Flyer beware

Traveling for a knife person is pure hell these days.

First it's finding a time you can get there, then the price, then you now have to limit your bag weight to 50 pounds, and on top of that if you go over 50 lbs, they want to charge you $50.00 more in addition to the 35 bucks they grab from you for checking a single bag.

I have a CPAP machine I have to fly with, which requires a hard shell suitcase.

So while going to the Austin show and to stop by the Beckett Dallas headquarters (where the ad sales department of Knives Illustrated is located), I packed three days worth of clothes. That with the cpap and the suitcase? 49.5 pounds.

I carried on my laptop, camera, and a few important items.

At the Houston airport, I have reserved a rental car, special rate, $39.00 a day. I buy their insurance because when I checked on my policy my insurance only covers their car if my primary vehicle on which I have collision is parked at home. Then I check in, get the bill and I'm paying $99 a day.

The difference? Per the attendant the Houston airport (BUSH), means a car rented on airport property is subject to a 55% tax.

Had I known that and taken a cab to a rental site off the airport grounds, I would have saved most of that tax.

Live and learn. .

The Original Bowie Knife

I received a call from a very excited new knife enthusiast--and he wanted an appraisal. No, I said that wrong, he wanted a FREE appraisal.

He didn't have a knife, he wasn't a knife collector, he had found me on the internet, and a friend of his had found his knife, and it was OLD! And he needed to know what it was worth. It was old and had initials on the tang.

"What kind of handles does it have?" I asked.

"Old."

"Are they stag?" I asked.

"What is stag?" he said, "I don't know what that is."

"Deer Antler."

"Oh yeah, I guess so," he said.

He went on to give me the length, and then he threw in the kicker, "It says on the blade, 'Original Bowie Knife". At that point I described to him what a typical German bowie from the 60's through the modern day looks like.

He was disappointed when I told him I was referring to the late 1960's, not the 1860's, and that alas he had not discovered ole Jim Bowie's original knife.

However it was unusual that he wanted to argue the point. I counted 10, and then politely said, "Sorry, but this is not an Antiques Roadshow moment."

It seemed to hit him all at once. "Ohhhh," he said in a soft voice.

As I hung up the phone I just shook my head. "All part of paying dues," I told the friend sitting in my office, "after over 30 years I'm still paying them."

And that one question, about a knife marked "The Original Bowie Knife", does happen just as frequently as it did when I started in knives. Roughly six or seven times a year I have to ruin someone's day by telling them the truth about their German Bowie.

What go me started doing knife auctions.

It's hard to believe that we are in the middle of our 50th knife auction, closing Feb. 23. Now that doesn't include the live auctions we've done in Pigeon Forge, Sevierville, Nashville, Atlanta, Dallas, and here in Chattanooga. It doesn't include the Flash Auctions that we've just started.

I might mention here how I started doing auctions. It was back in the days when I still owned Blade Magazine, traded knives on the side, sold knives on Shop at Home Television network. I got a call from a lady who said she wanted to sell her husband's knife collection, and would I be interested in looking at it, and of course I said yes.

"How would you like to make arrangements for me to see it?" I asked.

"I'm at a motel here in Chattanooga, come see them in the morning."

I agreed, she met me at the check in desk in the small lobby of the Day's Inn that contained only one chair on the public side. She led me out to a large new yellow Caddy, opened the trunk -- and there spread out in the trunk was a couple of hundred knives. Some good, some bad, a lot of used things.

On each knife was a 1" square of masking tape with a number written on it in marker.

"How much do you want for them?" I asked.

"What's on them," she said. I gasped. If that was indeed the price (and it was), every knife in that car truck was about 40% above what anyone could ever hope to pay.

"How'd you determine these prices," I asked.

"A couple of my husband's friend's came over and priced them before I left," she said.

She was from Houston, and she had decided to sell her husband's knives, so with the knives priced she had taken her husband's roledex and had set out up the highway to sell knives. I was on the roledex.

I don't know if the husband's friends were trying to price them so high that it would be impossible for her to sell them, or they were just trying to make her feel good about her husband's judgement in buy knives, but the reality was the knives were vastly overpriced.

She did have four Winterbottom bone Queen trappers in the original box, and they were priced at $45.00, which is about what they were bringing at the time. I did have in my mind that I at least wouldn't go home empty handed, and vintage knives in the box in mint condition are worth holding on to and letting the price catch up even if one is paying top dollar.

"I will take these at your price," I said.

She huffed, "All or nothing."

I told her that I didn't think I could buy the knives and make it worthwhile, but I did wish her luck. I asked her if she was going back to Texas.

"No." She said, "I'm going toward Florida, and I am going to spend 10 more days on this trip or until I sell the knives. I'll go back home out I-10."

I excused myself, and as I drove back to my office I said to myself that there had to be a better way than the options left to that lady, driving for days across the country, staying in not-to-good parts of town in a new Caddy. And the saddest thing of all was even if she sold the knives at the price marked, after traveling on the road for two weeks she wouldn't have any money left.

I determined to find a better way for a widow to sell her knives.

I was still worrying on the subject when I opened my mail, read an article in an antique magazine how the fishing lure business had taken off when a collector started fishing lure auctions, and by doing so allowed collectors to see an established real-market price on lures. And with that knowledge available, vintage lures had jumped 40% in a couple of years.

I don't think that article was before my eyes by accident, and I took the hint. Within a few weeks I was en route to Missouri to attend the Missouri Auction School, called the Harvard of Auction Schools.

That was over 50 catalog auctions ago.

Auctions

Our third Flash auction is up for bids and bidding ends Monday.

On Tuesday evening we will be posting information on our 50th auction, and the catalog will have been mailed by that time.

One of the problems we've had is the mailing service addresses the catalog envelopes directly. We were to pick them up today--and their power is out. Thus the printer is backed up, and by the time we pick up the catalogs, bring them to the regional post office distribution center (the best way to mail, we've discovered), we will have lost a couple of day.

The road to our printer used to take an hour and a half drive. But a mountain slid down on the road in late Dec. and the clearing of the road does not get finished until April. Which means the drive is now a 3 hour drive one way.

Coming Soon

A Flash Auction in a few days.

Our 50th Catalog auction on Feb. 23ed.

And I have a Knives Illustrated deadline right in the middle of it, with the biggest story we do all year, that of the SHOT Show.

I guess it is better than being bored!

SHOT SHOW and other things

Just returned from the Shooting, Hunting, & Outdoor Trade Show, or SHOT Show. This is the one with all the debut patterns for the knife industry in the coming year.

For Knives Illustrated this is the largest article we will do all year (25 plus pages), so the work on pulling four days worth of interviews, press kits, photos, CD's, flash drives, and observation is consuming a lot of time.

The SHOT show began when the gun and knife boys at the old National Sporting Goods Association show (NSGA) were crowded out of the prime locations with the takeover of the show (in space, and prime locations) by the expanding athletic shoe market. Through the 70's our people found us shoved off to the lesser locations by the dollars of the shoe boys. With four years of bad weather th e breaking point came and the gun industry and those related to it formed the SHOT show.

It is interesting to note how history seems to be beginning to repeat itself. The SHOT show sectioned itself off a few years ago, with sections for firearms, clothing and fabric (camouflage), and law enforcement (which had been limited at one point and only as a adjunct room in recent years). But the core, the essence of the SHOT show remained: guns, knives, and outdoor gear.

As George Satayana said, "Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it".

Or as my old mentor Jim Parker said, "Always dance with the girl you came in with."

At this year's SHOT show, the guns were behind huge booths like Mossy Oak camouflage fabric and clothing. The law enforcement/tactical things, once severely restricted by SHOT, were now on the main floor.

And the knives? All the companies that have been a core of the SHOT show? Down in the basement, with a low ceiling that caused at least one exhibitor to not attend as he could not erect his 2 story booth.

One could count on one hand the number of knife exhibitors on the main floor. Everyone else had been crowded out by the newcomer camouflage clothing and law enforcement/tactical.

I didn't stop to see if some of the camo manufacturers and law enforcement/tactical booths offered their own versions of footwear.

Legislation

You can find out what happened in the legislation from a variety of sources.

For me it started in the pit at the Blade Show, just after the Blade Show banquet, when I ended up sitting beside Rod Bremer, owner of Columbia River Knife and Tool, and he explained that in some of the reorganization of Customs (now combined with Border Security under the Dept. of Homeland Security), a review was made of the ruling that allowed assisted opening knives. I also I heard it was more of a review under a new person rather than any kind of edict passed down from the current administration, but the again we never know if the unnamed bureaucrat that made that decision didn't decide it might be time to curry some favor.

So this unnamed bureaucrat decided by his personal opinion that assisted openers were covered under the Switchblade Act of 1958, and were therefore illegal. Of course to do that Customs/Border Protection also had to back up and withdraw the four previous rulings and the letters giving that permission. (Makes one wonder which time were they wrong?--as they had to be one of the two options).

Time table was the letters were issued on May 25. Blade show was the following weeks, so the bigger boys, with the most to lose, pitched some serious money into the kitty, AKTI and Knife Rights stirred up the troops for the mailing protest, legal counsel was retained, and an appeal was made for the extension of the 30 day comment period.

According to the Washington Times in their report about the ban, the extension is usually a common courtesy. Not thing time. Customs dug in their heels, and unofficial word came back that they were willing to go to the wall with it, since the case would be decided in a New York based court.

The ruling that backed up this decision was 63 pages, and is available to read from links at KnifeRights.org and some other sites. What was most alarming was some of their consideration was quoting New York State law as the basis for the ruling--while totally ignoring the Oregon vs. Delgado decision that banned the Switchblade Law in that state.

I called my congressman, senators, and got two call backs. Meanwhile through AKTI the cutlery industry shakers and movers hired some Washington based consultants and things started to roll. A protest letter was sent to the head of Homeland Security signed by 80 US Congressmen. My congressman said he'd not received the letter, then said he was going to sign it, and then they called back to tell me that the letter had been sent on without his signature. So perhaps if you're in Tennessee you could suggested how your vote should go for Zack Wamp (who is planning a run for Governor I'm told).

Along the way others realized the assault this was on our freedoms, not the least of which was the National Rifle Association and the Safari Club. I was told by a knife buyer at the Kenner, LA gun show that a National Sheriffs Association had protested the ban as well.

What we heard back from Customs Border Protection? Nothing.

I am a little in shock why my own country, in this economy, would be doing things to put more people out of work. But no one ever said reason and sense came out of Washington.

The big change came when eight US Senators (naturally with some help) drafted an amendment to the Senate Approiations Bill that would amend the 1958 Switchblade Act and specifically exempt one hand opening knives and assisted opening knives from the law. It passed the senate (and there are some Democrat sponsors of this bill as well as Republicans), and it is now in committee.

Most of the industry has given a sigh of relief.

Not me. A lot of good things die in committee. We are not out of the woods until that change is added, voted on, and signed. So it is still possible we could be in the soup. The ban was supposed to go into effect July 21, which is now folks, and no one has any notification that the ban is NOT going into effect. So the only thing we do know for certain is that at this moment assisted opening knives are banned from import until further notice.

As knife collectors I would caution you with one other thing. No matter how this thing plays out we have made the knife community very visible to Customs Border Security---and along with that Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I predict that at some point in the near future someone somewhere is going to be facing some serious legal problems over automatics.

Case in point. Spyderco was bringing in a spring for the clasp on their bali-song knife. Everything else was US made. However, Customs has ruled that when you hold one end of a Bali-song and let the handle fall, that exposure of the blade means the knife is "open", and is therefore a switchblade. (I was an expert witness in that case on behalf of Taylor Cutlery).

Based on this ruling the folks at Spyderco opened their door one day to a dozen or so ICE officers, fully decked out in helmets, flack vests, and automatic weapons. They hearded everyone into the Spyderco conference room where the occupants were held under guard for nearly four hours while the factory was searched for the offending spring. Once found, Spyderco was cited, and fined a very large amount of money.

So does anyone want "test case" beside their name?