BLADE Staff

The 41st Annual Knifemakers’ Guild Show, held this past weekend in Louisville, Kentucky, was a great way to spend time with some of the world’s best makers and see some of the world’s best custom knives.

Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall-of-Famer Gil Hibben displayed his knives from The Expendables, AKI member Steve Hoel exhibited an awesome pearl-handle folder with breathtaking gold-inlaid leaf engraving by Barry Lee Hands and there was much more. Leading the up-and-coming knifemaking contingent were Dwight Phillips with his impressive antique bowie repros and Jason Rabuck with his utilitarian fixed blades, among others. There was much more—impeccable screwless construction folders by Stan Wilson, Tom Overeynder’s incomparable doctor’s knives and others.

Knife giveaways, awards, lots of post-show things to do in and around the Seelbach–it was a great weekend for custom knife enthusiasts.

To read more, see a future issue of BLADE.

BLADE Managing Editor Joe Kertzman already has alerted you to new December BLADE, and I’d like to add to his alert by telling you that the December BLADE is on most newsstands as of today, Sept. 14.

It’s the first-ever issue we’ve done almost exclusively on knives used by the military. Buy it now before they’re all gone! The cover knife is the XM-7 EOD by Les George. Other knifemakers and knife companies with knives mentioned editorially in that issue, in no particular order, are: Burt Foster, Strider Knives, Spartan Blades, Allen Elishewitz, Justin Gingrich, Blackhawk, Klotzli, Schrade, Case, Gerber, Leatherman Tool, Bobby Branton, Al Mar Knives, the old Camillus, Columbia River Knife & Tool, Cold Steel, Bob Dozier, Aaron Frederick, Benchmade, Pro-Tech, Spyderco, Michael Ruth Jr., Byrd, Mike Draper, Todd Begg, TOPS, Grayman Knives, Emerson Knives, Inc., ESEE, Buck, SureFire, Jerry Partridge, Paul Granger, Jay Fisher, Brent Beshara, Jim Hammond, Ka-Bar, Chris Reeve Knives, SOG Specialty Knives, Ontario, Steve Huey, Pat & West Crawford, Derrick Wulf, George Tichbourne, Michael Holtschulte, John Horrigan, Jerry Fisk, Zero Tolerance, Sebertech and Bob Terzuola.

We received news just now that Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer© Bob Loveless passed away today at 11:30 a.m. He was 81.

Jack Lucarelli, author of the book “James B. Lile The Arkansas Knifesmith,” informed BLADE by e-mail at 4:50 p.m. of Bob’s passing. Jack, who is also an actor, stuntman and long-time collector of Loveless knives, said Bob’s health had declined rapidly the past two months. Loveless had suffered from lung cancer. Lucarelli said despite his declining health, Bob was in good spirits and mentally sharp up to the end.

There will be special stories in BLADE on Loveless in the coming months. Meanwhile, please join us in remembering the man who is probably the most important knifemaker in modern cutlery history.

And here you thought you were so modern with that plastic fork! A discovery in Israel points to the use of disposable cutlery by ancient peoples. Here’s the article from the AP. You can read the rest at Breitbart.com.

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli archaeologists believe thousands of ancient shards of flint found scattered around a fire pit in a cave near Tel Aviv might be the world’s oldest known disposable knives.

Dating to the Stone Age, the tiny knives are believed to be at least 200,000 years old. A Tel Aviv University excavation team found the tools around a fireplace littered with charred animal bones.

Archaeologist Ran Barkai said he believes Stone Age hunter-gatherers used the rough, round-shaped cutlery—ranging from the size of human teeth to guitar picks—for slicing through cooked meat because they were found next to the animal bones. The bones were used to determine the age of the knives.

The number of knives found, coupled with the fact that they had no signs of sharpening, indicates they were disposable because they would have dulled after several uses, he said.

The knives were made from recycled material—parts of larger knives and tools designed for other uses such as butchering animals and scraping hides, he said.

Click here to read the rest.