Hey all…
It is 8:30 on Friday, and Blade Show Day 1 is in the books.
Seems like it just started…
Before they opened the doors, I was passing out magazines to folks waiting in line when someone from the show staff told me I was not allowed to do that since we were not a “Show Sponsor”. This is a new policy, and I am having a hard time believing that it was random. It must have chafed Blade to see posts like this…
Oh well, it is their patrons that are going to suffer. They are sitting in line staring at their phones. It is petty and unfortunate, but oh well, no skin off my nose.
I am not going to pretend to be writing effusive or frankly high quality prose tonight. Truthfully, I should be going to be early since I am pretty gassed. But I am going to knock this out and head to The Pit.
Last night was extremely tame, but that is about par for the course. Stories are still shared of legendary pit parties in year’s past.
What is funny, is while this is my 10th Blade Show, I have only started going to the Pit post Covid. In years before, I felt a stronger sense of obligation to get a big post out. In this post Covid environment, my priorities have shifted somewhat.
Back in college we had a (joke) saying: “You can always retake a class, but a party missed is a party lost forever”. After not seeing good friends for multiple years, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to do so.
But you didn’t come here for last night. You want to see some stuff from today…
We had to move from our prior back wall location, we are now at booth 542.
I realize that I didn’t take many knife pictures, and most of those were production pieces.
I have been impressed with how GSM has managed to keep the Cold Steel feel and “pedigree” throughout the new knives coming out from that company. I was less solid on the state of SOG. After visiting the booth today, I feel much better with the state of the company. The SOG Tech Bowie looks like it will be a good seller, and I really liked the Diverge XR. It is Chinese, which will be a turn off for some consumers, but the action is among the best of any knife I handled today.
Stopped in to see Joyce at Kansept…
and dropped by Paul Munko’s booth where I saw he had clipped and framed my Knife News piece on the Kansept Cosmos, which is one of his designs.
If my day had a theme, besides just seeing friends and visiting folks who responded to our “Tell us your table #” social media posts, it was checking in on companies, reps, and makers whom I had featured this year in Knife News columns.
A Kizer prototype I liked, and will probably be a future Knife News.
I just spent some time looking through the knife photos from today, and most are not worthy of publication, mostly they are good for future reference.
The Dogwood Custom booth is right across from ours, and Ethan was signing copies of the Joy of Cooking in celebration of the Joy of Cooking Chef’s Knife which made its debut this week.
I bought a copy for my daughter, since my copy is signed to me.
The rest of the phots are just a montage of friends I saw today…
Grumpy Grunt. (https://www.youtube.com/c/grumpygrunt)
Sterling Buster (Sterling Buster Cutlery/Fight’n Rooster)
Ken Onion, who continues to be one of the most gracious and helpful people in the industry, despite having a stature as noteworthy as his,.
Alec Wachtman is an up and coming maker whos stuff I really like. He and his fiancee MayLee are great people, and I have a feeling they are destined for big things in the industry.
Dan and Ben are two of my favorite people in the industry.
Katie (our Graphic Artist), Kyle Daily, and a random blogger.
John Dennehey (DAN-D Knives)
George from BladeHQ, who wrote the recent Introducing Knives to Kids article for KNIFE, and whose last name I did not know when proofreading and didn’t realize it was him.
And fianlly, Joe Mangiafico…
…whose Brook Trout folder has been one of my grails for a while.
I am thrilled to call it mine.
Alright…It is 9:30 and I need to head out. Thanks for bearing with. a post far short of my baseline desired quality, but I hope I conveyed a sense of the show.
Have a good one, and I will talk to y’all tomorrow. If you are at the show and want to reach me, text 865-964-64ZERO3 I will do my best to link up with you.
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