A little while ago, I heard news that Queen Cutlery had been purchased by the Daniels family. Personally, I see this as fantastic news. In terms of "production" and "semi-custom" slip joint knives, I've long felt that an Overall Quality Product ranking is:

#1: Great Eastern Cutlery
#2: Canal Street Cutlery
#3: Queen Cutlery (more SxM than standard Queen product)

To be sure, I have certain examples from my collection that illustrate that Queen Cutlery can producing astounding knives. Unfortunately, I also have examples that are nowhere near that level of excellence. Or...perhaps a simpler way to put this, Queen's quality has been erratic. I think that under the leadership of the Daniels, this great company can produce a product whose quality is consistently "excellent".

Shown in this photo is a Queen City Canoe in stag. The selection of handle scales is quite good...and they are thick. The blade is made of 1095 steel and sports a well-done satin finish. The bolsters are nickel silver and the liners are brass. Nice material selection. Unfortunately, there are some "misses" on this knife:

* See the gaps between the handle scales and the bolsters?
* The backsprings are very weak.
* The secondary blade (shown closed in the photo) isn't correctly centered (though the main clip blade is).
* The overall fit and finish just isn't that great.

Really, the Canoe pattern is one of the more graceful ones whose 2-bladed design is extremely practical. I'd like to see GEC produce some Canoe patterns...