Emerson Knives, a knife company founded by Custom Knifemaker, Ernest Emerson, held the grand opening of their new factory in Harbor City, California this past weekend. The new facility promises to provide more factory space, an in-house CQB training area, visitor's lobby, and other amenities.
There were several charity raffles, door prizes, contests, a raffle to "Build your own knife", a custom knife lottery and Martial Arts legend and one of Emerson’s instructors, Richard Bustillo gave a demonstration with a number of his students from the IMB Academy in nearby Torrance. Additionally, Tattoo artist Vance Foster was on hand to provide body art for any willing subjects.
Emerson set up a "virtual museum" with the timeline of Emerson Knives featuring photos and some very rare and unique pieces from the vault. This timeline showed the evolution of Emerson as a Knifemaker and the impact his company and designs have had upon the cutlery industry.
Emerson made his first knife, a balisong, in 1979, while working as a machinist for an aerospace company in Southern California because he could not afford to buy one for his martial arts class. He had been studying under Dan Inosanto and Richard Bustillo (both protégés of the late Bruce Lee) at the time, and soon received requests from other students to make them knives. Emerson made these early knives in exchange for the cost of materials.
He branched out into more conventional designs of the time, fixed blade knives and lock back folders, but soon was intrigued by the liner lock design, developed by Michael Walker. With Walker's permission, he incorporated the lock into his own designs and used high end materials such as mother-of-pearl, titanium, and paua shell in his knives. Falling back on his martial arts background, he stripped these designs down to their essence and made a series of tactical knives. These knives featured bead blasted titanium hardware and black canvas micarta scales.
In the 1980s he was contacted by a group of "Underwater Welders" to build a "hard use folding knife as strong as a fixed blade that could perform in extreme environments". The "welders" turned out to be members of SEAL TEAM Six, for whom Emerson designed a knife from the ground up. The knife incorporated a unique chisel ground blade, sharpened on only one side to eliminate parasitic drag and was named the CQC-6. Although not the first "tactical knife", it was hailed as the first purpose built tactical knife; as prior tactical knives had been simply dressed down versions of existing patterns.
After profiles in knife magazines and being mentioned in the novels written by Richard Marcinko, the founder of SEAL Team Six; the CQC-6 took the knife community by storm in the 1990’s. Military and firearm aficionados demanded the knife as did legions of knife collectors. Emerson designed a slightly different version for Benchmade Knives in 1994, the CQC-7, which went on to be the most popular factory tactical knife of all time.
In 1997, Emerson launched his company as a full-time endeavor to produce knives on a larger scale for both his military and police contracts and to supply the quickly growing collector base.
More than just a Knifemaker, Emerson is an accomplished martial artist. This new facility not only has more factory and warehouse space, but has a dedicated training area for Emerson's CQB classes which are in as much demand as his knives.
The highlight of the grand opening was the fabled “Emerson Lottery”. When the demand became overwhelming, Emerson stopped taking custom orders in 2000 and the only way to get a custom knife from him was at a show. To make it fair to the numerous collectors, dealers, and purveyors, this is done via lottery. Names are written on slips of paper and placed in a box. Whoever’s name is drawn, gets a chance to buy a knife at the “table price”. Often the ratio of knives to consumers is more than 10 to 1; and with good reason, a custom knife may cost $650 at a show, but on the aftermarket can go for more than 3 times that amount.
As is always the case with Emerson Knives, the donations for the raffles were generous. According to Mary Emerson on the company's blog: over $4,500 had been raised to benefit the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund, The Navy SEAL Foundation and St. Jude's Children's Hospital.
For more information on Emerson Knives, consult the company’s website : http://www.emersonknives.com
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