“THE GUILD HAD THE BIGGEST KNIFE SHOW ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD FOR MANY YEARS.”
—JIM SORNBERGER
Editor’s note: We at BLADE® hope you’re enjoying our special series of stories celebrating the magazine’s 50th anniversary. This time: the knife industry’s transformative events from 1973 to today.
Time marches on. And in the cutlery industry, the half century from the early 1970s to the present has been filled with both revolution and evolution.
From the corner of a massive hall at a gun show, the slight mention of a new style of field tool, and the basic everyday factory blade carried in the worker’s pocket, the knife industry, both custom and factory, has blazed its own trail over the past 50 or so years, emerging from a somewhat obscure existence to the mainstream. And along the way have been those moments of discovery, awareness and excitement that have marked the trail.
For reference, a few of those moments include the following.
Though what would become the Knifemakers’ Guild Show was first held in 1970, the show that occurred three years later is still talked about today. That was when Bill Moran reintroduced damascus steel for knife blades, kindling a, a magazine for the knife industry like nothing that had been seen before. Known today as BLADE, the publication remains a voice for the industry and a tangible contributor to the life and times of the knife enthusiast.
