GEC specializes in highly collectable and premium quality usable pocket knives. The company's USA manufactured knives have quickly proven to be a big hit with both collectors and users who seek quality American craftsmanship.
m0nk wrote:Ha ha ha, I saw the email 3 hours after it was sent and went to the site and they were all gone! Looks like I was 2 hrs. and 57 min. too late! Does anyone know if all the TC barlows are Charlie C. SFOs? Here's a dumb question... who is Charlie C. anyway? How did knives with his brand on them get to be one of the most desired commodities on the internet? Is he a famous designer? Did he formerly own a cutlery company? Is he a war hero? Or what?
m0nk Charlie is just a guy, he's a member here on AAPK that goes by the name UpNorth. He is the one guilty of flinging an incredible craving for Empire Knives on me.He had a fabulous collection of those. He knows what people like.
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Greg
IF YOU AIN'T BUYING OR LOOKING AT A KNIFE THEN YOU AIN'T LIVING.
Always looking to buy good quality Empire knives.
And who else wants a GEC with sawcut bone handles that the average Joe can actually get his hands on? This is the second sawcut SFO that I never even had a chance at! The CK 77 SFO was a lottery, and now this. C'mon, man! I'd like to see a big run of #77's, like the recent 78 run, with a clip blade and a sawcut bone cover. Caramel sawcut bone... with a sheepsfoot secondary. And yes, I want fries with that.
Oh yeah, nice snag, Greg! Sometimes you can just be at the right place at the right time. Well done, Sir.
yeah m0nk ,I was actually looking to see if the yellow jig bone with bail and chain was out yet because I have one of those reserved at CK and dang if they didn't pop up when I was on the page. I didn't have any email notification set up for GEC so I was really surprised but I knew what it was when I saw it.
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Greg
IF YOU AIN'T BUYING OR LOOKING AT A KNIFE THEN YOU AIN'T LIVING.
Always looking to buy good quality Empire knives.
Charlie Campagna is a long time knife collector of traditional patterns, USA made knives. Besides having a large amount of 'knife knowledge' he also has a very good sense of design, of what would enhance a knife to make it most appealing. Charlie knows the owner of GEC and i am sure lends some advice on traditional patterns. He gets GEC to make knives for him, usually a 'tweaking' of the current GEC run. GEC is a small company that wants to emphasize quality over quantity and as such can only make a certain number of knives. As such the number of Charlie C. knives made is limited by GEC, likely to around 200 ? per run. "200" is a guess. The point is Charlie could likely sell 1000 or more knives for every one of his patterns but he cannot obtain this amount.
A lot of the GEC 'hype' comes from BladeForums. There is a large and active "Traditional" knife forum there which for the last 10 years has been dominated by large threads on GEC knives. The many thousands of enthusiastic posts about GEC knives draws in others who were just 'browsing'.
Add to this Derrick Bohn of KSF who recently died and was a very persuasive promoter of GEC knives.
I believe these 2 factors created the GEC frenzy and now it has become a competitive activity trying to score a new GEC release that will last only about 3-5 minutes. The adrenaline rush of trying to score has become the driving force more than a love for the knife.
It also must be acknowledged that all this is happening because GEC reliably makes really great knives.
kj
Does anyone know if all the TC barlows are Charlie C. SFOs? Here's a dumb question... who is Charlie C. anyway? How did knives with his brand on them get to be one of the most desired commodities on the internet? Is he a famous designer? Did he formerly own a cutlery company? Is he a war hero? Or what?
