Knife store in Southern California?

E

Erasmus

Joined
Jul 15, 2002
Messages
1,449
Hi, folks.

Can anyone direct me to a knife store in Southern California?
I'm living in Pomona, and am looking for some (sort of) nearby place to shop.

Right now, I'm kind of enamoured with Cold Steel's Ti-Lite folder.
I would like to walk into a store with a decent selection of locking folders, though, in case my hand doesn't like this particular knife.

My price range is under $200.
Also, have you folks any suggestions for a good 4" bladed (no serrations) folder I should also try looking at? I have looked at the Sebenza over the web, and it looks even nicer than the Cold Steel piece, though out of my price range.

I'm not 10% the knife fan you guys are, but the percentage is growing!

Thanks
 
The closest one that I can think of near Pomona is in the Westfield Mall in Arcadia - Advance Cutlery.
 
Advance Cutlery has a decent selection, but prices are not great. More of a drive is Plaza Cutlery in South Coast Plaza.
 
Advance Cutlery is really the place to go. I have been outright ignored by Plaza.
 
I've only been in Plaza once, actually. For production knives, I'd definitely just go to Advance Cutlery. If I wanted to look at a bunch of customs, well, personally, I might drive up to Solvang rather than down to South Coast, but that has less to do with Nordic vs. Plaza and more to do with unrelated personal issues.

Off topic... R.W., I didn't realize you were local until now. Are you amenable to people visiting your shop to actually get a feel (so to speak) for your knives firsthand before placing an order?
 
There are several Advanced Cutlery Stores in SoCal.

For the Pomona area, there are the Puente Hills Mall, the Montebello Mall, and the Arcadia Mall.

There's the House of Cutlery in the Cerritos Mall, and there is a knife shop in the Brea Mall.

Plaza Cutlery has a better selection than the other stores and they have a custom section.

My favorite place to get knives in SoCal is Martin B. Retting's in Culver City. They have pretty good prices on Spydercos, Benchmades, and Cold Steels. Plus they have customs.

Hope this helps.

Roger L. Su, D.C.

PS: I got to see some of RW's work at a show earlier in the year. They're pretty awesome, especially the fit and finish.
 
Brea Mall has the House of Cutlery. The Cerritos store is Advance Cutlery.

Sorry, used to be work at the Cerritos store. (Years Ago).
 
Fellow forumite Dennis Wright has a 'most excellent' knife store down here in San Diego, La Mesa to be exact...probably 500+ knives, all good stuff!

As a plus, Dennis is truly a great guy to work with! Brick and mortar knives stores are hard to come by these days, so to find one with quality, selection, and knowledge...not to mention friendliness, and you've got a real winner!

Wright Knife and Sporting Goods
(619) 465-6905 or:
(800) 400-1980

Mel
 
In my neck of the woods you can go to Recon 1 in the Encino/Tarzana area. It's pretty mych straight down the 10 and a bit of the 101 from where you are. It's about half way between Nordic Knives (north, where I got my lil Sebbie) and Coast Cutlery (south, where I got my Elishewitz Matrix Persian). Recon 1 has a great selection of production knives, better than either Nordic or Coast.

Lucky for me, I'm a traveling salesman in the southern California market, so I get to drop in to these places once in a while when I'm on the road seeing my retail dealers (hifi biz).

I've been going to Nordic knives for probably 20 years. It's probably the first high end knife shop I found. It's worth taking a weekend to stay in Solvang as it's a great little tourist town in the California Central coast. It's one of the best climates in the world as well as in California. Combine that with the local Dutch tourist stuff, Nordic Knives and a collection of local wineries and this makes a great weekend destination with the wife. The Central Coast is almost as well known for white wines as Sonoma is for reds.

Glad to hear about Dennis Wright's place, as I get to San Diego every couple months. Have to check that one out.

I'm really excited to hear about Martin B. Retting's in Culver City, I'll have to check that out. My office is only about a mile or so from Culver City! Please post an address! If you're in the area, the newsstand at National & Sepulveda has Blade Magazine, Knives Illustrated and Tactical Knives every month.

There's also the Shaver Shop in Santa Monica that has a nice selection of production stuff, but his prices are high.

I hear Murray Carter lives in the neighborhood but I've never met up with him.

jmx
 
I either go to Plaza Cutlery at South Coast Plaza or Advance Cutlery at the Santa Anita Mall. Plaza has more of a selection, IMO, and the prices are somewhat better as well. At Advance Cutlery, they charge $350 for a small, plain Sebenza:eek: At least they did the last time I checked (about a month or two ago).
 
Thanks for all the responses, guys. I surfed around on the net and have been able to figure out the general category of knife I am looking for.

-Camillus Cudamaxx5.5

-Gerber Spectre

-Buck Strider

-Kabar Thorn

-Al Mar Sere

So you can see from this list of candidates, that I'm after a one-hand opening, thumbstud, locking folder with a blade between, say, 3 and 5ish inches.

I can easily live without a double edge, but it ought to have somewhat of a sharp point. I am not thrilled with sabre ground blades. Flat ground has always been my fav.

Can anyone give me an opinion on the quality of the knives I've mentioned? I do not want an inferior knife.

Again, thank you for your help.

Cheers
 
The Al MAr and Camillus are probabaly at teh top of the list finish wise but are hugely different knives (because the Maxx is Huge!). I haven't seen a Thorn yet, but it looks like a competent knife from what I've read. The Buck is hella strong, but a little rough around th eedges INHO. Gerbers are what they are today. I don't feel tehy are quite the quality that Gerber once made, but they seem to be a lot of bang for the buck (no pun intended) even if they don't hold up to some of the others in a quality of maufacture comparison (again IMHO).

In your price range I don't see the need to travel all the way to Plaza or Nordic, unless you just want to make a day trip to see the customs. I don't know about the Advance Cutlery company unless they've got a store in the Lakewood mall, in which case I've been to one of their stores, but can't remember the name.

I think that at Recon 1 you can see and fondle pretty much everything on your list in one place. It's probably about 50 miles from where you are and all freeway. The other shops are all great shops, but I travel the southland for a living (and stop at knife shops on my lunch hour) and geographically I thnk it makes the most sense unless there's an Advance near you and they have all the knives. If you're paying cash, the guys at Recon 1 can also be a bit more flexible on price in my experience. Probably still not as cheap as buying a piece online, but you get to take it home, and they do have rent to pay, so it's worth a couple dollars more (IMHO).

If you really have to yank a retailer's chain, fondle his knives and then buy it online cheaper, at least buy it from 1SKS and help support the forum.

jmx
 
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