Welcome Home...THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF OUR COMMUNITY

iKnife Collector

The online community of knife collectors, A Knife Family Forged in Steel

A donation worthy of applause!

This week I had the pleasure of completing the transfer of materials between a member and a knife museum, I thought I would share that with you.

Last summer I I contacted Gus Marsh and asked him to look in his fully complete NKCA magazine library for a particular picture I needed to find. Gus was generous enough to go get his books and mail them to me. I found the information I needed in just a few days, but now I had Gus’s entire collection. Turns out Gus had been storing them, so I simply made sure they were safe and stored them myself.

Now you all know that I feel bringing any and all information possible to the knife collecting public is paramount for me. Losing this information to private collectors keeps it viable but does not give researchers or collectors the opportunities I feel we should have.

The Nation Knife Museum has a set of these still in our library and they are housed in Alabama at the Janey Furnace Museum and available in a public reading room. OK, that means the South is covered. Soooo, what to do with this set? How many of you are aware that there are actually more knife museums??

http://www.bermanmuseum.org/pages/?pageID=27

http://www.janneyfurnace.org/

http://www.nramuseum.org/

Wawarsing Museum Historical Knife Museum

Cattaraugus Knife Museum at the American Museum of Cutlery

As much as I would like for each of these to have a full set of this overview of knife collecting from the mid 70’s to now, we only had one set. The main concern was who would keep it in stock, not sell it and put it inventory as accessible to research. The Berman and the NRA museums have vast collections and knives are not their primary, they specialize in all types of weapons. It so happens that in being a part of the distribution of the National Knife Museums holdings I had a contact at the American Museum of Cutlery in Cattaraugus. I spoke with my contact and the curator, to make sure that Gus’s collection would honor his passion for being able to research our hobby, and they assured it me it will be.

Pat, the curator stated to me that one of their goals is to be able to grow their library to be the best research facility for cutlery in the nation. This is a huge undertaking and an impressive goal! The museum is run solely on a volunteer basis and is supported not only through donations and grants but by the Village of Cattaraugus itself! Being within the magic circle of knives gives this particular museum some celebrity status in the Village and surrounding area so we decided it was the perfect location to house this information.

I encourage everyone, make one of these museums a destination. A day trip if it is near you or a vacation of it’s own, but visit one soon.

I want to take just a moment to Thank all of those involved in this for allowing me to be a small part of preserving these magazine for us all!

Tags: NKCA, donations, magazine

8 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

FeaturedPermalink Reply by Charles Sample on July 16, 2016 at 23:10

Way to go Jan!

▶ Reply

In MemoriamPermalink Reply by D ale on July 17, 2016 at 6:01

It's wonderful .. knowing the printed material will be preserved & available for research.

!!! .. Thank you , Gus .. Thank you , Jan .. !!!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on July 18, 2016 at 11:46

I want to add the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock, which has a permanent knife gallery comprised mostly of antique bowie knives and custom knives, including the American Bladesmith Society Hall of Fame.

Although I have never been to this one I understand it is an amazing exhibit and it is also permanent. Add it to your bucket list, see it soon

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on July 19, 2016 at 15:38

I received an email from the curator today stating the following:

I returned from a family vacation to the Delaware Shore to find an impressive

package of books. This adds significantly to our museum library as so many

of the magazines had fine articles that probably will not be available anywhere

else. Since one of our museum goals is to house the largest possible library

of knife and edged tool literature..... this is perfect.

We have had several of our volunteers peek at the magazines today and this

can't help but peak further interest.

Our Museum is starting our 12th year of being open four days a week, all staffed

by volunteers. Please know how appreciated your efforts have been.

Patrick J. Cullen

Historian, Village of Cattaraugus

Trustee, Historic Southwestern New York Foundation

Executive Director, Historic Cattaraugus Corporation (historiccattaraugus.org)

Director, Cattaraugus County Museum

Founding Collector, American Museum of Cutlery (amcut.org)

iKC members, be proud. Members of your community are helping preserve the cutlery history. Without all of you being here and being a part of this community we would not have these opportunities!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carl Bradshaw on July 19, 2016 at 20:30

That is really cool. I also have the complete collection from 1977-1997, and have them all shown on my NKCA website along with all their articles names and authors. They are great reference material.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Syd Carr on July 20, 2016 at 18:24

Bravo Jan, (Gus too).

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on July 20, 2016 at 18:38

Carl,

If you ever need a home for them I am sure Wawarsing Museum Historical Knife Museum would be happy to receive them. For now, enjoy them and read them, they show a collectors history very rarely documented