A. G. Russell was born August 27, 1933 in Eudora, Arkansas, Eudora, a sleepy Delta hamlet located in the
southeast corner of Arkansas, surrounded by farms and plantations only a few
miles from Louisiana and not all that far from the Mississippi. A few years later visiting his
great-grandfather’s farm he learned to make a forged blade, very crude.
A. G. Russell
went on to make knives as a hobby and profession. In 1964, A. G. Russell
switched his focus to selling Arkansas whetstones and a year
later began selling knives.
A. G. Russell
designed and produced the first lineless pocketknife with all-plastic handles
in 1970, along with Bill Davis of MO.
In
1969-70 A. G. Russell formed, with Schrade, The Knife Collectors Club and
issued the first commemorative knife, the CM-1, The Kentucky Rifle, splitting
with Schrade over policy not long after and retaining the Knife Collectors
Club.
In
1975, A.G. Russell designed a unique boot knife he called the
"Sting", a small knife intended for hunting and personal defense. In this same year A. G. Russell bought the
tiny pocketknife company, Bertram & Sohn of Solingen in Germany. Having bought them at the point of bankruptcy
A. G. Russell managed to keep them afloat until August of 1980 when the
trademark was lost to Jim Frost.
A few
years later A. G. Russell began having high quality knives made in Japan, only
Gerber was before him in this type of knife, A. G. Russell is still making some
of his knives in Japan.
In
1987, A. G. Russell introduced the "A.G. Russell One Hand Knife"
which was one of the first production knives to use a blade thumb stud for
one-handed opening
In
November of 1988, his wife Goldie joined the business. Every year since
1988, the catalogs have increased in quality, as well as the number mailed. It
took Goldie about two years to learn everything that A.G. Russell had learned
in a lifetime of designing and making knives, then learning how to market them.
By mid-1990, Goldie had assumed more and more responsibility, to the point that
she was actually running the company. She is now the president and chief
executive officer of this company, A. G. Russell swears she runs it better than
he ever did, and attributes their growth to her leadership.
After
outgrowing everything from the kitchen table to an 8000 square foot building,
in March of 2002, they moved into new facilities in Rogers located on
Interstate 540, just up the road from our long time location in Springdale,
Arkansas.
The
decision to move some production to China was made. In typical A. G. Russell
fashion, this move was made with full disclosure and the concern for collectors
everywhere. The questions were asked,
why has A. G. Russell has given up the fight and having knives produced in
China?
The
simplest and most basic answer to that question is "to stay in
business". With the bankruptcy of Schrade and Camillus, and the loss of
Arrowhead, any hope I had of continuing to make any substantial volume of my
designs in the United States was gone.
Like
so many of my customers, I have railed against the movement of the Cutlery
Industry to China, however it became obvious that if I wanted to stay in
business I would have to produce more and more of my own designs and find a way
to offer those knives at prices my customers would pay. The only answer was to
find one or more makers in Taiwan and China that I could teach to make the
quality I require.
Some
people cannot bear to own a knife made in China, some cannot bear to own a
knife made outside of the U. S. I understand this. Unfortunately, I cannot
solve the problem. The choices are higher prices or "Made in China".
The quality we are offering is fantastic; as good as, or better than, can be
found anywhere today.
In 1968 he started
the first forum for selling aftermarket knives, the A. G. Russell List of
Knives for Immediate Delivery, which later became The Cutting Edge. His mailing
list was used as a basis for the first two knife magazines, Knife World and The American Blade, now known as Blade.
In 1988 A. G. Russell was inducted into the Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall of
Fame.
In
1970 A. G. Russell co-founded the Knife Collectors Club and the Knifemakers'
Guild, both of which are the oldest continuously functioning
organizations of their types.
A. G. Russell was
the first member of the Knife Digest Cutlery Hall of Fame and produced the
first commemorative pocketknife.
From the early days (1968), knife
shows have been an important way for knife makers to share their craft with
people who appreciate the tool and the craft. In the 1960s, the only shows
available to knife makers were gun shows where there might
be one or two knife makers or knife dealers with a table selling knives -
sometimes handmade, sometimes factory made.
In 1970 A. G. Russell
co-founded the Knife Collectors Club and the Knifemakers' Guild,
both of which are the oldest continuously functioning organizations of their types
That same year A. G. and a few handmade knife makers
worked together to found the Knife makers Guild. The purpose of the Guild was
to promote handmade knives. A. G. had a great deal of experience with gun
writers (there were no knife writers at that time) and knew that they would be
more likely to write about a group of knife makers, than to write about an
individual knife maker. He also felt that a group of makers could pool their
dollars and their knowledge to garner more recognition for the growing number
of makers of very find handmade knives. As plans for the Guild developed, it
was decided that the knife makers should organize their own show.
In 1970, the first Knife makers
Guild Show organized on a Saturday evening at the Kenny Ligget Antique Arms
Show in Tulsa, OK where A. G. had taken 20 tables and encouraged knifemakers to
participate in a knife show within a gun show. The first Guild Show was held
within a huge Houston gun show in 1971. While knives are still sold at gun
shows, that show, and Guild shows held over the next few years, set the bar
even for knife shows held today. Knifemakers and knife collectors still talk
with awe and longing in their voices of the Knifemakers Guild shows held in
Kansas City in the 1970s and early 1980s.
It is
the memory of those shows upon which the A. G. Russell Knife Event is built.
The excitement of the folks who attended the shows and the interaction between
the knifemakers and those who came to see and to buy was electrifying. The long
nights of discussion in the lobby bar were informative and educational. If the
A. G. Russell Knife Event can be instrumental in furthering that sense of
camaraderie in the knife community, we will call it a success.
The A. G. Russell Knife Event grew
out of two happenings. The first was the Grand Opening in 2002 of the new A. G.
Russell facility in Rogers, Arkansas. To celebrate their explosive growth and
the opening of their new, and much larger, store, call center and distribution
center, the A. G. Russell staff invited their key knife vendors to Rogers for
three days of interaction with knife owners. The public turned out in huge
numbers on those hot August days and the event was so successful that those
vendors repeatedly asked that A. G. Russell create an annual event.
The second happening was A. G.’s
75th birthday. A 75 birthday is a large milestone and being a leader in an
industry for 44 years, an even larger one. It was apparent that the only
appropriate way to honor such important accomplishments for A. G. Russell was
something that included the entire knife industry. Thus, in 2008, the A. G.
Russell Knife Event was born.
When we began our
program of shipping packages to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first
units we shipped to a Long Range Recognizance Company that had been in Iraq for
almost a year and was always remote from services. For each person in the unit,
we sent a K-93B (the A. G. Russell Lightweight One Hand Knife?), our new Field
Tweezer, Band-Aids, a paperback book and two magazines. For the unit, we added
some Leatherman Sideslips, our Field Sharpener and a few other items.
A. G. Russell
continues to ship these packages. SOG has donated 150 knives, Case 40
pocketknives, DMT 150 pocket sharpeners; Leatherman sells me Sideslips at half
price. The CATO Institute has provided 3,000 copies of The Declaration of
Independence and The Constitution of The United States, in a shirt pocket sized
book. The NRA, Wolfe Publishing, Krause Publications, Kings Outdoor World,
Y-Visionary Group, Morris Communications, Shooting Sportsmen, Sporting
Classics, Harris Publications, and The Lane Press are providing us with 200
each month of 22 magazines. The Masune Company has provided thousands of
Band-Aids. A.G. Russell’s 93-year-old mother has donated over a thousand
paperback books from her library. A have a friend in New York City who knows
someone at the big video rental chains and is trying to get us a continuing
source of DVD’s.