Two knives I brought home from Japan

[Griffon]

I brought these handmade Japanese knives home after visiting Japan, as they looked rather typical for that class of relatively inexpensive, but good, knives.

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The bladeds have a very rough finish on the part where they aren't ground, but are very smooth on the ground part, which is ground without a bevel all the way to the edge. They cut very well.

One knife has a wooden sheath with a cord which I understand you use to tie the sheath around yourself. It's a fisherman's knife (unless I misunderstood).

Both knives have a short stick tang fastened with one or two pins and a collar around the wooden handle.

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Urban Fredriksson
www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/

"Smooth and serrated blades cut in two entirely different fashions."
- The Teeth of the Tyrannosaurs, Scientific American, Sep 1999

 

[E]

Hi. Glad you had a good time.

Are you the guy who was in Tokyo for the weekend? Did you make it out to the 34th Annual Seki Cutlery Festival? I drove my friend out there, and including hotel, gas and highway toll, I spent about $1,100 on eight knives.

It appears that custom knifemaking is a small world in Japan. The same knives and makers I saw in that one knife magazine I bought, I saw in person, including Ernest Emerson and his lovely wife, on their first ever trip to Japan with $1,000 Damascus Commanders that were all snapped up by the Japanese visitors.

It was my first time buying handmade knives, and my first time buying from Japanese. I got turned onto a traditional bladesmith named Saji, specializing in large hunters. I bought a brand new design which is a wide 9 inch layered mild forward curving blade pinned to a stained and varnished wood handle, bound in what looks like rattan, with Japanese wooden work sheath to match. My serviceman friend says it looks like traditional Malaysian or Karen design. I'm waiting on some Busses and Mad Dogs, but this knife is my new treasure.

Sitting at the table next to him was a man with a 14 inch long bowie blade of some stainless he claimed was more rust resistant and better performing than ATS-34. It had a mock Damascus look created by applying some molten iron. It was one of a kind. A TV news camera filmed me playing with it. I did not spend the $450 he wanted.

I also got two tiny ATS-34 blades from a maker I can't remember. One was handled in micarta. The other had an agate or turquoise handle from a stone he got in the US, impossible to find in Japan. The news camera got me with these knives, too.

I also bought a bunch of CRKT blades, which I love despite the poor comments. I wear the neck knives at all times.

The festival was freaky. As Seki is a traditional blade center of Japan, it was a city-wide event. Absolutely everyone was there. Tens of thousands of elderly, women, children, survival types, knife fans, bikers, US servicemen, and tourists like me, all walking up and down the streets, being encouraged by all the dealers to pick up their knives to try out, at way off retail. And in the background, it was a carnival atmosphere with live performers, snack vendors, games . . . I am going back next year.

I've got to get photos one day.

Eric Takabayashi
Fukuyama, Japan