Plaza Cutlery at South Coast Plaza

After leaving the military in the fall of 1974, Dan helped his Father and Mother opened Plaza Cutlery in South Coast Plaza which is located in Costa Mesa California. To say Plaza Cutlery turned the knife industry upside down is an understatement. Those first few years were such a blur! Unfortunately, Dad passed away in August of 1976 and Mom took his place with W. R. Case and Sons Cutlery as the first female sales person for a major knife Company. Dad was a very successful salesman in the hardware industry and in August of 1959 took over as the sales representative for the west coast for W.R. Case and Son’s Cutlery.  

Plaza Cutlery was so successful it spared many copy cats; Shaver World, became Cutlery World, Hoffritz moved into shopping centers and many small chains opened. A few were friends who we helped but many spent days out in front of our store watching. It’s always said location, location and location! The big advantage we had was South Coast Plaza. The Segerstrom family also progressed to move “SCP” into one of the top 5 shopping destinations in the world which continues today. Plaza Cutlery is now one of the longest running stores next to Sears and See’s Candies in “SCP” and Dan has most likely been in the center longer than anyone else at this time.  

Also during these many years Dan’s love of knives lead to the start of the “California Custom Knife Show” and a few years later the “Hawaii Knife Show”.  The “CCKS” is one of the longest running shows in the country. The show continues to do well. The Hawaii Show was always a show of love, as both Dan and Pam love Hawaii and the people there. We have just recently turned it over to someone local in Hawaii to run, but will always help. Also over the years Dan has helped many custom knife makers and manufactures. In promoting knives in Plaza Cutlery, we have made many collectors as only a store in a heavy traffic area can. In “SCP” there is the opportunity for the public to see the quality of knives and a wide verity for every interest. It’s a shame so many stores are now gone as there is not many ways to introduce the public to the knife industry which will hurt in the long run. 

Dan always promoted knives in a positive way and also insisted treating the customer like we would want to be treated. For 44 years, it has worked.   

Gus Marsh at Knife Expo 2017

Had a great time with my wife Charlotte at Knife Expo 2017 in Pasadena, CA, a two day event. Sold several knives and saw lots of old friends.

Knife Expo 2017

Knife Expo 2017, Southern California’s Oldest and Finest Knife Show, Our 32^nd year.

This new two-day format is March 25 & 26, 2017 at the Pasadena Convention Center, 300 East Green Street, Pasadena, CA. The hours are Saturday 10am – 5pm and Sunday 10am – 4pm.

The show features continuous raffles daily with hundreds of valuable prizes. Demonstrations and presentations both days, including knife forging, knife grinding, rope cutting, wood carving and professional knife sharpener.

Visit www.knifeexpo.net for parking and box office tickets are $12.00 cash only.

For membership and meeting information visit www.scblades.org

Dan Delavan and Gus Marsh at California Custom Knife Show 2016

Dan Delavan from Plaza Cutlery and Gus Marsh at the California Custom Knife Show October 22-23, 2016. At great show, saw some old and new friends.

Mark Centofante Looking at his Dad's Older Knives

This is Mark Centofante looking at some of the knives that his dad Frank made more than 50 years ago. It was a magic moment for both of us.

Dwight Towell, The Quiet Man from Midvale, Idaho

I can’t keep a knife, Dwight Towell says with a sheepish grin. Every time I make a knife for myself, somebody wants to buy it. That’s about as close as he comes to boasting. He’d never say so, but Towell is one of the top knifemakers in the world. Collectors pay thousands for the handmade knives that come from the austere little shop on his Midvale, Idaho, ranch. The wait for a Dwight Towell custom knife: five to six years.

A recipient of this year’s Governor’s Awards in the Arts, Towell is no stranger to prizes. They include the American Knifemakers Guild’s top award and the Beretta Award for outstanding achievement in cutlery. A Towell dagger engraved with gold on blued steel graced the cover of a brochure for the Art Knife Invitational in San Diego, to which only the world’s top knifemakers are invited. It sold for $12,800.

Dwight, quite simply, is one of the half dozen finest knifemakers in the world, and since there can be no fine art without craft, an incredibly talented artist by any measure, said Cort Conley of the Idaho Commission on the Arts. That he could manage this while being an admirable husband, father and rancher humbles most everyone who knows him.

    

The Towells have ranched in the Midvale area since his great grandfather, Alexander Towell, homesteaded there in 1881. As a boy, Dwight Towell always had a knife. I was always whittling or carving my initials in something. He and his wife, Celia, ranched and raised their family less than a mile from his great grandfather’s homestead. He made his first knife, a hunting knife for his son, in 1966.

There were only about two-dozen people in the country making handmade knives then he said. They wanted $7 for a hunting knife. I thought that was a terrible price for a knife so I made my own. That led to more and better knives, friendships with master knife makers and an apprenticeship with Winston Churchill of Vermont, one of the world’s top engravers. The output that began with a single hunting knife now stands at more than 1,200 knives.

In 2004 Towell retired from raising cattle hay and alfalfa, his son-in-law handles the ranching now, to devote himself full-time to knife making. At 76, he still looks like the rancher he is, jeans, flannel shirts, Western hat and still works in his shop every day.

His current project is an engraved dagger decorated with 14- and 24-karat gold and semiprecious stone from Russia. Thirty-eight hours into it — Cilia Towell keeps track of his hours — he estimated that it was 25 percent finished. The knife is a high-school graduation gift, the sixth he’s made for a grandchild.

Prices for his working knives, as opposed to what he refers to as fancy knives, start at $350. Enthusiasts buy them for their workmanship and high-quality steel, known for holding an edge.

One of my customers is pretty high up in Coca Cola, he said. He sent a knife back to me to be sharpened, and I still could cut the hair on my arm with it. When I asked him what he’d done with it, he said he’d used it to skin three bull elk. Another knife, returned after an African hunting trip, really did need sharpening. He’d used that one to skin a hippo. Increased emphasis on fancy knives” has reduced his production to about a dozen knives a year. Fancy knives take far longer to make than working knives do (220 hours for the $12,800 dagger).

He starts by drawing a design on paper. Then he outlines the knife’s shape with a carbide-tipped scriber on a bar of steel and cuts it with a band saw. Grinding and sanding with ever-finer sandpaper, ending with a hand-rubbed finish, follow that. The only thing he doesn’t do himself is heat-treating, which he hires out to a specialist with an atmosphere-controlled furnace in California. Towell engraves the knives with help from a microscope and air-driven graver tools. The finished product can include gold, jade, Seraphinite, springbok antler, mastodon ivory or other exotic components. I like designing knives and working with new materials, he said. Each knife is a new challenge. One thing his plans don’t include is retirement.

I have too many people waiting for knives. As long as I can make it from the house to the shop, I’ll keep working. What’s the old saying? If you enjoy doing what you do, it’s not work.

Be Careful What You Sell on eBay

I listed a 1997 NKCA Sunfish or Elephant Toenail by Smith & Wesson with 2 blades. It was up on eBay for about 2 or 3 days, when I received a message from eBay that my listing was removed because I violated the eBay policy on Ivory. I was shocked and did not understand what was going on. I called eBay and they said that someone there had looked at my listing and saw the word “Elephant” and assumed that I was selling Ivory.

Here is the text that I put up on eBay and a few photos, you decide for yourself.

1997 NKCA Sunfish or Elephant toenail by Smith & Wesson. With two shields (S & W and NKCA) inlaid onto the jigged brown bone handle. The two-blade knife has NKCA club knife etching on the master blade. The serial number is 1524.