun shows. I tried to stop at every table that had a Spyderco section. I only saw a couple of Jot Khalsas. Last fall I saw a lady who had them for $45 so I was prepared to buy this time. The two I saw were marked $80 and 70 was as low as he would go. (He did want to buy my Bladeforums Blue Native though--no way!) I saw Natives in basically every Spyderco display but every one I looked at said Gin-1 on the blade. I guess there are still some old ones out there! I also saw both partly serrated and plain edge Wegner Jr's. I have the full size though and haven't gotten the bug for a Jr. yet. I merely mention it because I know the plains are in low supply.
Anyway the knife that I had only seen pictures of and hadn't held was at one lady's booth, the Shabaria. She had both plain and combo. I have James's scan of it as my background on my NT machine at work. Now I've held one. I opened and closed it several times. It feels better than I expected. I was prepared to have a slightly "weird" feel that was the price of such an interesting design but it felt just fine. The only downside was that she wanted $95 for it and I'm not that ready to buy one! I just wanted to reassure any other Shabaria fence sitters that this is one to buy!
(That same lady had several others I hadn't seen: JD Smith, Renegade, and Zowada. No Starmates or SpydeRenches though.)
Gregg
Anyway the knife that I had only seen pictures of and hadn't held was at one lady's booth, the Shabaria. She had both plain and combo. I have James's scan of it as my background on my NT machine at work. Now I've held one. I opened and closed it several times. It feels better than I expected. I was prepared to have a slightly "weird" feel that was the price of such an interesting design but it felt just fine. The only downside was that she wanted $95 for it and I'm not that ready to buy one! I just wanted to reassure any other Shabaria fence sitters that this is one to buy!
(That same lady had several others I hadn't seen: JD Smith, Renegade, and Zowada. No Starmates or SpydeRenches though.)
Gregg