Don’t miss the June 2 deadline for the June 9 public meeting on the federal ivory ban. Jimmy Lile used pre-ban ivory on his classic Lone Wolf Gonzaullas knife he made in the late 1970s. (image courtesy of Jack Lucarelli)
If you care to express your views concerning the federal ivory ban, you are urged to participate in another public meeting—scheduled this time for June 9—by the Advisory Council to the Presidential Task Force on combating wildlife trafficking. Signup deadline to attend is June 2. If you want to submit talking points for discussion during the meeting but cannot attend, you must submit them in writing by June 2 as well. No e-mails or faxes will be accepted!
The meeting will be held from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. EDT at the U.S. General Service Administration Building, 1800 F St. NW, Room 1153, Washington, D.C 20405. For more information on deadlines, where to send your written statements, etc., visit https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/05/06/2014-10295/advisory-council-on-wildlife-trafficking-meeting.
According to scrimshander Sandra Brady, you may attend the meeting in person or you may participate via telephone. “At this time, we are inviting submissions of questions and information for consideration during the meeting,” she noted. “If you or anyone you know would like to have their voice heard, now is the time. You must sign up to make a statement or sign up to be present during the meeting by June 2. I believe letters would be appropriate if received no later than June 2.
“If you are a knife club member or in charge of a newsletter, please get this info out. Also, those of you who are active on forums, please pass this around there, too. We need a strong showing, lots of letters, and don’t forget to contact your congressional representatives. We do not want sales in pre-ban ivory to become a felony!”
The Advisory Council is called upon to hold such meetings as a result of Executive Order by President Obama (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/01/executive-order-combating-wildlife-trafficking). The June 9 meeting will be the third one held by the Advisory Council. According to an Advisory Council release, the meeting will be held to “discuss administrative topics and hear public comments and questions.”
Stay tuned to a special ivory site, www.elephantprotection.org, for updates and more information.
Idaho eliminates more restrictive local ordinances, while Washington outlaws knives on public transit.
Idaho became the 14th state to enact knife law preemption while Washington state banned knives on public transport in recent knife legislative developments, according to Knife Rights.
Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed SB 544 that makes it illegal to possess any knife at a “transit station,” including bus, train and trolley stops. The measure goes into effect June 6. “As such,” Knife Rights reported, “unless you manage to board and get off public transport somewhere other than a ‘transit station,’ it will be impossible to legally carry a knife on public transit.” According to Knife Rights, Second Amendment lawsuits that eventually will impact SB 544 are in various stages of litigation in the Ninth Circuit, which includes Washington state, and also nationwide, including a number of Knife Rights’ cases. Some of the cases likely will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
As for the good news in Idaho, knife law preemption goes into effect July 1. Signed into law by Idaho Governor Brad Little on March 29, the measure eliminates local ordinances more restrictive than state laws that confuse or entrap law-abiding citizens traveling in or through the state. Thanks to knife law preemption, citizens can expect consistent enforcement of state knife laws everywhere within Idaho. Idaho joins Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin among states covered by knife law preemption. For more information, contact kniferights.org.
Here i go. One Month no knife use at all for any reason. This includes razors, scissors, clippers. Anything that cuts except my teeth and my wit. ( ill still be making knives, as i cant go broke) Ill be reporting to @BladeMagazine on my progress in detail. This will be hard! pic.twitter.com/I9kqq4ZhBO
Roger Barnes, of BC Cutlery Co., is running an experiment. He’s seeing what would happen if he went an entire month without using a knife, and he’s documenting the hurdles he comes across.
It’s an interesting thing to think about. Whether you use a knife or not, the conveniences that make modern living possible are grounded in a blade turning one thing into two things.
BLADE will be following Barnes as he plays out his experiment over the coming weeks, and summing everything up in an article. You can follow along, too, on Twitter.
Photographer Documents What Happens When Knifemaking Leaves Town
Jason Koxvold is a photographer who set out to document the decline of the cutlery industry in the Hudson Valley of New York, which for 150 years formed the bulk of that region’s economy. The result is KNIVES, a photo gallery depicting the fallout.
KNIVES is a project made over several years, using documentary photography to trace the shifting relationships between masculinity, myth, and violence in a rural town whose economic base remains eviscerated by globalisation.
The cutlery industry formed the economic backbone of New York’s Hudson Valley for over 150 years, until the Schrade knife factory abruptly moved production to China in 2004, leaving 500 men and women out of work. The town’s maximum security prison, Eastern Correctional Facility, became the largest employer in the area, shielded from the wider community by layers of secrecy. As businesses continued to close during the decade that followed, drug abuse, mental disorders, and rare cancers have become more widespread.
Koxvold’s work is less about the knife industry in general and more about the disruptive effects of a changing global economy on certain parts of the United States. Still, it’s worth a look for knife enthusiasts, if only to better understand how knives fit into the bigger picture.
The new BLADE showcases the hottest knives of the SHOT Show—including the new Kershaw/Emerson CQC-6K on the cover—the inside scoop on knife lotteries, field tests of the latest skeleton knives and more.
Check out the June BLADE, on newsstands today!
Held this past January at the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas, the SHOT Show is the annual coming out party for the latest in knives, guns, deer stands, sharpeners and everything that has to do with shooting and hunting. The movers and shakers of the cutlery industry were there to present the newest in tactical, outdoor, kitchen, sporting, bushcraft and just about any knife you can think of. BLADE was there to scope it all out and you can be too in the pages of the June issue.
Knife lotteries are one of the hottest tickets in the industry. Knife enthusiasts who normally can’t even sniff buying the knives of some of today’s hottest makers due to long waiting lists have an equal chance at the makers’ new knives through the lotteries. But are the lotteries really all they’re cracked up to be? Find out the good and the bad of an industry juggernaut in the new BLADE.
Bare-bone cutters, skeleton knives are cool tools that offer a minimalist approach to design but maximum cutting output for blades their size. Find out how some of the newest models perform in this issue.
The Buck 110 is one of the icons of the knife industry and this year celebrates its 50th anniversary. Get the lowdown on the history of the famous folding hunter and all the various sweepstakes surrounding the knife’s golden anniversary in the new BLADE.
Open through June 22, “A Sure Defense: The Bowie Knife In America” is a celebration of perhaps the world’s most famous American knife. Held at the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock, the exhibit features some of the world’s oldest and most valuable antique bowies from the 19th century. Read all about it this issue.
To subscribe to the digital edition of BLADE, visit
GSM Outdoor takes a larger stake in the knife industry with the purchase of Smith’s Products.
The outdoor industry is constantly shifting and the knife niche isn’t immune. One of the latest moves certain to touch a large swath of the edge tool market is GMS Outdoor acquiring Smith’s Products.
The deal, for an undisclosed amount, was completed in October. Already, GSM’s website has the company added to its 57-brand roster.
For those not well-versed in the industry, GMS is a large multi-brand conglomerate with a toehold in hunting, shooting and fishing. Smith’s was founded in 1886 as a small family operation, mining and selling raw sharpening stones. Over time, it grew into a multi-channel brand, supplying tools for everything from hunting and fishing to culinary and tactical use.
Interestingly, this is not the GSM’s first dalliance into the knife sphere. In 2020, the conglomerate purchased Cold Steel, and in 2021, it further ventured into the niche, buying SOG.
Up to this point, the company did not own a dedicated knife accessories business, which has always been Smith’s Products’ bread and butter. Even with these recent moves of the past five years, GSM’s main thrust remains in the hunting and fishing industry.
The overall effect of GSM’s purchase of Smith’s offerings and evolution remains to be seen. The Smith’s brand was fairly ubiquitous before the purchase, but likely will become more so under the multi-brand umbrella.
As to GSM’s angle on the purchase, its senior VP of sales, Chris Leonard, had this to say in a press release:
“Together, GSM Outdoors and Smith’s Products are poised to deliver greater value, drive meaningful growth, and continue building a more sustainable future for the industry in every facet.”
Two of Shelley’s early favorite knives: the Hermes folder (right) and a Randall.
While there have been many celebrities in and out of show business embraced by the custom knife community, none embraced it in return and then some as did cutlery’s comic, Shelley Berman. Actor, comedian, writer, poet, professor and knife collector, Berman passed away quietly on Sept. 1 at the age of 92, but not before decades of touching the custom knife community like no one else.
Known worldwide beginning in the late 1950s as a top comedian, Berman recorded six comedy albums, including 1959’s Inside
Shelley Berman, the first non-musical recording to win a Grammy Award. Three of his comedy albums went gold and he was the first non-musical comedian to appear in Carnegie Hall. According to an Associated Press story, Berman was “a pioneer of a new brand of comedy that could evoke laughter from such matters as air travel discomforts and small children who answer the telephone. He helped pave the way for Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld and other standup comedians who fashioned their routines around the follies and frustrations of modern living.”
Shelley also starred on stage and in musicals on Broadway, had several film roles and continued acting into his mid-80s, appearing as Larry David’s dad on TV’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, and also on Boston Legal and Grey’s Anatomy, among others. He retired in his 80s after 20 years of teaching humor writing in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California.
Shelley Berman was known worldwide for his comedy in the 1950s and won the first ever Grammy Award for a non-musical album—of comedy, naturally enough—in 1959.
of custom knives. All that changed when he was working in Las Vegas in the late 1970s.
It was there he saw his first custom knife at a knife show in the old Sahara hotel and casino. He wasn’t sure custom knives were for him until he subscribed to the American Blade magazine—now BLADE® Magazine. “When I saw [the stories in the magazine] I realized, my God, I’m not crazy, I’m a collector!” he said in an interview with Dave Harvey in the December 2009 BLADE. “I had all these knives in my drawer, so I ‘came out of the drawer.'”
But it was more than just the knives that attracted both Shelley and Sarah—it was the makers themselves. The Bermans admired the work of such cutlers as Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Buster Warenski, Warren Osborne and Larry Fuegen, to name a few. The Bermans also came to know the wives of the makers as well, such as Dorothy and Jim Ence, Betty and Ted Dowell and many more. The Bermans were regular visitors to the Art Knife Invitational, the California Custom Knife Show, the Solvang Custom Knife Show and other knife events. Each April during the Solvang Show there would be a barbecue, and for many years Shelley emceed the post-dinner awards ceremony. In 1996 he did a comedy routine to headline the banquet for the 25th anniversary Knifemakers’ Guild Show—now the International Custom Cutlery Convention (ICCE)—at the Marriott Hotel in Orlando, sparing no one from a comedic jab or two, including Cutlery Hall-Of-Famers Bob Loveless, A.G. Russell, Frank Centofante, D’ Holder and Dan Dennehy, Ted Dowell and others in the jam-packed ballroom.
Shelley and his wife for 70 years, Sarah, and their knives in the Berman home—including the photo of the Virtue knife signed by all the participating makers at top right.
During the 2000 Solvang Show, many of the show’s custom makers the Bermans had befriended over the years huddled and decided to make a special surprise knife that they would deliver unbeknownst to the Bermans at the following year’s Solvang Show. A work schedule was planned so the knife would spend the least amount of time possible in the mail between destinations. One of the biggest obstacles was getting the knife in and out of over 50 workshops in less than 10 months. Work began in July 2000 and the completed masterpiece arrived in Solvang just three weeks prior to the 2001 Solvang Show. The project began in Arizona and from there went to Nevada; Idaho; Washington; Oregon; California; Hawaii; back to Arizona; Utah; Colorado; New Mexico; Texas; Arkansas; Kentucky; Tennessee; South Carolina; North Carolina; Virginia; West Virginia; Maryland; Pennsylvania; New Hampshire; Quebec, Canada; Ohio; Minnesota; and Wisconsin.
The worry was that the knife, christened “Virtue: The 2-24-50 Knife,” would look as if 50 different makers had made it, which, of course, would not be the desired result. However, just the opposite occurred and the knife came out beautifully. Nothing quite like it has been attempted before or since.
As Dave Harvey, Solvang Show producer and owner of Nordic Knives, noted, one concern was that word of the knife would leak to Shelley before it was finished. However, the secret was kept and Shelley’s reaction made it abundantly clear that he was genuinely surprised and thrilled when the knife was presented to him and Sarah at the 2001 Solvang Show.
Shelley holds two of his favorite knives, the favorite being the Hermes folder. He was featured with it in the second installment of BLADE‘s “My Favorite Knife,” the forerunner to the magazine’s popular “The Knife I Carry” feature, in the October 1991 issue.
Shelley also wrote for BLADE on occasion, and even appeared in the second-ever installment of the magazine’s popular department, “The Knife I Carry,” which originally was known as “My Favorite Knife.” The knife was a Hermes folder and Shelley is pictured holding it on page 94 of the October 1991 BLADE.
With the permission of Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Jim Weyer, the March 1996 BLADE reprinted Shelley’s story “Symbiosis” from Weyer’s Points Of Interest Book IV. In the story about knife collectors and what makes them tick, Shelley nailed it perfectly when he wrote, “Since only the Good Lord knows what makes a collector a collector, it follows that only the Good Lord knows why a collector is after only a certain kind of knife on a given day. Even then, if one should ask the collector what kind of knife he has in mind, the collector may answer, ‘I’ll know it when I see it.'”
Likewise, the members of the knife community know a great collector and friend when they see one, and along with his wife Sarah, Shelley will forever fit the mold.
Over 50 makers working on the knife in shops in 24 states resulted in the Virtue knife for Shelley and Sarah Berman.
The American Knife & Tool Institute (AKTI) has been actively working since mid-January with Canadian stakeholders towards a solution to the recent ruling by the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) which upheld a Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) decision that classified most folding knives as prohibited weapons to import, even though these knives are legal to sell and possess in Canada.
We are communicating behind the scenes with different levels of government and organizations on both sides of the border to hopefully get this resolved as soon as possible.
Right now we need help gathering information on the impact this ruling has both in the U.S. and Canada. There is a link at the bottom of the whitepaper to a form asking for information on how you are being impacted. This data will be used to demonstrate the problem to the government. We will keep the information in strictest confidence and only use your contact information to keep you informed.
Please share the link above with any knife business, collector or organization representing people who use knives every day as tools for work or recreation.
