Kit Carson had been teasing me for a while that he was bringing two stag handled folders to Blade, but they wouldn't be for sale. Well as soon as the doors opened at noon on Friday several of us made a bee-line to Kit's table. Beeing from NYC and knowing how to deal with crowds helped because I made my way to the front and Kit put two Wilkinson zippered cases in my hand, inside were two beautiful folders, one in Damascus and one in Stellite and both in stag. I was admiring the work and I looked at Kit and said, "These aren't for sale?" He smiled and said, "Which one do you want?" I showed him the one in Stellite which in my opinion had nicer matching stag, we struck a deal and the knife was mine, all in less time than it took to type this. This started off Blade Show 2001 for me on a high note, and for me the whole weekend was full of high notes. Several folks were pissed at me for being so quick, including Mo and my roommate for the show Gene. I had several offers to buy the knife before the day was over, but this knife will never be sold while I'm alive. In fact the only time it will leave my hands is when I send it off to Gary Graley for one of his belt sheaths.
I waundered around for the next several hours grinning like a idiot. My next purchase was a beautiful David Manley hunter in stag with a 3 1/2" mirror polished blade. I knew it would fit right in my stag collection between my Russ Easler skinner and GenO Denning #6 hunter. If any of you aren't familiar with David's work he makes beautiful knives at a price that'll make you feel like you're taking advantage of him, but he seemed to happy with the deal.
I got to spend a lot of time with P.J. Tomes ABS MS, in fact he took me for BBQ at Sonny's two nights in a row. We had met back at one of the NY shows and I have two of his knives that are the best kitchen knives I could own. P.J. can do things with stag that nobody else can do, is it any wonder we became good friends? Over dinner one night we were discussing Bowies, (i.e. he talked and I listened as hard as I could) and we got to discussing the Tai Chee Bowies in ivory he had on his table and I asked if he had one in stag? He said no but would I be interested in one in jigged bone? I said I was, so the next day that knife went right from PJ's case to my belt, it never touched his table.
I had been talking via E-mail to Ed & Angie Fowler about a Pronghorn for myself and Ed said he was bringing around 15 knives to Blade and to see if anything fit my needs. When I looked at all his knives on his table I didn't find the one that matched my dream knife. Ed said, "No problem, tell me what you want?" So I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be leaving with one of his knives. I was waundering around again and I saw this these miniatures Earl Witsaman had out and I saw a minitature Pronhorn OAL about 2 1/2" so I bought it. I headed back to Ed's table and I said to Ed, "Hey Mister! I have a problem with one of your knives." Ed looked up kind of surprised and said, "What do you mean?" I said, "You guarantee your knives for life don't you?" He said he did, so I said, "Well, I washed one fo your Pringhorns and the damn thing shrunk...now what are you going to do about it?" As I handed him the miniature. Ed said, "Well I'll be, now where did you find that?" We both got a chuckle over that one. Well, Sunday comes and I'm going around saying goodbye and Ed calls me over. He said one of the knives he had an order for the guy was still stalling him, he said go take a look and if I wanted it I could have it. I picked it up and the handle fit my hand perfect, the blade was a 3 1/2" classic dropped point. What could I say, this was the knife I'd been dreaming about since 1998 when I picked up my first Blade magazine? Now it's mine. My buddy Max Burnett was kind enough to take some pics of Ed and I with the newest prize in my collection and I'll post them as soon as he sends them a long.
Like I said, this show started on a high note with Kit Carson and ended on a high note with Ed Fowler, with hundreds of memorable moments in between. I hope everyone had as good a time as I did.
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Will Work 4 Knives
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