I was reading an article about mom & pop knive stores in Blade when I realized that this place is only about 20 minutes away from me. So, I braved the hordes of tourists and went over there today.
This store has an enormous selection! They say they keep over 7000 knives in stock, and it looks like all of them are on display. Everything from tactical folders to fixed blades to kitchen knives to razors to multitools to scissors to hatchets, tomahawks, and spears.
It was great to be able to check out the complete folder lines from all of the major factories. I mostly buy over the Internet without actually handling them. There weren't many major manufacturers that were missing.
As far as fixed blades go, I didn't see as many that I recognized. They had the whole Cold Steel line (including the spears), but I couldn't find any Fallkniven or Busse knives. They might have been there; I didn't stay that long, and I was quite overwhelmed.
Service was friendly and very helpful. The lady I spoke with (mom, I guess), cheerfully admitted that she had forgotten which Kershaw folder was the Ricochet, although she tried hard to remember all of the names of the thousands of knives in the store as well as her husband. Very refreshing. I think it's partially a female thing. When it comes to gun and knive salespeople, I usually find that women are much more helpful and easy to deal with, because they're not so anxious to show off.
The bottom line is that this is a great place to check out the knives you've been lusting after, but as much as I like to patronize local businesses, the prices here were outrageous. I'm talking 60-80% higher than your average Internet prices. The Kershaw Ricochet is $109.95 at discountknives.com; here it was $170!
This store has an enormous selection! They say they keep over 7000 knives in stock, and it looks like all of them are on display. Everything from tactical folders to fixed blades to kitchen knives to razors to multitools to scissors to hatchets, tomahawks, and spears.
It was great to be able to check out the complete folder lines from all of the major factories. I mostly buy over the Internet without actually handling them. There weren't many major manufacturers that were missing.
As far as fixed blades go, I didn't see as many that I recognized. They had the whole Cold Steel line (including the spears), but I couldn't find any Fallkniven or Busse knives. They might have been there; I didn't stay that long, and I was quite overwhelmed.
Service was friendly and very helpful. The lady I spoke with (mom, I guess), cheerfully admitted that she had forgotten which Kershaw folder was the Ricochet, although she tried hard to remember all of the names of the thousands of knives in the store as well as her husband. Very refreshing. I think it's partially a female thing. When it comes to gun and knive salespeople, I usually find that women are much more helpful and easy to deal with, because they're not so anxious to show off.
The bottom line is that this is a great place to check out the knives you've been lusting after, but as much as I like to patronize local businesses, the prices here were outrageous. I'm talking 60-80% higher than your average Internet prices. The Kershaw Ricochet is $109.95 at discountknives.com; here it was $170!
