Backup100BLK

Ebay Item #130788718550. Just ended with asking price of $899. Serial #007. The Envoy is the smaller brother to the Temple Guard.

Just found a gem of a video about the Shi-Lin Dao that Bob based his Chinese Folder design on. The video is in a mixture of Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese with Japanese subtitles, but it shows the store where the Shi-Lin Dao is made, in the small cutlery shop based in Taipei Taiwan. The design is over 100 years old, and can be found in many sizes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb6UKOAxVOU And a second video on the history of the store: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O8czHujZLc Unfortunately, the store is currently closed, pending reorganization: http://shilin-cutter.com.tw

I've gotten a few emails asking about the "Linton Cutlery Patszland" folder that shows up on Ebay. Item #160839541445, as of 7/07/12. The common question is did Bob design the knife? The answer is NO!!! A brief history: Linton is a Taiwanese knife making company that one year, in the early 2000's, decided to show up at the NYCKS with several of their new models, asking show attendees to vote for their favorite design. Unfortunately, many of their models were too similar to popular designs being offered by custom knife makers, that their offerings were not well received. This specific model generated accusations of "design copy" of Bob's Chinese Folder. Bob was in attendance at the show, and was able to look at the design first hand. He said the design was not infringing on his Chinese Folder design, as it was closer to the original Chinese Shi-Lin folder design. But he did express a little concerned that the handle was very similar to the way he does the...

Just a quick note on Bob's signature Satin finish. Somewhere in my vast boxes of stuff is a letter he wrote to me, describing his satin finish process. If I ever find it, I'll be happy to scan it and post it. In it, he also explained that the reason he went with a satin finish was for the combination of beauty and durability over mirror polished. He disliked mirror polishing, not only for the amount of work involved, but for the fact that mirror polishing is not a good polish for a working knife. Bob always felt he made working knives, and would enjoy seeing one of his knives being used. As such, while the majority of his knives are satin finished, his earlier work could be found with mirror polished blades. More common with knives bearing his LUM stamp. As it was expected for makers to finish knives that way during that time. There are a few examples of mirror polished blades made later in his career, but they would usually be found on a presentation level piece.

A little belated, but just so it's included. Spyderco released a Sprint Run of the Large Chinese Folder with Pink scales. :)

It's been a pretty excellent couple of weeks for my Lum collection. A couple of weeks ago, I scored one of Bob's Catalog from 1981 (Pre-Eugene OR!!!! more info in my Lum Blog). Which helped to fill in some info about his early work. This weekend, thanks to a collector from Florida, I scored an old Lum fixed blade (LUM stamp, so it makes it pre-1985), that will now be my preferred letter opener. Once I make a nice stand for it.  Handle is well aged ivory micarta, SS bolsters with a black spacer, and tapered tang. The blade profile is very similar to his Stalker model (especially in the Folding Stalker model). But the handle is not what wound up on the final Stalker model. Best that I can guess is that this would be something that Bob would classify as a Boot Knife or Dirk. And in his unique naming scheme, it would probably be called a Deluxe Stalker Non-Folder Boot Knife (please don't quote me on that, it's an inside joke on how Bob prefers to name something a "Non-...

Came across this little beauty in one of the knife forums (photos copyright to the original photographer): It's a custom "Pimped" Large Chinese Folder with 400 year old oak scales, buffalo horn bolsters, and a anodized blue titanium liner. The work was done by a firm called CustomSpyderco.com . Which, from a glance at the their website, does very nice work. A very creative alternative to own an unique Lum.