Latham knives closed

[BestVintageKnives]

Website is closed and shut down. Just more and more of the old guys shutting down, retiring or dying off.

I can’t see Walt making custom Frank Bs much longer and same goes for many of the old timers. I think Renzo is 90 and Giovanni as well.

Time for a new generation of Switchblade enthusiasts.

[Bill DeShivs]

Mike Latham simply closed his business. He still is involved with knife collecting.
Mr. Latham is younger than you.

[Stevecru]

He would have sold more knives if his prices were not quite so high

[QTCut5]

Is this a different Mike Latham than the Mike Latham who operates CollectorKnives.net? Because it looks to me like CK.net is still up and running

https://www.collectorknives.net/about-us/

[BestVintageKnives]

Is this a different Mike Latham than the Mike Latham who operates CollectorKnives.net? Because it looks to me like CK.net is still up and running

https://www.collectorknives.net/about-us/

That’s a different person. He's a little older than me. We had lunch at the pizza shop by the Gator show a couple times. He always asks my opinion on his older pieces. We always talk at every Gator show.

Speaking of birthdays he was at an auction and I was an absent bidder bidding against each other and it was on my birthday. We had a good laugh about that when we found out.

[BestVintageKnives]

He would have sold more knives if his prices were not quite so high

I agree. But he learned from Jerry Skelton.

Put a sky high price on the primo knives so high no one will
buy them. So he won’t sell those and people will spend on other stuff instead. That’s what Jerry Skelton told me he did. Draw them in with the cool expensive ones and then sell them something else.

A business model…

[Folgore1]

i think after Jerry Skelton died Latham got all jerrys knives( i think he was Jerrys neighbor or something like that) and paid a premium for them so thats why his knives were super hi priced cause he paid heave price for them. when Jerry was alive he was the most expensive guy in usa to buy a Italian switchblade from i use to be on Jerry's mailing list and i still have them and im here to tell you you would fall out of your chair if you seen some of the prices in his list he put out every year but if you wanted that certain knife he was the man who had it , his list is what sent me on a hunt for old Italian and automatic knives as i collected since i was 8 years old but prices on his list sent me searching everywhere and asking everybody i seen if you find old switchblade let me know

[Rookie]

I know every time I am at a knife show that Mr. Latham is set up at, he always draws a good crowd of people around his tables. He has some very rare knives in amazing condition. I always try to spend some time learning from him if I am able.