New inductees span the world of custom and factory knives.
A notable assortment of those who for many years enhanced or continue to enhance the overall improvement of the knife industry highlights the 2026 class of inductees into the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall of Fame®.
The new honorees include three living and four deceased members. Among the former are CRKT co-founder Rod Bremer and Anne Reeve, owner/president of Chris Reeve Knives, on the factory side, and American Bladesmith Society master smith Larry Fuegen from the custom realm.
The posthumous inductees are bladesmith/writer Ed Fowler, custom knife purveyor Nate Posner, knifemaker/knifemaking supplier Bob Engnath and ABS master smith Tim Hancock.
All will be formally inducted in a special ceremony during the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-of-Fame Breakfast the Saturday morning of the BLADE Show, June 6, in the Renaissance Waverly, the host hotel adjoining the Cobb Convention Center in Atlanta. For ticket information email [email protected].
Rod Bremer
Along with partner Paul Gillespie, Rod Bremer started Columbia River Knife & Tool (CRKT) in 1994. The concept was to bring world-class-quality knives to the U.S. market in the designs of custom knifemakers—as of today, CRKT has used the designs of over 50 such makers—and innovation at a price that virtually all consumers can afford.
According to a nominator, Rod’s integrity qualifies him for the Hall of Fame, a good example being that “CRKT pays the makers/designers royalties for as long as the knife sells. To this day, Rod is still paying royalties to the estates of Ed Halligan, Jon Graham, Cutlery Hall-of-Famer Kit Carson and several others.” Added the nominator, “CRKT started the Forged by War program to help veterans and their charities. So far the program has donated over $500,000 to the charities of the veteran’s choice.”
Under Rod’s leadership, CRKT has won a number of BLADE Magazine Knife-of-The-Year® Awards. In the process, he helped enhance Southeast Asia knife manufacturing by teaching and demanding that the Taiwanese factories produce the highest-quality knives possible.
He has bolstered pro-knife initiatives through his work as an American Knife & Tool (AKTI) Board of Regents member, working on issues that benefit the knife industry. His resume includes: 1) Election to the AKTI Board of Regents (2009); 2) Playing an active role in the monumental defeat of U.S. Customs’ attempt to classify all one-hand knives as switchblades (2009); 3) Recipient of Knife Rights’ inaugural Freedom’s Guardian Award for his role in upholding knife rights industry wide (2011); 4) Elected AKTI vice president (2011); 5) Organized and hosted AKTI anti-counterfeiting round table and presented related seminars for BLADE University at BLADE Show 2013; and 6) Elected (2014) AKTI president, a position he held through 2016.
Anne Reeve
According to a nominator, in 1986 Anne Reeve joined the then-fledgling Chris Reeve Knives and quickly became an integral part of the company. Her partner, both in life and business, Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Chris Reeve, was the craftsman, and a great one at that. While Chris’s forte was knife design, Anne’s strengths were administration and bookkeeping. Anne spent many of the following years lending a hand where she could, helping to build a company known for quality and excellence.
For most of the early years, Chris Reeve Knives was just Anne and Chris plus a handful of employees, which meant Anne wore many hats. As the company grew, Anne stepped more into working behind the scenes in administration and customer service. Her years of answering the phone and meeting customers, partnered with her determination to ‘do the right thing,’ laid the groundwork for the knife manufacturer’s international reputation for excellence. Today, the company has around 150 dealers worldwide.
On the knife legislation front, Anne showed support for both the American Knife & Tool Institute and Knife Rights with encouragement, donations of knives and cash, and attending and sponsoring related functions. She has been treasurer of the Idaho Knife Association since 2018 and is an active member of the organizing committee for the IKA’s annual show.
After a nearly 30-year partnership, Chris retired, and Anne took a massive leap of faith and bought Chris’s share of the company. With the help of their son, Tim, and a team of young, talented and enthusiastic leaders, Anne has trailblazed Chris Reeve Knives into new territory. As the nominator concluded, “Investment in equipment and employees has resulted in revenue more than doubling under her leadership, the quantity of knives produced each month continues to increase, the quality of those knives is better than ever, and demand continues to significantly outpace production. Her determination to keep the integrity of Chris Reeve Knives, coupled with the highest quality products and customer service, has set a standard in the knife industry.” Helping cap it off, Anne won the BLADE Magazine 2025 Industry Achievement Award for her many contributions to the craft and cutlery community.
Bob Engnath
Bob Engnath built his first knife in 1972 and went full-time in ’79, making kit blades, tantos, swords and assorted knives in carbon steel. His base of operations was Blades ‘N’ Stuff, a retail shop he ran in Glendale, California, that offered tools, supplies and materials for knifemakers, bladesmiths and swordsmiths.
He produced several editions of a comprehensive publication he also called Blades ‘n’ Stuff, a 70-or-so-page 8-by-11-inch “Catalog and Instruction Manual featuring Handcrafted Blades by Bob Engnath and Knifemakers’ Supplies.” Sold for $5, it contained copious amounts of knowledge and instruction for anyone who wanted to make a knife or sword, including line art of his many patterns, knifemaking how-to’s with diagrams, tips and do’s and don’ts, and tons of sage advice on various steels, heat treating, knifemaking machines and materials, finishing, how to forge damascus, shop safety and other invaluable information. In addition to his catalogs, Bob also wrote the books The Scrimshaw Connection and The Second Scrimshaw Connection.
Engnath was a dedicated blade grinder and considered by many the best grinder of the time, providing blanks his customers could finish on their own. He gave many makers their start and dispensed an untold amount of knifemaking knowledge to anyone interested enough to listen, usually free of charge. According to one source, “Bob was a mentor to countless new makers through his knife kits, leaving a lasting legacy in the knife community.”
Summed up another source, Bob “was an excellent role model for any man in the knife business. He never said a bad word about anyone, took the knife business where it had not been before, his ethics were outstanding, his word was ironclad. I’d rather have had a handshake with Bob Engnath than a lawyered-up contract with any other knife name you care to mention. He was a hero and an example to a lot of people.”
Ed Fowler
Selling his first knife in 1962, Ed Fowler epitomized “the philosophy of the cutlery fabricator,” noted one nominator. Though not the first to use 52100 carbon steel for knife blades, Ed helped popularize it as it became a go-to material among today’s bladesmiths. He long performed and encouraged the multiple quenching of blades during heat treatment.
He wrote the monthly column “Knife Talk” for BLADE® for well over a quarter century. In BLADE’s reader surveys, along with Cutlery Hall-of-Famer Wayne Goddard, Ed completed the top one-two team of most popular BLADE writers year-in and year-out. Ed compiled his “Knife Talk” columns into two books: Knife Talk I: The Art & Science of Knife Making and Knife Talk II: The High Performance Blade. He conducted demos for many years on a variety of subjects at the BLADE Show, plus a class at BLADE University.
Formerly an ABS master smith, he went on to create the High Endurance Performance Knife Association, an organization dedicated to a greater understanding of the knives its members make, the steels they use, the process necessary for the knives to reach their maximum performance potential, and to share this understanding with any and all who seek it. He taught knifemaking to many, including more than a few who have gone on to become ABS journeyman and master smiths, including Audra Draper, Wade Colter, Shane Taylor, Bill Burke and Cutlery Hall-of-Famer Rick Dunkerley among the latter.
Wrote one nominator, Ed was “very passionate about what a knife should do. He indulged anyone who wanted to share time or debate ‘the concept of cut,’ as he called it.” Ed would pit his high-performance 52100 knives against all comers in what he called “real world tests,” cutting and doing things with the knives many consider abusive, until the knives failed. Ed continued using this testing regimen, observing that though you may never have to use a knife in such a manner, “What if you had to and the only tool you had at your disposal was your knife? Wouldn’t you take comfort in knowing that if ever push came to shove, you had a knife you could stake your life on?”
Larry Fuegen
Larry Fuegen started forging knives in 1975. According to a sitting Hall of Famer, from that time on all of Larry’s knives were sole authorship. He became a full-time knifemaker in 1987 and earned his American Bladesmith Society master smith rating in 1989.
“Since I’ve known Larry he has been a unique person who made unique knives,” the Hall of Famer wrote. “He started making friction folders after meeting Cutlery Hall-of-Famer Jim Schmidt at an ABS hammer-in. Years later Larry took those folders to a whole new level. For years he did gargoyle-type carvings on them and later started doing other renditions, like his folder featuring the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes wearing a gold helmet and Larry’s carved face of his idea of what Cortes looked like. Besides these great folders he made many ornate bowies, daggers and hunters that had carving, texturing and engraving done in a way to set his work apart from anyone else.
“For me what stood out most were his push daggers. I believe if you Googled push daggers a picture of Larry Fuegen would come up. He not only crafted knives, he also did his own leatherwork, which was top quality. He also made some of the best bits and spurs anywhere. In addition to his quality work he designed and built the tools he needed to produce his knives, leatherwork, and bits and spurs.”
He was voted into the Art Knife Invitational in 1999 and every year thereafter until 2022. Circa 2008 another of his ornately done friction folders, entitled Alaric, King of the Visigoths, went on permanent display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Luce Foundation. He has been featured in many magazine articles and books, among the latter including Greatest Living Knifemakers by Cutlery Hall-of-Famer Steve Shackleford.
Larry passed his knowledge on, teaching at numerous hammer-ins and seminars around the country. He is very knowledgeable and is willing to share with anyone. He is the personification of the traits required for induction into the Cutlery Hall of Fame.
Tim Hancock
Teaching others how to make “the total knife” played a huge role in defining Tim Hancock. “He taught and demonstrated at many hammer-ins in the areas of embellishment, design, blade forging, grinding, heat treating and sheath making,” ABS master smith Larry Fuegen observed. “He wanted to share his methods and thoughts with others. He also gave private lessons in his shop to many aspiring makers. The influence of his recognizable style can be seen in the work of many makers. Just as [Cutlery Hall-of-Famers] Bill Moran and Bob Loveless influenced many with their designs, so did Tim with his work.”
Added knifemaker Michael Vagnino, “I suppose the most important thing I learned from Tim was integrity. The knife you make is in fact a part of you. How it turns out is more about how honest you were when making it. When Tim told me that, it really made me pause. From that moment on, I viewed making knives in a new light.”
Tim earned his ABS master smith rating in 1993 and won an impressive number of honors for his knives, including the 2010 W.F. Moran Award. He was known for his award-winning period bowies, including though not limited to dog-bone bowies. Dr. David Darom dedicated an entire hardback book, Tim Hancock: The Western Bladesmith, to highlighting Tim’s knives and knifemaking career, even his penchant for forging silver-mounted bits and spurs and other Western gear. From 2001-2015 Tim was a member of the Art Knife Invitational, an organization of the world’s 25 greatest knifemakers spearheaded by Cutlery Hall-of-Famer Phil Lobred.
Nate Posner
Nate Posner started the San Francisco Gun Exchange in 1948 and built it into what he called the “Firearms Center of the West.” It had most everything firearm related but it was his displays of custom and factory knives that pertain here.
Along with Cutlery Hall-of-Famers A.G. Russell and Dan Delavan and also Bob Gaddis and Dave Harvey of Nordic Knives, Posner was among the first custom knife purveyors. He was known for telling his customers that to get the best price, instead of buying custom knives from middlemen such as him they should buy directly from the maker. Of course, if the customers wanted the handmade knife in question immediately, they often had to buy it from one of the few purveyors such as Nate to avoid spending what might be years on a waiting list. However, it was being up front that put Nate in good stead not only with his knife customers but the Guild, too—for both buying/selling the makers’ knives and treating what often were the makers’ customers/prospective customers in a professional manner.
At one time he had over 350 custom knives on display, with at least that many others in stock. Circa 1975 he ordered knives from dozens of makers, most active or past Guild members. Eventually he culled his list to about 25 or 30, including one of his favorites, D. E. Henry. Others included Tommy Lee, Jess Horn, Herman Schneider, Corbet Sigman, the-then-team of Scott Sawby and Steve Mullin, and future Cutlery Hall-of-Famers Frank Centofante, Jimmy Lile, Bob Loveless, George Herron, Bo Randall and more.
Thanks to the high store profile he gave custom knives and their makers to knife and gun buyers alike, Nate was one of the most important custom knife promoters of his or any era. As a result, the honor the Guild gives annually to an individual who provides “Outstanding Service in the Promotion of Handcrafted Cutlery” is called the Nate Posner Award.
