Sid Latham

A remarkable phenomenon in recent years has been the spectacular growth of interest in fine cutlery, particularly in benchmade (often custom-made) hunting, skinning and fighting knives. Our knife-making traditions are, of course, as old as our country-just think of the Bowie knife-but in the century, the craft was dwindling, kept alive by barely a handful of makers, hardly known outside their own circle. By the end of the Depression, the mass-porduced, manufactured product had all but eliminated the hand craftsman.

Then in 1937 'Bo' Randall decided to turn his hand to knifemaking, and without realizing it, he lit the slow fuse that was to detonate some three decades later and transform the custom knife business into a growth industry. Where there were only a handful of first-class makers as recently as 1960, today there are some 48 members of the Knifemakers Guild alone, at least twice that number of other skilled professionals, and amateur hand craftsmen beyond number. Not only has tahe handmade knife grown to a million-dollar market from one too small to estimate, but the product has shown a steady appreciation in investent value as well.

Where does the fascination lie? For some in the sheer functional excellence of materials and workmanship, for others in the aesthetic beauty of design, for others still in the echo the handmade knives evoke from a more primitive past. Whatever the aspect, Knives & Knifemakers provides a complete and beautifuly illustrated rundown of all the salient facts. Starting with a dicussion of the materials employed, from special steel alloys to exotic handle materials, Sid Latham details the handcrafting process and then surveys the whole range of special-purpose designs. He discusses all the factors to consider in buying, ordering or designing a knife yourself, and explains the best ways of caring for knives from sharpening through display for the collector. He concludes with an evaluation of sheaths and special custom decoration, and includes an appendix a listing of more than a hunderd established makers and the major supply houses.

Latham's marvelous photographs of the knives of outstanding makers, and his perceptive comments on them, amount to an education in how to evaluate a knife. Liberally seasoned with comments and explanations from the makers themselves, Knives & Knifemakers will delight the veteran collector and novice knife buff alike. Readable enough for the layman yet detailed enough for the expert, this is a book for anyone with an interest in kinves-even those who didn't know they had any interest until they looked inside.

A Connecticut Yankee by birth, Sid Latham is a New York-based photographer specializing in outdoor subjects. His work has been published in many magazines, including Field & Stream, Sports Afield, Sports Illustrated, True and Argosy. A widely traveled outdoorsman, he has worn a knife from the Arctic to the Amazon and from North Africa to New Guinea as well as over most of the United States, and he is a member of the Camp Fire Club and the African Safari Club. Latham considered himself a strictly no-frills knife user until a magazine commissioned him to photograph some modern knives that revealed refinements in knifemaking he'd never dreamed of. To his surprise, after getting by with only a blade or two for twenty years, he was bitten by the knife bug and set out to learn all he could about both the craft and the craftsmen. Knives & Knifemakers is the result.

Contents

Foreword by R.W. Loveless
I The modern
II Steel, the heart of the knife
III What knife for you?
IV Special-purpose
V Fighting knives
VI Folding knives
VII The Bowie
VIII Knife collecting
IX Knife care
X Sheaths and custom decoration
Appendix: Knifemakers and suppliers
Index… (mais)