World Trade Center knives?

P

pvk

Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
5
Hi everyone.

I'm the owner of World Trade Center knife # 487. When I ordered this knife, they were being offered as commemoratives to the people who died on 9/11. There was supposed to be one numbered knife for each of them. Here recently, I mentioned this to some friends that were interested in purchasing knives for themselves, and when they went to Spyderco's site, they were not to be found. I called Spyderco, and was told that the whole series was not sold, and the remaining knives were destroyed. Why they would do this is anyone's guess. Anyway, no one there could explain why, or even tell me how many of the series WERE sold. If anyone here in this forum knows anything about the WTC knives, I'd sure appreciate hearing from you. I don't get to this forum very often, so if you have any info to share, my email is: prvk@earthlink.net. Thank you very much. :-)

Peter
 
Could this be true, that the knives were destroyed? That doesn't sound like the Spyderco I know. I would like to think Sal would rather donate the knives to WTC fundraising foundations and let them sell for whatever could be raised.

I personally did not join the forums in time to get in on the WTC knives. However, I would like one, for a reasonable price of course. What was the original MSRP on them? I think the ones I have seen on Ebay seemed way overpriced, but maybe I am off base on the pricing?
 
xdshooter said:
Could this be true, that the knives were destroyed? That doesn't sound like the Spyderco I know. I would like to think Sal would rather donate the knives to WTC fundraising foundations and let them sell for whatever could be raised.

I personally did not join the forums in time to get in on the WTC knives. However, I would like one, for a reasonable price of course. What was the original MSRP on them? I think the ones I have seen on Ebay seemed way overpriced, but maybe I am off base on the pricing?
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Hi XDShooter.

Actually, I've since found the old email inquiries I made to Spyderco about this, and yes, I was told they were destroyed. If desired by anyone, I can post those emails here. I think the gist of it is that the Firefighters' and Widows' Fund closed at some point before all the knives were sold, and this was the fund that was the beneficiary of Spyderco's intent. I share your sentiment about the remaining knives. I have several friends who would have loved to have one, but didn't know about them in time.

As to the pricing, my cost was $225, which included a beautiful wood case (redwood, I think) and the documentation for the knife. What were they asking on EBay?

Peter
 
I've seen them go well in excess of $400 on eBay.

I'm not sure the knives were destroyed, they may have simply not been made. Sal mentioned a while back that he still has the skyline inlays in some corner. The molds for the WTC handles were either destroyed or re-tooled to make the D'Allara Rescue.
 
yablanowitz said:
I've seen them go well in excess of $400 on eBay.

I'm not sure the knives were destroyed, they may have simply not been made. Sal mentioned a while back that he still has the skyline inlays in some corner. The molds for the WTC handles were either destroyed or re-tooled to make the D'Allara Rescue.
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It makes me feel good that Sal might still have the inlays, which says that all the knives were NOT made. It would be wonderful if he re-started the program so that other funds could benefit, and my friends could have WTC knives of their own. In one of the emails from Spyderco, I was told that the D'Allara was the same knife, but with a spider in place of the skyline.
 
The D'Allara also used VG-10 steel instead of the WTC's S30V. The molds were changed a couple of times, so the last runs of the D'Allara were quite a bit different from the WTC.
 
Hi PVK,

We ended up making under 2000 pieces.

All of them (except 2) were sold for the MSRP of $225. Even those that I purchased for my family were paid for retail by Gail and me. We felt that if there was no compromise in price, then the value would not diminish in time.

One was given to President Bush (#911) and one was given to Mayor Giuliani (#2001).

We destroyed the remaining handles. There were only a few blades also destroyed, as we made the blades in smaller batches. We felt that if there were remaining parts, then it would be possible for someone to make and blackmarket WTC knives. This would hurt the value of the pieces made and sold and wouldn't be fair to those that paid for $225 them.

I didn't destroy the skylines.

We ended the project after a period of time. That's when we destroyed the remaing parts. We donated all of the profits to the Widows and Orphans fund. As I remember, the total was about $45K. We had hoped for more.

Since the project has ended. There is no venue to do anything with the skylines. We can't sell them as there is no longer a place to donate funds.

We've framed a few and given them away, but we've not sold any of the skylines.

sal
 
Sal Glesser said:
Hi PVK,

Since the project has ended. There is no venue to do anything with the skylines. We can't sell them as there is no longer a place to donate funds.

We've framed a few and given them away, but we've not sold any of the skylines.

sal
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Thanks Sal. I really appreciate the info. I've always wanted to know what happened to the program. I'm grateful and honored to have one of these beautiful knives. Perhaps there might be a way to include one or more of the skylines at the new center that's being built on the site. After all, they were crafted from the original building. :-)

Peter
 
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