A Through D

A. G. Russell™ Knives

From the age of nine I made homemade knives until I was about twenty four when I began to make handmade knives, crude but no longer homemade. A few years later, I had met and learned from makers like R.W. Loveless and R. L. Dozier. I made knives until the mid 1970s but today seldom make a knife a year. However I do have very talented makers in the United States and Japan who make knives that I am proud to put my name on. I design them and have them made to our standards. Pocket Knives, One Hand Knives, Lock Backs and Fixed Blade Knives.

Al Mar

Gary Fadden, a fellow Green Beret and friend of Al Mar's, has taken charge of the Al Mar knife company. He is focusing on the best selling ultralight designs and is making them in three sizes, all with the linerless micarta handle which I pioneered in the early 1970s.

Bark River

Mike Stewart, owner/manager of the Bark River Knife and Tool company in Michigan, was the founder and general manager of Blackjack knives until the company failed and then was instrumental in the revival of the Marble's Knife for Marble Arms Co. Mike left Marble's this past year and has established this new company. These are very nearly the first knives to come from them.

Benchmade

Benchmade Knife Company manufactures knives for a loyal and ever growing following of knife users. They employ a simple philosophy - "Make it cool, make it solid, make it happen, and definitely make it Benchmade."

Blade-Tech

Boker®

After the loss of Bertram GMBH and the end of the Henkels made pocket knife, the very old Boker "Tree Works" is the leading pocket knife maker in Europe. Always very good, they now lead the rest, and are one of the few established firms who are willing to try new ideas.

Browning

The Liberty Tree knife is the first in a series of six knives honoring American people, events or locations of historical significance. Five more have been planned honoring the following: The Alamo, Robert E. Lee, Dwight Eisenhower, the Vietnam War and Crazy Horse. Each knife is developed by Browning and American Forests when wood becomes available from a tree that witnessed the event.

Buck® Knives

Buck Knives went from hand made in a Southern California Garage to a factory knife, about the same time we began the A. G. Russell Knife Mail Order Business. Over the past thirty some years Buck has become one of the largest and most important knife companies in the world.

Camillus

For many years, Camillus has produced a traditional line of pocket knives, pretty much the same as other knife companies. Now they are moving into the Tactical Knife business with a slick slide button design that opens differently than other knives. You just thumb the button forward and the blade slaps out and locks open with a Walker-Lock.

Canal Street Cutlery

Canal Street Cutlery is rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of Schrade Cutlery. With skills and knowledge from hundreds of combined years in the cutlery industry, this handful of dedicated and talented men are abandoning the names and cross of the 100 year old Schrade firm like a Cicada leaves its skin.

Taking the street name that fronts a 100 plus year old knife factory, they are blending the old and the new. They have all the cutlery skills of the 19th and 20th centuries and access to all of the state-of-the-art equipment of the 21st.

CAS Iberia

From CAS Iberia I have known Ron Lake since the late 1960's through his work and phone conversations, met him for the first time at the original Guild Show in Houston, TX in July of 1971. Ron and Jess Horn were the very top folding knifemakers all the way through the 1970's and the 1980's. Ron rarely takes orders anymore, he just makes a few knives for each of the shows that he enjoys going to and sells them for several thousand dollars each. Many of the top handmade knifemakers of the late 1980's and 1990's and even today copy his patented

Case®

Finally, the W. R. Case Knife Company seems to be in good hands. The family that has guided the Zippo lighter company through so many successful years has begun to make a difference at their new knife company. They have called back from retirement, skilled craftsmen who are teaching the current crop of cutler's. These new knives look more like those of the 1950's than they do those of the 1970's and 1980's.

Columbia River Knife and Tool

The great prices on the CRKT knives have to do with their joint-venture in Taiwan. With their own people in the plant, they are able to maintain the quality necessary for today's demanding knife buyers; they are also able to keep their prices well under the makers in Japan and the US. If they keep their eye on the ball, and Taiwan remains stable, CRKT will be a company to watch.

Custom Shoppe

D.H. Russell

In the late 1950's, D.H. Russell, owner of a cutlery store in Toronto, designed The Original Canadian Belt Knife. Demand for this new design was so great that he brought an experienced cutler from Czechoslovakia to make the knives. Rudolf Grohmann, and his family came to Canada, founded Grohmann Knives, of Pictou, Nova Scotia, and have produced all of the D.H. Russell Belt Knives from the beginning.