Steve Shackleford

The Blondie Man’s Blades, the latest in filework, the hottest knives of the hottest custom makers and much more highlight the new BLADE®, on newsstands now!

ABS master smith Wally Hayes was an up-and-coming maker when he first met Chris Stein at a late 1990s New York Custom Knife Show. The co-founder and guitarist of the new wave band Blondie featuring lead singer Debbie Harry, Stein has collected knives for decades and added another one to his collection when he bought Hayes’s first double-edged wakizashi at the show. Get the story on Stein and his knife collection in “Blades of the Blondie Man.”

Filework is one of those understated yet elegant bits of embellished finery that many of today’s leading makers incorporate onto the spines of their knives. Daniel Jackson picked the brains of some of the top practitioners of the art in his story, “Cutting The Tool That Cuts”—which includes the Panama Trapper cover knife by Luke Swenson.

Staying abreast of the hottest knives of the hottest custom knifemakers is something the leading custom knife purveyors must do on a continuing basis if they want to keep bringing home the blade bacon. BLADE polled seven of the industry’s top purveyors to see which knives of which makers apply in “Top Of The Food Chain.”

Tactical knives have enjoyed varying degrees of popularity since the mid-’90s, but they never really go away for long before getting hot again. One of the reasons for their popularity is that they seem to constantly evolve to meet market needs. Get the lowdown on what is, isn’t and what’s to come in the genre in “Is It Tactical?”

The latest installment in our “Knives That Changed Knife History” is on the Buck 110. When the iconic folding hunter first appeared in 1964, lockback folding knives had pretty much faded into the background. The Buck 110 was big and strong and worn on a belt. It was much more a hardcore using knife than a pocketknife and it changed knives forever. Learn about the groundbreaking cutter in “The Buck That Went Bang.”

There’s much more in the latest BLADE. Get it on newsstands now!

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s knife bill veto at the end of 2016 targets minorities and others who carry pocketknives.

According to Knife Rights, Cuomo vetoed the Gravity Knife and Switchblade Reform Bill, or S. 6483-A. If he had approved it, the bill would have excluded the vast majority of pocketknives, linerlock and framelock folders, flipper folders, assisted openers and other one-hand-opening folding knives from being designated as gravity knives or automatics (aka switchblades) under existing law. As a result of Cuomo’s knife bill veto, those who carry pocketknives, flipper folders, linerlocks and framelocks, and other one-hand-opening folders in New York remain subject to violating the state’s ban on automatics and gravity knives.

Since many minorities in New York City and others throughout the state carry pocketknives and folders and are the ones most likely to be targeted by the law that stays in place as a result of Cuomo’s knife bill veto, they remain subject to a fine and jail time if arrested for carrying said knives. As BLADE® field editor Ed Fowler notes in his story in the upcoming issue of the April BLADE, on newsstands Jan. 24, “The ultimate display of bureaucratic stupidity are the thousands of knife laws that serve no purpose other than to turn law-abiding citizens, usually minorities, into criminals in the name of public safety.”

According to the Knife Rights news release, Knife Rights will return when the New York legislature convenes this year to the job of fixing “the state’s Gravity Knife law to prevent these arrests and prosecutions. This bill passed with such large majorities in both houses of the legislature that an override of a veto is theoretically possible.”

As Knife Rights noted, Cuomo effectively thumbed his nose at a New York legislature that had overwhelmingly passed S. 6483-A, as well as at other New Yorkers, many of whom include his own constituents, who had supported the bill. In so doing, he joined the “Nexus of No” that includes New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neill and District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., in being virtually the only ones who oppose S. 6483-A.

The defeated bill would have added wording excluding knives with “a spring, detent or other mechanism designed to create a bias toward closure and that requires exertion applied to the blade by hand, wrist or arm to overcome the bias toward closure and open the knife” from the existing bill’s definition of switchblade. In other words, knives such as pocketknives, linerlocks and framelocks, assisted openers and others could not be defined as switchblades in New York if Cuomo had not vetoed S. 6483-A. Similar wording would have excluded pocketknives, etc., from the definition of gravity knife as well.

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Custom knife ambassador Philip Carl “Phil” Lobred, the man who commissioned the reproduction of the King Tut Dagger by Buster Warenski and along with Gil Hibben enjoyed a special audience with Elvis Presley, passed away Dec. 14 after a long illness. He was 72.

Lobred was one of the first big-time collectors of custom knives. He began collecting them in 1968 and befriended many of the legendary custom knifemakers of the day, including BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame© members Gil Hibben, Bob Loveless, Buster Warenski and Bill Moran, and also such preeminent makers as Jim Schmidt, Ted Dowell, Herman Schneider and many others.

Hibben and Lobred were especially close. Lobred lived in Alaska in the early 1970s and Hibben moved to Anchorage and made knives out of Lobred’s garage. In 1974, Lobred accompanied Hibben on a private audience with Elvis Presley (see “The Elvis Knife,” July 1997 BLADE®). A member of the Martial Arts Hall Of Fame as well, Hibben knew Ed Parker, the renowned Kenpo martial arts instructor, who also had been one of Presley’s bodyguards. Hibben had made a Kenpo knife in which The King expressed interest, so Parker arranged a meeting for Hibben to present one of the knives to Presley. Lobred was invited along.

“I had the privilege to have Phil Lobred in my life, not only as a friend but as a brother for the past 47 years,” Hibben noted. “He was the closest friend I have ever had and I truly loved him. We shared a

history that few others will ever know and my memories with Phil will live on forever in my heart. His loss is devastating, not only to his family and close friends but to the many, many hearts he touched in the knife community and around the world. ‘Here’s to you P.Q., we had a great time together.'” “P.Q.” is Hibben’s nickname for Lobred and stands for “Pretty Quick.”

One of Lobred’s crowning achievements is the biennial Art Knife Invitational. The AKI assembles 25 of the world’s finest knifemakers in a special show in which high-dollar collectors are invited and enter their names in drawings to buy the knives of their choice. It was the first successful biennial knife show and at least two other shows—the Solvang Custom Knife Show and California Custom Knife Show—are biennial shows today. As of this writing, this year’s AKI is scheduled for Oct. 28 at the Sheraton Hotel San Diego Bayside Tower. Exactly how Phil’s passing will affect the show’s status is unknown at this time.

Through it all, the thing Lobred probably will be remembered for most is his commissioning of the reproduction by Warenski of the King Tut dagger in 1982. It took Warenski five years to complete the knife, which included 33 ounces of gold, an ancient technique known as granulation for the handle and much more. When the knife was exhibited at the 1987 Knifemakers’ Guild Show it was a sensation, and served as the cover knife for the February 1988 BLADE. The knife has since been valued at $1 million.

Funeral arrangements are under the direction of El Camino Memorial-Sorrento Valley, San Diego, California. Service information is unavailable at this time.

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Eric Eggly is saying goodbye to knife photography. The longtime knife photographer and founder of PointSeven Studios is taking a job in a different though related industry.

A familiar face at knife shows worldwide, Eggly photographed knives for three decades. For about the past two decades he had owned and operated PointSeven Studios in Toledo and then Maumee, Ohio, where he photographed not only knives but products of many kinds for various companies. It was the latter commercial photography that paid the bills, but it was photographing knives that was among his first loves. Along with a number of other photographers that continue to do so, PointSeven not only photographed custom knives but supplied the photos to knife magazines and other media that helped publicize the makers and their knives worldwide.

In addition to photographing knives in his studio, Eggly also took his photography operation on the road, including shooting knives at knife shows in America and abroad. One of those shows is the world’s largest and most important knife event, the BLADE Show in Atlanta, Georgia—this year’s show will be June 2-4, once again at the Cobb Galleria Centre—for which PointSeven had served as official photographer since 2001.

Among the BLADE Show duties of Eric and his staff were photographing the BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards, the winners of the show’s custom knife judging competition, the American Bladesmith Society’s annual award-winning knives, the BLADE Show World Championship Cutting Competitions, and photos of the overall event inside the show hall in the Cobb Galleria Centre, all for use in the annual BLADE Show recap issue of BLADE® Magazine. In addition to the latter, PointSeven photographed any number of custom and factory knives for a goodly amount of the show’s exhibitors, which number near 1,000. Eggly also conducted BLADE Show seminars on how to photograph knives.

As these words are written, the BLADE Show is in the process of finding a replacement for PointSeven as the show’s official photographer.

Eggly’s new job will be chief product officer for F.J. Westcott, a manufacturer of high-end lighting equipment for professional filmmakers and photographers.

Cut, handle or chop it—or lock it or look it up—in BLADE’s Complete Knife Guide 2017, on newsstands now!

The knife industry’s only annual buying journal, the 2017 BLADE’s Guide includes a comprehensive listing of anyone and everyone who does business in the factory knife industry, including manufacturers, importers, accessory, material and equipment makers and suppliers, knifemaking schools, photographers, embellishers and more. The Guide also has a special section on some of the top factory knives that will debut in the coming year.

Looking for today’s hottest blade steels? In “Steel Trek: The Search For Sharp,” David W. Jung takes you through not only the latest ones but also the ones that are being used by custom knifemakers and manufacturers most on their newest knives. Need a wedge of hardened steel to chop, whop or split logs, kindling and more? James Morgan Ayres outlines the sharpest in hatchets and hand axes in “Cut Me Some Whack!”

Knifemakers who use elephant ivory have been among those under attack by federal and state legislation, but those who use ancient ivory have found themselves under the gun as well. Meanwhile, the suppliers who sell handle materials are having to change with the changing market. Mike Haskew examines the issue from the sellers’ standpoint in “Ivory: How Knife Suppliers Adapt.”

Framelock folders offer some of the most secure lockup of any folding knife—a good thing for all knife enthusiasts, including the ladies. Daniel Jackson outlines four of the latest such folders from a woman’s perspective in “Framelocks From the Feminine View.”

Also in our special annual issue: knife handles designed for those with big hands; knives that double as bottle openers; an excerpt from the world’s greatest knife book, KNIVES 2017, on bowie fighters; an introduction of BLADE® Magazine’s new managing editor, Erin Healy; and much more. Subscribe, buy the digital edition or tramp on down to the newsstand for the latest issue!

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