A Whirlwind of a Few Weeks. Or How We Won a Blade Show Award
I’m writing this from a hotel room in Savannah, Georgia. It’s Wednesday evening, just a few days after the massive Blade Show weekend in Atlanta.
The past two weeks have been a blur. Team Ansø has been working flat-out to prepare for what turned out to be my 15th Blade Show. I attended my first back in 2006 and have only missed a handful since—most notably in 2012, when my youngest son, Martin, was born on June 3rd. Not ideal timing, considering his birthday often coincides with the show, and I’ve missed more than a few celebrations because of it.
This year's show stood out in many ways. Most significantly, I brought my family along. Karina and I have done several European shows together, and last year we attended the New York Custom Knife Show as a family. But Blade is a completely different beast—easily ten times the size of NYCKS. The sheer scale of the hall is breathtaking.
In the weeks leading up, we prepped and finished a good number of AROS, TOKO, and Sheepsfoot models well in advance, shipping them directly to our hotel in Atlanta. I’ve never been a fan of traveling with a suitcase full of knives—customs issues and the risk of confiscation or delays just aren’t worth it.
What we hadn’t finished until the very last moment were the prototypes for the newest member of the Shop Built lineup: the Slipjoint Flipper, which I’ve named ARN. If you’ve followed along on my YouTube channel, you may have seen parts of the process. If not, the full series is there.
We got everything done just in time. The team stayed late on Tuesday, the day before we flew out, and I was still sharpening ten prototypes that night—before I had even started packing. By Wednesday morning, we were on our way to the airport. The travel itself was uneventful, which is exactly how I like it. Eighteen hours later—by car, plane, and taxi—we arrived at our hotel in Atlanta.
Thursday morning we picked up our badges and set up our first-ever full booth—in the past, I’ve always made do with just a table. With the rest of the day free before the show opened Friday, we visited the Atlanta Aquarium. That turned out to be a powerful experience—especially the whale sharks and belugas, which left a strong impression on all of us.
Then came three days of chaos—in the best possible way. From opening to close, our booth was packed with people talking, handling, and buying knives. For the first time ever, I didn’t get the usual quiet Sunday to wander the aisles, chat with friends, or hunt for materials. A good problem to have.
Martin basically disappeared for the entire show—his big passion is flipping balisong trainers. Blade is an amazing venue for meeting likeminded people, and balisongs are highly represented in that crowd.
We entered both the ARN and TOKO into the Blade Show Awards. So imagine my surprise Saturday night when I was called to the stage—we won the Contender Award for Best Imported Folder. An incredible honor. Having my family there for that moment made it even more special. I’m deeply proud of what we’ve built with the Shop Built line, especially the TOKO. Huge thanks to our team back home for helping make this happen.
One of the highlights for Karina was observing people at our booth flipping the TOKO folders for the first time—and their impressed reactions to the smoothness of the action. Another was having Rosa Margrethe help sell knives in the booth.
Another highlight was when my friend Will Hodges from Tactile Turn dropped by to hand me the very first prototypes of the pen project I’ve been working on for years—finally starting to take shape. More on that in a future newsletter.
And just when we thought Sunday would slow down, it turned into our busiest day. At one point, several knife dealers were lined up at our booth, waiting to buy what was left. By the end of the day, we were sold out of most we brought.
If you came by our booth at Blade—thank you. You made this year’s show unforgettable.
