I'm sorry but this Blade Show absolutely stunk

G

godogs57

Joined
Apr 16, 2004
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684
I've gone to each Blade Show since before electricity and each year it has gotten a little worse than the last. This year was no exception.

I remember back in the day you'd see Ed Fowler greeting you at the main entrance. No longer. You'd see Bill Moran wondering around, Fisk, et al holding court. The big names were all there. Pretty much not any more.

Supplies would be there out the ying yang...anything we needed...it was there. Need a left handed widget shifter? Take your pick from a dozen suppliers dealing in widget shifters. Handle material everywhere, competitively priced.....no more. I used to go from table to table comparing desert ironwood prices, stag, etc...just a handful of each any more. I saw 1.5" x 5" sambar stag scales for exactly $148 yesterday. Ironwood so overpriced I just walked away. $85 for a set of scales that were "nice", NOT exhibition quality. Insane.

However, if I were a doomsday prepper or wanted stuff to pretend I was the baddest man on the planet with my "tactical" gear, oh my...I would be in heaven. It was everywhere.

Sad to see the Blade Show has just become a carnival for the tactical wanna be's and knifemaking supplies/displays of notable makers has become somewhat of an afterthought compared to years past. Used to be it was not a problem to find parking next to the show...not anymore....impossible with all the others showing up now.

Yesterday I heard more people, "knife people" say "This is my last time coming.....its just not the same".

I sincerely apologize for the rant. I did see some great friends there and enjoyed visiting, but it's absolutely nothing like it used to be...Nothing!
 
Stag is a memory. Circa 2008-2009, I remember spending part of my Thursday afternoon or Friday morning sorting through the Tupperware bins full of carvers that the nice couple from OrigIndia would bring to the show. $25-35 per piece for some monster stag. Two years later, other folks were selling the same pieces buffed up a little bit for $75-90.
 
I thought it most recently as a place for newer folders and fixes blade vendors to show off there new models that will be produced in over 1 years time from the show. And 2nd for custom makers to sell what they have at tables. I've never been so this is just the view I get from a distance from the media I see.
 
I was hoping to go this year, but I had some big tests on Friday and couldnt leave. From what I have seen some materials prices were pretty wonky.
 
I think the golden age of Blade has long passed. Everything seems to follow the same cycle. It starts out as a really special, small knit community full of great people. Slowly, the community gets overrun and overpopulated by new people hoping to make a buck who don't have the same gratitude and spirit. Eventually, all the good guys who are there to share knowledge and help the community are squeezed out and whats left is an overcompetitive, overpopulated crowd thats a shadow of what the original community was about.

Its like the tragedy of the commons but for niche communities. The olympic weightlifting and powerlifting community has gone through the same thing in recent years. From a close knit community old guys and competitors there to help and share knowledge to a community flooded by young idiots on instagram and youtube and vendors trying harder and harder to market products people don't need.
 
Huntsman Knife Co. said:
I think the golden age of Blade has long passed. Everything seems to follow the same cycle. It starts out as a really special, small knit community full of great people. Slowly, the community gets overrun and overpopulated by new people hoping to make a buck who don't have the same gratitude and spirit. Eventually, all the good guys who are there to share knowledge and help the community are squeezed out and whats left is an overcompetitive, overpopulated crowd thats a shadow of what the original community was about.

Its like the tragedy of the commons but for niche communities. The olympic weightlifting and powerlifting community has gone through the same thing in recent years. From a close knit community old guys and competitors there to help and share knowledge to a community flooded by young idiots on instagram and youtube and vendors trying harder and harder to market products people don't need.
Click to expand...

I think it may smack of a little too much "kids these days" to declare it dead. There are a lot of great young makers who I feel are more than ready to carry on the tradition. Guys like Liam Hoffman, Alec Steele, Will Stelter, William Brigham, Nico Nicolaides are all amazing makers. In fact, there are probably more skilled makers now than at any other time in history.

Change is not always for the worse. Just because some of the old masters werent there and the community as a whole is expanding does not mean the hobby and the new generation of that hobby are gone.
 
I've not been to blade show yet. But I've heard the tactical complaints before, the last few years. In fact I've heard a lot of "tactical" complaining about knives in general all over this board. Most seem to think its a fad and I tend to agree as I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we've been at war most of the last 20 years. More war shows on tv, in the press, etc. Its not just in knives, anyone try to buy something in multi-cam five years ago?

That said what I am more interested in is what everyone thinks about the influx of new knifemakers due to forged in fire. When I started four years ago there were a handful of grinder choices. Pheer and Esteem were relatively new at the time iirc, kmg and bader were the staple and the tw 90 was the cadillac. Now there are more grinders than I can remember and new ones seem to pop up every day. Materials are more scarce and have gone up in price. All in four years... Do you guys that have been at this for longer than that think this is a trend? Has this ever happened to the custom knifemaking industry before?

-Clint
 
Augus7us said:
I've not been to blade show yet. But I've heard the tactical complaints before, the last few years. In fact I've heard a lot of "tactical" complaining about knives in general all over this board. Most seem to think its a fad and I tend to agree as I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we've been at war most of the last 20 years. More war shows on tv, in the press, etc. Its not just in knives, anyone try to buy something in multi-cam five years ago?

That said what I am more interested in is what everyone thinks about the influx of new knifemakers due to forged in fire. When I started four years ago there were a handful of grinder choices. Pheer and Esteem were relatively new at the time iirc, kmg and bader were the staple and the tw 90 was the cadillac. Now there are more grinders than I can remember and new ones seem to pop up every day. Materials are more scarce and have gone up in price. All in four years... Do you guys that have been at this for longer than that think this is a trend? Has this ever happened to the custom knifemaking industry before?

-Clint
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Clint, I haven’t been to blade show. I live on the West Coast.. I have seen the changes over my 20 plus years! All things Change and who I’m I to say for the better or worse in the grand sceme of things? ———————————1———-We have been in foreign wars longer than anytime in our history and it and Zombie TV does seem to have colored our knives! When I started there was Burr King, Bader, Coote & Hardcore was the new kid on the block!! Now there are a dozen plus machines on the market !!
 
I have never made it to Blade Show ... but I go to lots of gun shows and I am a hunter first ... and gun shows these days are 75% AR and tactical type firearms and hardly any shotguns or good hunting rifles ...

I talked to a few dealers I've known for years and they said they just don't sell alot of hunting rifles and fewer shotguns (unless they are all suited up with "tacticool" gear) ...

there are handguns everywhere of all types but hard to find good hunting firearms ... for my needs ...

And I have several handguns and nothing against ARs or any of that ... but in my collection there are only a few ... maybe 1% or 2% of my total firearms ...

guess times are changing ... just have to buy new or order what I can't buy at a show anymore ...

but I'd still love to go to Blade to meet some of the people ... makers, dealers, and just forums friends.
 
Greenberg Woods said:
I think it may smack of a little too much "kids these days" to declare it dead. There are a lot of great young makers who I feel are more than ready to carry on the tradition. Guys like Liam Hoffman, Alec Steele, Will Stelter, William Brigham, Nico Nicolaides are all amazing makers. In fact, there are probably more skilled makers now than at any other time in history.

Change is not always for the worse. Just because some of the old masters werent there and the community as a whole is expanding does not mean the hobby and the new generation of that hobby are gone.
Click to expand...

Thats not to say at all that the new guys aren't valued. We've had some amazing makers join the community in the last few years and I feel that as a whole, the quality of products we are putting out is higher than ever. It just seems like now days, for every 1 informative, down to earth maker contributing, theres a dozen loud mouthed fan boys making noise cut throat guys trying to make a profit. It seems like a few years back the ratio was better.
 
The people who buy those kinds of guns were their own worst enemy. They don't want to pay anything for them. So the designs have been cheapened since the advent of the 700 to the point where today people are buying Ruger Americans as fast as they hit the shelf for $289 each while a $1200 Sako collects dust for years.

The tacticool buyers aren't afraid of spending money. No wonder it's what everyone wants to sell.

I love both, but if anyone wants to see what will happen to a niche industry when price becomes the ultimate factor need look no further than traditional firearms. And it hasn't worked out for the manufacturers very well either.
 
Huntsman Knife Co. said:
Thats not to say at all that the new guys aren't valued. We've had some amazing makers join the community in the last few years and I feel that as a whole, the quality of products we are putting out is higher than ever. It just seems like now days, for every 1 informative, down to earth maker contributing, theres a dozen loud mouthed fan boys making noise cut throat guys trying to make a profit. It seems like a few years back the ratio was better.
Click to expand...

Or years back was it that no one knew better than to question some of the less than correct "information" being posted because of who posted it? I don't know, I wasn't here.
 
The tactical movement has pretty much destroyed any individuality in the knife business.
Knives that are "hand made" have taken a back seat to knives that are made in a machine shop.
These knives work well, but have no "soul."
I do get tired of seeing all the black clothing, tattoos, pierced heads and mohawks.
But then- I'm a dinosaur, aren't I?
 
A couple of thing have happened to the Blade Show. First, they have expanded the show at least twice since I first went in 2005. One of those expansions was supposedly to draw these "tactical gear" types. So they got what they wanted. They have also lost some o f the custom business they used to have a lock on with shows like the USN. Those guys mobbed the pit at the hotel the first few times that i went. The GOOD news is that has not and probably won't implode like the Guild Show did not all that many years ago
 
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