Automated Transcript
Chas Fisher, Boker Knives USA
The Knife Junkie Podcast (Episode 354)

00:03
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting.
Here's your host, Bob the knife Junkie DeMarco.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast.
I'm Bob DeMarco.
On this edition of the show, I'm speaking with Chas Fischer, general manager of Boker Knives USA.
Boker is a company I have always valued for its collaborations with custom knife makers, allowing the average Joe, such as myself, to enjoy the finer custom designs otherwise out of reach.
That's always been my attachment, but I met Chas at Blade show this year and immediately began to wonder what it must be.

00:44
Like working for a company that's been making knives for nearly 200 years or maybe more.
And with factory and distribution all over the world, how does it get any work done with that staggering selection of knives all about?
Well, I'm betting the answer is that making these knives a reality is much more fun than actually collecting them.
We'll find out about that, but first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification Bell, and download the show to your favorite podcast app.
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01:17
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Yes.
Welcome to the show.
Hi, Bob.
Thanks.

02:09
Thanks for having me.
Hey, it's a pleasure.
When I met you in Atlanta, Blade show this year, actually.
One of the first things you told me was that your brother was also presenting and is a knife maker and made me think is there is there something in the family have you always been into knives?
Well I I think just a a from birth obsession with the with the Fisher Boys of of all things sharp and pointy so I know that each of us have have had that since an early age.
So so that landed you commercially.
OK got you well so that landed you a career in knives.

02:45
Um.
Man, which is enviable to a lot of us, I'm sure.
But like anything, the grass is the the grass can appear green from a distance.
So tell me how you got into knives as a career and what the trajectory of that looked like.
Well, my, my professional knife career is is not especially long.
Actually.
I've been with Booker less than a year now, about nine months now, and before that, for several years I worked with.

03:16
Sog.
Sog knives.
And I got pulled into SOG because of the connection that I had.
Who was there.
The the president.
At the time, I had worked with him in the outdoor industry, kind of the broader outdoor industry, which is where I came from.
And he was.

03:33
Um, uh?
Pulling off a turn around a SOG, a turn around and sail of SOG and recruited me as part of that team.
So that's how I got pulled into SOG and.
Yeah, I have to admit you said it was you know it's grass is always greener it it appeared greener and and I thought I'd I'd jump over to it and it it has been greener.
So it's been a really great run to to work with knives.
I love it.
Sog went through a a big.

04:03
Retooling a couple of years back, I I my first exposure to SOG was through their version of the Mac V SOG.
Bowie.
That's what basically launched them, and always loved that.
And I have one and want more.
But.
You know, then they went through a sort of a big box period and then they came out of that so elegantly and you were a part of that.
Yep, Yep.

04:25
That was a, you know, of course a lot of people put a lot of effort into that, you know, but I was part of that, you know, at that table of the the people who staged that repositioning of the brand.
So what is the work like for you in a in a company like like SOG or now Boca?
Well, it's, uh, you know, it's complex.
I mean, it's a. It's been it's not easy.
It's a, you know, of course I love knives.
And I I say that the grass is green here and it is and I, you know, every day I get to.
Hold the things that we make and really am into them, right?

05:04
Because I love knives, but like any business there, there are a lot of headaches.
There are a lot of fires every day.
There are there are problems that arise that need to be solved and most of them are not as glamorous as as, you know, just hanging out and playing with knives.
But.
But it is, it is, uh, you know, it's both challenging and rewarding just like any job, but it's, uh, you know, especially compelling for me because it does have to do with knives and I've, you know, like we've discussed, that is always been a really big passion of mine.
Poker as a as a as the company, we know it now.
I mean before we started rolling you said they've been going way back and I want to find out about that.

05:48
But as the company we know now, they started in the 1830s, early 1830s depending on which company you're talking about, the German one or the American one.
Our our official date that we use is I believe it's 1869 the that Boker in Solingen was founded prior to that the brokers were making making blades of some kind for quite a bit before that and I don't know precisely how long they go back, but you know more than 100 years.
In 1834 when they were making knives but not in in the town of Zolling and they did send one of the one of the brothers over to the to the US to found Boker, USA and believe that that was 1838 or so.
And so that was when Booker first hit the shores of America.
And of course, they were making over there.
But 1869 is when they officially.
Founded the company in Solingen and so I I saw an interesting factoid that they made muskets and eight 18,000 Sabres during the Civil war for the Union.

07:03
No idea about that.
Yeah, that was a Boker USA that did that and.
Yeah.
For a period of time, they were in the top 1010 armament suppliers to the Union Army, both for for firearms, but also for for savers.
OK. So since then Boker has grown.
I I think there are three main columns that I'm aware of.
I there might be more Boker, plus there's tree brand and what is the, what are the other?

07:35
Well, there's, there's Magnum.
Magnum is kind of a price point entry level.
Stuff there's Boker plus.
Um, which you know is.
And you know there are different, there are different sourcing strategies behind each of these, which I'll sort of touch on.
Both poker, so Boker, Magnum, Boker Plus is, is kind of at a a layer of stratum above that.
Then there's Boker Arbolito which is made which is our our company in Argentina.

08:08
Uh, because that's been around for quite a while.
Around the same time, I think that that Boker USA was founded on another one of the brothers went down to South America and and started that thing.
And then there's Boker Solingen, which is Boker Germany, you know, made in the factory in the in Solingen in Germany.
So those are the kind of the right now the four major sub brands that we operate with.
OK. And and in what realm do you operate primarily?
Well, I run the North American unit and so I work with all those sub brands.
And.

08:45
Yeah, I mean I, I'm, I managed the, the the body of business in the states, OK, so that that's what I was expecting because general manager in my line of work basically runs the station, runs everything, does all of this strategizing, does all the strategy and and such and really you know, guides,
guides the ship to a great extent.
So that's why I'm a little gobsmacked that one one person obviously you have help, but is doing that gets to do that for the North Americas because or or for the American market because there are so many opportunities there for you to to grow the company in interesting ways.
And one of the ways I've always loved is the collaborations you do.
I have this part of our business right now.
Yeah.
How do you work that in, how did how did this become an important part of Booker's business model and and how do you search for talent?

09:48
Well, I I think it might have been accidental.
I think it's been going on for quite some time.
Obviously, you know, longer than I've been here and I I think that before, for many years Booker was.
You know, both Booker comes from, you know what?
What we would call gentleman knives or Grandpa knives, right?
You know, Stag handled.
You know, big bolster.

10:09
Um.
Slip joint knives?
Um.
And then I think when the knife market started to really change post war.
You know, into the Fifties, 60s and 70s.
You know, the the knife market changed.
It was influenced of course by about what happened during the war, you know, tactical knives kind of took off at some point and and so knife.

10:33
The the tastes of, I think global knife consumers changed.
And as that happened, I think serendipitously Boker was approached by designers or approached them or both and said, hey, you know, let's collaborate on something and and so they ended up doing that and.
I don't know how many designers were working with.
Now frankly I have a hard time keeping track of all of our, you know, all you know.
I have a hard time keeping track of all of our skews because we have quite a few and we have quite a few designers as well.
And here in the states we work with several, you know Lucas Burnley is one of them.
You know Lucas works with other with other knife makers as well.

11:13
But it is a big part of our business and it's it's exciting, it's fun.
We constantly get to to review cool new ideas and collaborate with these.
Liners on them and and that is for sure a component of what has it's it's fueled our growth undoubtedly.
And if you can link up with well someone like Lucas, Burnley and the quake and I mean sometimes I raz that knife on this show because of all the iterations of it.
But it's like there are there are certain knives the, the 110, the paramilitary 2. You know we could name, we can name a bunch that.
People never get tired of the case Trapper.
People never get tired of new versions of the same thing.

11:55
And yeah, and that knife is a is a huge one.
And I feel like the, yeah, the Boker, Burnley, quake and really got Boker back on the map for me way back when.
And actually before that, my brother had some switchblades from Boker that he got in the 80s as a high schooler.
And that was that was actually my introduction, but this, for instance.
Here, this this knife here is a knife that I've always it's just my grail knife in to have a a Marlowe squirrel.
And it's the sort of thing that mere mortals just can't really get.
But the fact that I can get this beautifully made, I mean this, this poker, this knife is so well made and so stout.

12:38
And I believe that's a Solingen made.
Blade.
Should be.
Is it?
That's so cool.
Yes.
Yeah.

12:47
I I love this knife and I, you know, Chuck Adris.
I have a Chuck Adris, which another great guy who I want to support, but I can't afford it.
Chuck Andriotis custom.
This this is this is the knife I was I was carrying when my youngest daughter was born.
You know, the F3 also.
Yeah, a box.
So if you can lock in on certain designers like that.

13:10
It could be great for everyone going forward, designer, Boker and collector alike.
Hmm, yeah, absolutely.
So like I said, yeah, it has fueled our growth and we're really happy with.
What we get out of it, and I think our customers are happy with it.
So, you know, there's no no doubt about it, we'll continue working with the designers that.
There's designers like Lucas that bring great ideas to us.
So how does the in-house designing work and and and I would imagine that has something to do with your overall plan for the company or how do how do you internal designs get handled and how do you curate what the look is going to be, what the what the purpose is going to be?

13:56
Well, I mean there are a few ways that it happens, but.
Fundamentally, uh, you know, there's there's a team in Germany that.
Prior to my arrival there, there is a is a team in Germany that produces ideas on an ongoing basis, and there's a team that reviews those and decides which ones to run and which ones not to run.
You have a slightly different and.
Uh.
Uh.
I think of a rebirth we, I could, I would call it of actual Boker USA knives coming in the not too distant future, which is a selection of knives that'll be entirely designed, you know, born, born in the US.

14:39
Designed in the US.
Built in the US.
And you know, which we haven't had for quite some time, but I think it's been since the probably the 80s, since since Boker Boker America knives were made so.
The.
Getting back to a more a firmer answer there, there are two ways now that it happens.
And you know, even with the Boker USA stuff, that's all done by the the Boker USA and Boker Germany team, we review all those things and decide what goes forward and what doesn't.
How do you gauge what kind of innovation you're going to put forth?

15:20
I mean they're always seems like there's something innovative coming out from Boker.
Do you does that come just through through?
Brainstorming and coming up with cool ideas or or do you set out before a season, before a design season and say this season we're going to do this?
It can happen both ways.
And it's interesting you bring up innovation because I think, you know, there's a. In the in the quadrant of product design, you know, innovation can be great, but it also can be.
You know, you know the there, there's a. The flip of it is reliability.
And you know in in innovation has runs the risk of being maybe not as reliable.

16:05
So it sort of depends on what knife is, what the knife is supposed to be for, and if the knife is supposed to be for something highly utilitarian and.
You know with with critical.
Um.
Consequences attached to it.
You probably don't want a lot of innovation right out of the gate with the thing because you know with innovation comes approving period and sometimes it doesn't prove out to be perfect, right.
And so again it sort of depends on where the product is is intended for in that quadrant of of of product and.
You know, novel, not novel.

16:46
Innovative, reliable and so.
Sometimes it's, uh, it's enough.
The innovation is enough to just go ahead with it because it seems like a pretty cool thing, and we'll see what it's, you know, how it pans out.
And sometimes we opt not to do it if it's for something that has.
High stakes involved in its use.
Right, right.
Very.

17:10
Or law enforcement or something like that, right.
It it seems like an innovation that doesn't pan out to actually be that valuable or have that much utility can be sort of relegated to collectibles until you've sold them all or whatever, however that works.
So you just need to know, you need to know what that knife is intended for and that helps guide you, guide what level of innovation goes into it or.
You know materials, of course.
This this past year.
Sorry, I just interrupted you in in 2021. At Blade show the the most the the knife that won an innovation award.
It was a fox knife that has a it was more the fox system.

17:56
It was on a little dagger.
You don't have to talk about it's like yeah yeah it's got the it's gotten embedded sort of thumb stud that you.
Send an attack and and I thought, ohh, that's neat, you know.
And I tried it and I was like, oh, that that feels neat.
And and my my big question was why?
You know, and and I thought, well, this is a great collectible.
This is a this is a cool thing to have and maybe the whole purpose of this is to see if that really brings any valuable, any value or is that just something they could do and thought to do.

18:30
So did.
And I'm not picking on Fox.
I love fox knives.
But that's just one of those, one of those.
Innovations I saw like, that's a, that's a a difference without a differentiation.
You know, it's like, what's the purpose?
Well, it is cool.

18:44
You know, I know that knife and I've played around with it and it's it was absolutely worth doing.
And I love Fox two.
We partner with Fox on a number of different things and so.
Um, yeah.
I'm not going to speak ill of them here, and I wouldn't anyway, because I I have rarely met a knife that I don't like something about and and on that particular knife I I'm blanking on its name right now, but that is an innovative way of deploying the the blade and absolutely worth trying to figure
it out.
And you know, who knows, maybe, maybe it will become some sort of a standard I think that for.

19:24
For, not for blades that require.
Um.
100% foolproof knives that require 100% foolproof blade deployment?
Maybe not.
Not yet.
At least I think it might need some work.
But there's there's absolutely no no downside really to.

19:43
Putting an idea like that out there, it only gets better with time and and testing.
So with something that's so old, like knives, especially fixed blades.
But I mean do you think from your perspective as you know someone who sees it all and runs one of the biggest operations?
Do you think there's a possibility of hitting peak knife where you know, you know what I'm saying?
Ohh, I know exactly what you're saying.
Yeah, we we have that discussion internally and.
I think that it's, you know, maybe, but, you know, think about it.

20:19
You know, we've been using knives since before we were really even Homo sapiens, right?
We've been using knives for, you know.
You know well over 500,000 years as hominids, right?
And so.
I don't know.
I think it would be.
I think it's too, too soon to say that peak knife is within our sight.

20:42
OK, I'm sure that people are going to come up with some cool things that haven't been done before.
Yeah?
Yeah, and if they don't, we have a whole history of awesome stuff to look back on.
So the current projects you're working on now, what is exciting, what has just come out in this past year?
What did you bring to, to Blade show that you're especially proud of and excited about well?
You know, a few of the things.
One of the things that we do is I'm holding one right now.

21:16
I'm holding the M4 Sherman Damascus, which is.
Uh, a a knife made with Damascus steel and the blade on the Damascus includes steel from a salvaged actual, you know, important Sherman tank and.
And that's just the those, those are always very fun projects and one of the, you know this is this wasn't new at Blade, but is in the past couple of years.
We've got a Messerschmitt.
Version of this you know of of the idea which uses measurement, measurement measure Messerschmidt steel, excuse me.
And so those are always exciting because they have so much history in them, they have so much actual history in the in the blade and it's just really cool to hold something like that in your hand and.
And it, you know, of course they're collectibles, but you, you could carry this, you know, you carry it everyday, open boxes with it if you wanted to.

22:22
I wouldn't because I'd want to keep it kind of fresh and nice.
Can I see it?
You keep teasing.
Yeah, sorry about that.
So.
It's got in my car to my car to scale.
There's the Damascus.

22:34
I think you can see that in the light there.
Beautiful clip, point blade.
Yeah, and a lot of design elements are intended to.
To reference the M4 tank, you know just the lines and you know the pivot is reminiscent of the you know the drive.
Hub or whatever it's called on on an M4.
Man, that's beautiful.
And the pattern looks gorgeous on that steel.

23:02
That's a titanium frame lock.
Yes.
Mesher Schmidt.
Just you saying Messerschmidt that that that's got to me.
I know Messer means knife Messer Schmidt must mean knife Smith, right?
Yeah, technically it does.
But the Messerschmitt, you know, of course, was a famous plane, was used in World War Two.

23:21
And.
And so we took, took the idea and applied it to the Messerschmidt.
We've done that, we've done it with a few other things.
Originally we did it with the Kalashnikov.
That was one of the projects that really kicked off that whole idea was taking Kalashnikov.
Steel Damascus, that was what I next thing I wanted to talk about is the Kalashnikov.
I have the Excel Bowie.

23:45
I love this knife.
Very cool.
This is this whole Kalashnikov line is vast.
Lots of really cool, different blade shapes which I love.
Great action on all of them, relatively quite affordable, very robust.
These are just great knives.
How did this come about?

24:06
Like what, what, what's the story behind the Kalashnikov and why do you think it's so successful?
Ohh well, you're right that it's, I mean, it is an entire franchise of knives for us.
And it it spans, you know, lots of different knife types.
The story, as I have heard it, is that our CEO, Carsten.
Decided that it might be a good idea to make a Kalashnikov with Kalashnikov himself, with his blessing.
And sought him out, found him where he was living in Russia.
Arranged a visit somehow and I'm not sure the connections he used to do that.

24:46
This was while he was still alive.
Uh, and?
Went and met with him and Umm, you know, there's there's some stories around, you know what they talk about, which I won't go into because at some point we'll probably.
We'll probably tell the story, so I don't want to reveal too much of it, but for the first time ever, he agreed to allow somebody to make knives with his name on it.
And so.
That's how it started.
I don't know the year that that happened, but to my knowledge, Boker was the first company that he agreed to to make that deal with and to.

25:22
Have his name on knives?
I didn't even think of that.
Yeah, of course you can't just slap someone's name.
Yeah, on your blade like that.
Yeah, he agreed to it.
That is so cool, yeah.
Yeah, these these are so sturdy and reliable and and and it's the kind of life that you can use very.

25:41
This one I don't use.
It's a little big, but I have the the dagger desert.
Version and you can just use it for anything and they just keep going in mind.
That one was in AUS 8, very well heat treated Aussie.
So, uh, with Boker USA and you guiding this, what what do you want?
Where do you want to take the company, what are your concerns and what are the kind of things you want to bring uniquely to the company?
Well, you know, my concerns are many.

26:14
You know, I talked earlier about fires every day and there are fires everyday, operational fires and sales fires.
Marketing fires.
Where I'd like to take us is kind of back to the future.
I mentioned it earlier that, you know, for a period of time Boker USA was was designing and building knives right here in the States and that that went away in the 80s.
And so I want to take us back to that, to having a full line of American design and built knives in the states.
So we will achieve that at some point.
You know, it's challenging of course these days with the loss of some.

26:56
Manufacturing know how in the states, but we we can we know we can pull it off.
And you know, commercially we have many challenges.
You know, I don't know how much you want to go into it on this, on this.
Podcast but um.
You know, it's it's a complex environment of sales channels out there, you know, with online and Amazon and independent stores and big box and specialty retail.
It's uh.
It it's it's difficult to to manage all of those different channels and and make them all healthy, at least the ones that you're in because they can compete with each other and and you know in fact if you if you do it.

27:45
If you do it poorly you can kill yourself right and and that has happened to other brands before and and knife brands and you know you mentioned saw earlier saw got themselves I think in some trouble because of that because of their big box excursion and so building a healthier.
Balance of where where we sell knives through is, is one of the things that I'm looking at making sure that wherever we are, whatever sales channel we're in whether it's independent or specialty chain or you know all those that I mentioned that we are doing right by our partners in that Channel and
not.
Posing risk to partners and other channels, so that requires product segmentation requires strict adherence to to.
Pricing concerns.
So those are some of the challenges that we are looking at at addressing in the coming year or so is making sure that we have a healthy business so that we can keep going for another, you know 200 years or whatever it is.
The the idea of bringing manufacturer of these knives or some of them to the United States is so exciting and you know we talk about that a lot here, a lot of the guests I have on the show.

29:07
There are.
Always trying to figure out how to bring products in here if they're making designs that are being produced overseas.
And a lot of the times, excuse me, a lot of the time it's not.
Tenable because they're very small companies.
Broker is a nice you know, is a great company with a great reputation in history, and if anyone's going to be able to do it, it's a company like poker.
Would and I don't know just spitballing is would OEM be something that an American made USA manufacturer brokering manufacturing facility would consider so that was didn't come out well but you know what I mean.
Would you OEM?

29:49
Would we OEM for other makers?
You know, probably not.
Um.
You know, I would never say never, right?
You know first challenge is make sure that you can do it and build it and make sure that your your foundation is strong enough to support what your your goals are.
You know at the end of the day we're we're a brand and we we need to support our brand and our brand is not that of just purely a manufacturer, right.
We we have a poker brand and so.

30:23
Supporting that brand is priority number one and.
If we get if so long as we're doing that then we would probably consider opportunities but.
That's getting way ahead of the game for us.
You know, first we've got to, you know, build up, build up a strong platform for making stuff here.
Yeah, I think that's hope against hope in a lot of ways, just because.
When asking people it seems like a very uphill climb to to to bring stuff manufacturing back here to a greater extent, but that's that's something to aim for and I'm glad that poker is starting that because others will follow and you know, this might have to be a necessity in the future.
Hopefully things remain free enough that it isn't, but you know.

31:18
Yeah.
But in any case, the knives that would be made here in the United States, what kind of difference would you be aiming for in the product itself to distinguish it?
To distinguish it from current Boker or no, just did this thing market, yeah.
To distinguish it in the marketplace as an American made Boca, yeah.
Well I think that Umm you know first you know what's what's important to to my team is making sure that whatever we we produce under that.
Sort of new banner of of knives that we produce is uh.
You know, I to me it's important that knives.

32:02
That that those knives be purpose designed and purpose.
You know, purpose made meaning.
You know, I don't.
I don't want us to in that particular line.
And we have many knives where this is not the case, but in this, in this line that we're talking about, it's important to me that they.
Umm that you know everything have has everything in the knife has a purpose and it use and a reason and if it doesn't have a reason or purpose or use then it shouldn't be there.
So in other words, you know embellishments are really not.

32:36
Part of that line.
Um.
You know, to say it's utilitarian might be misunderstood, but fundamentally that's what it means is that the knives have a have a reason for being and everything in that knife, including its design and its materials.
Is made for that, intended for that.
So that's probably #1. Um.
And you know, luckily with.
You know all of the activities for which we want to design, produce knives.

33:14
You know and and and I know this being a knife user on a number of different fronts myself.
You know what's right for one person is not right for another person.
So it's not like there is one ultimate, uh you know, elk skinning knife.
There are there are many ultimate elk skinning knives, as many as there are probably elk hunters and so I don't think that we.
I don't.
I don't think that there is a. The market is too crowded because I think that there are there are always people who are going to want your particular vision of how thing, how a knife works and I don't think that.
You know that there are, you know, other knife makers are doing a crummy job with it.

33:56
I think there are some amazing knives out there and and all sorts of different use scenarios.
I just think there's a lot of opportunity for more and, you know, other views of how a knife should be made to do a job.
And that's what I want to bring to the new Boker America line.
That sounds good.
You have a really deep wide catalog.
So many products.
So how do you ensure and and now we're talking about the USA product, that's something a little different, but how does how do you across such a wide product line a ensure?

34:34
That they're all kind of pulling their weight as designs, and it seems like you have so many knives always available.
There are a couple of companies that I always comment on, like they have a million models and they're always available.
How do you manage that?
How do you know whether a knife is pulling its weight?
Well, I mean that part is relatively easy.
You look at your sales reports, right and how do you manage it with great difficulty.
So it requires a lot of.

35:03
You know a lot of attention to detail and a lot of you know, warehouse space and.
You know, luckily they're small items and so, you know, they they don't take up that much space really.
They they do.
They do take up bandwidth.
I mean, it's, you know, skew proliferation is a problem for many companies and, you know, possibly even for Boker.
I don't.
You know, I I don't think that we have reached a point where it's it's an alarming thing for me.

35:32
I'm excited by it because it affords us a lot of opportunities, you know, like like it was kind of talking about earlier.
Being in so many different sales channels, it's nice to have this many items to offer to our sales channels because.
We we're we're very well positioned to do some product segmentation by channels, right.
And so that's one of the solutions that we're looking at.
So I view it as a a real advantage for us that we have so many and it's worth.
It's worth sort of the hassle that we have to go through to review them and make sure that, you know, there aren't any dogs in there.
And if they're dogs, we kick them out, right, right, right.

36:15
But it's it's also a way for us to learn and learn really fast what resonates with people and what doesn't.
And in what markets because you have such a a wide sample, I guess, yeah.
Yeah.
And and then, right, right and and well, that's the beautiful part too about a company this old I would imagine is that you're in a flow already.
It's not like you're you came into this company, the company was in a flow.
You're bringing your vision into this and you get to steer it.
But the company itself was was already, you know, was already there, which is A and a trusted thing.

36:55
So it's kind of like the choices you make because they put their trust in you and the the public has trust in the brand.
Man, that's a great spot.
That's a great spot to be in.
Ohh, it's exciting.
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of upside for the brand in in America, no doubt about it.
I'm.
Really pretty, pretty pleased to be.

37:15
In this position, to put some of those ideas out there, you have the EDC market, you know, really unlock and and then hunting seems really big, the tactical seems really big, and then it seems like you have real legit, like military.
I don't know, maybe military contracts or you make military knives.
You are very well diversified across all those.
What to you is the well, what do you is the most exciting of all of those?
I know you're an outdoorsman, but what's the most exciting to you?
And then what do you think the world is the most in love with?
Well, I think, uh.

37:56
Yeah, there there's sort of two categories that are exciting to me professionally and and personally too.
I suppose you know, the first one is, you know what?
What you call tactical, I would call it protect, maybe is a word that we throw around a lot here at Booker.
So that category is exciting to me and the overlap of that category with EDC is, is also exciting as as of course is EDC.
EDC is just so wide and and broad, you know, you do everything from you know.
Pick lint out of out of things to to opening boxes with with with EDC knives.
But it could also mean what you carry every day to for self protection, right?

38:46
So those two categories and how they overlap are interesting to me personally.
You know, I am an outdoorsman and I I hunt a fair bit and so.
Hunting knives has, uh has a particular interest for me and and for Boker.
I think it will probably look at that space and see what we can produce there.
Umm.
And you know, military, who knows?
That's a that is a tough game and we have of course played in it before and and continue to.

39:16
But it changes quite rapidly and you know it's it's feast or famine and so I think that there are other, those other categories have more promise in the in the long term for us.
More of the commercial market where where you have people like me who who get their mindset on a knife and then they just have to have it, yeah, save up or whatever, just spend the money right then and there and yeah, yeah, what is your.
OK, so so we know you like the crossover protect, the self protection knives and EDC.
That is definitely where my tastes are for folders.
I do love big boys and stuff like stuff that Arbolito makes.
For sure, but what are your favorite models from Boker?
Personally?

40:03
Favorites?
I want you to I want you to name favorites.
OK, so all the other ones feel jealous.
Well, I have to admit, this one I showed you earlier this M4 Sherman, Damascus.
I'd love its size.
I love its its pivot.
Action is fantastic.

40:25
Flips out incredibly easy because of that, and it's just a beautiful, um, pivot action, so I like that.
Like I said, I I carry this, but I don't.
I tend to not carry it too much because I don't want to hammer on it.
It's almost too beautiful to do that.
This quake and flipper is.
Is another favorite of mine really low profile is titanium?
May Flipper and with a. You know the liner lock in it, so I like this because it's really skinny.

41:00
I can fit it next to my phone in my front pocket.
Those two have been having fun with.
What else do I have around here?
Of course I have.
You know our washing off OTF, which is really fun to to bring out at dinner parties.
That noise my wife and gets the other dudes pretty excited, so it's just going to pull out for those things.
Those are kind of the three that have been floating in and out of my pocket the past couple of weeks.

41:26
So do you just kind of rotate new brokers in and out of your pockets, kind of Boker and other and other knives?
I like to use other people's knives as well, just to get a sense of what's going on out there and what I like about them, what I don't like about them and.
Yeah, I mean, I got others in here.
I probably shouldn't be talking about this as a Booker guy, but I got a an Emerson that that I've been carrying for a few days to see what that's like.
That's kind of interesting.
Uh, I have a nice nice little collection of them.
They they take some getting used to, but I love my innocent.

41:59
So what do you think the the trends I mean so you're you're not locked in on Boker, you have a wandering eye which is good and healthy so that you can bring new ideas and stuff.
But what are some of the trends out there that you're seeing that you think will last and what are some of the trends out there that you're seeing that you think you know are are just.
Going to go the way the dodo, well.
Yeah, um.
That's a tough question.
That's a very good one.
I think that we're going to see there.

42:35
There's been a trend to kind of exotic.
Maybe not expensive, but but strange and exotic scale materials, right?
I can't even name some of them now, visiting a customer not that long ago and they were showing me some kind of new new stuff that they were doing with some special makeups with it.
And so I think using cool materials as scale, using cool scale materials I think is a trend that will continue.
Um, because it sort of it makes.
You know, it makes it into a true fashion accessory thing.
You know, that's what that's what they've become for a lot of people is kind of a. Yeah, functional fashion accessory.

43:20
And so by using different materials you get to you get to have fun with it as the knife guy, right.
And so that's going to continue, I believe.
I think that.
You know, we we uh, with the work that, that.
Uh, active has done and and knife rights has done.
The acceptance of autos is pretty cool.
It's great.

43:46
I'm glad to see that it's happening.
And we've had even some really recent developments, I think in Pennsylvania that.
That are positive for carrying autos.
So I think you're going to see some pretty cool, um, things come out in autos, both, you know, regular, regular autos and OTF autos.
That's that's my guess is that people are going to jump on that and produce some really cool new.
Innovative mechanisms probably in that field because they're the market is now.
Yeah, right.

44:20
Yeah.
Oh, I I hope so.
I I live in Virginia and as of July 1st, I've been able to carry by myself and all that.
In in terms of things like say front flippers or something like that, how do you, especially in your position?
How do you know whether to say, hey guys, these front flippers are real big out there, make me four different front flipper models.
Like, how do you, how do you know when to kind of jump into something that people seem to be all crazy about?
And how do you know when just to kind of go about your business and see if it naturally evolves out of your own design?

45:02
I think that's hard to articulate and I don't know that I if I answered it, it would even be correct about how I do it, but I think that.
Yeah, I think hunches when one has a hunch about something.
This is the case with any product, right?
It doesn't.
You know, it could be nice or anything.
Good hunches are probably, uh, subconsciously recognized patterns that that you've that you can't articulate.
And so it's a hunch.

45:30
And so I think that on something that you can't quite put your finger on why you think it's going to be a big deal.
In a lot of cases in in, you know, hopefully the in most cases your your mind has observed enough information to spot patterns that you cannot articulate consciously, don't even know about consciously.
And so you think, oh, I think this is going to be big and so, but it's but it is always A roll of the dice, right?
Because if it were so obvious that you could articulate it, then you could probably analyze it and determine whether or not it was a good idea.
You know, in a in a quantifiable way.
So I think that one way is just to trust that hunch, which again I think is just good pattern recognition.
And the other way is to wait for other people to prove it or not and and then you jump on it and of course by then it's you've missed a. You missed the good timing of it, so.

46:34
The way I look at it is I'm, you know, I think about my hunches really carefully and what I'm going to put my, you know, put all my money on and and and I pressure tested a while and then I walk away from it a little bit before I make my final decision so that I can make it with what I think is a a
clear head.
I don't know if that answers your question or not.
No, no, no it it.
Well, it it does because you know that's it's not something you can nail down, obviously.
But that's well, that's interesting to hear how someone in your position does that, because that's not, you know, I'm sure, I'm sure the weight, the the job comes with its pressures.
You know, you wanna be making too many hunches that you can't, you don't feel positive about.

47:22
But yes, for sure, especially it's you.
You get that sense of picking up patterns, unrecognized patterns when you're driving.
You see someone swerved twice, a little tiny bit and you know, OK, they're going to come into my lane, get ready.
Umm that that kind of hunts.
That's interesting way of putting and you can have the same thing with a knife you know with a knife mechanism or you know a knife material or you know knife idea for a knife design.
You could see how somebody is using a knife and and subconsciously register that you know they're not doing anything with their with their index finger.
Now what if there were a thing over there that could you know flip the blade open you know that's that's you know somebody did that I don't know who did the the 1st.

48:08
Flipper mechanism but at some point they that that that is what went through their head and.
I'm glad they did it, because, you know, flippers are kind of cool, right?
They yeah, they serve a pretty good purpose.
Yeah, I feel like front flippers are kind of still in that adolescent phase where, I mean, I have a view and I like them, and some are really great and some aren't.
I'm like, this is necessary, I mean.
So much of it is not, but I like to.
I don't know.

48:39
I like to to think about it.
I like to wonder because, you know, I I've, I've been collecting knives my whole life, too, and I, I, I feel like I've seen things come and go.
Is this something that's going to come and go?
Well, if you don't jump on it early and get the recognition for inventing it, then you do get to benefit to see if it pans out.
And then, OK, everyone's doing it, everyone wants it.
Let's just do it and quietly put this out.
We don't have to make a big deal about it, but.

49:05
But you can follow it that way too.
Do you design knives?
Do you have a knife out there of your design that poker is making or anyone else not the boker's making?
I've I've designed a knife for my brothers outfit.
Hunting knife that that he's he's got in his line.
Uh, that I've personally used, you know, on some of my hunt trips, but I have not designed myself any for Boker that are in production.
Is this something you could take advantage of your position as and hands a designer a cocktail napkin?

49:37
I would do that unabashedly.
I would do that without any, without any shame.
But I'm sure that they would, you know, make it a real designers, you know, work.
Might mean that there isn't some something fundamentally interesting about my napkin drawings.
You know something that could be used but I'm I'm not the guy who can produce the final knife design.
I'd I'd rather have somebody who's really good with it and understands form factors and.
You know, kinesiology, the hands and stuff to to make that happen.

50:13
So before you came to SOG and before you moved over, you were in other outdoor industries and working, doing similar kind of stuff in other fields.
What would you say the nice, how would you say the knife industry is unique from other industries you've worked in?
Well, I think it's uh.
It's a little slow to adopt some new commercial ideas and.
I'd say it's, it's traditional, it's more traditional than the the broader outdoor market that that I kind of professionally grew up in.
Um, but, you know, we are dealing with man's oldest tools, so there's there's there's probably pretty good reason for it to be traditional in that sense.
I think um.

51:06
And and it also all revolves around one thing.
You know you're not talking about tents or you know, you're not you're not talking about tents and sleeping bags and camp stoves and you know, whatever else you need out there.
You're talking about one kind of item and you know we we kind of veered toward, you know we we talked about peak knife earlier.
One would think that we would have reached peak knife in 2022 and it really good question and a scary one if you if you're a knife guy you don't want it to be.
Yes.
You've reached it.
But it's pretty amazing that this this industry still continues to churn out really, really cool stuff after.

51:49
500,000 years or whatever it's been of of humans using this tool.
And, um, so that is.
That's what's exciting to me is that.
Every day, Justin, you know, of course I've got a a Boker catalog of stuff to look at.
But I look at other people's items too, and every day I see something that's interesting and and catches my eye and makes me want to hold it and use it.
I I've never been as enthusiastic about other products as I, not even nearly as I am about knives.
So I'm not sure, but it seems like the knife community in quotes or just the knife community is very vocal and is really excited to give feedback.

52:39
And in a lot of cases knife makers and companies are very excited to receive that because they can hone their designs and and their.
Product to be what the what the customer wants.
Do you see that same sort of enthusiastic feedback in the in the broader outdoor industry like people sleeping bags, are they excited about sleeping bags like they're about knives and and other same extent you know I think.
Yeah, it's it's, uh, it doesn't have the same passion to it that that knives seem to have.
Umm.
So no and in that.
You know another that is another great question because it it brings the idea of of passion into it.

53:24
You know, passion is something that Booker talks a lot about.
Passion about knives and.
Yeah, yeah.
These, you know, the people that that that use our knives that I talk to are.
Yeah, they're they're at a completely different class of product users than.
Then users of other.
Categories of products that I've dealt with before and that's exciting because they care.

53:50
I mean, they really care.
And you're right, they are very.
Very opinionated about it and and and and sometimes they've got really great ideas.
Yeah, yeah.
You wanna get you wanna get emotionally worked up about a finger troil.
I can do that, right?
Yeah.

54:09
Well, so tell tell listeners and viewers what they can expect from Booker over the next year and it just in terms of currents and such and what they can look forward to.
Well, over the next year, I think they can expect to see us out, uh, interacting with them more.
We have on our calendar.
Um, the intent to go to, you know, events and in places where where knife people congregate so that we can interact and engage with them more and understand what their needs are and what their preferences are.
So just a Boker presence is something that they'll probably see.
See more of over the next year and certainly two years and sometime of course within.
I've alluded to it a few times sometime in the next.

55:01
Year or year and a half, they'll see some some new American born designs trickling out there into the marketplace.
And.
Um.
Yeah, from a from a kind of a knife person's point of view perspective out there, those are those are two things that you can expect to see coming from Boker soon.
That's great.
I think, uh, I think knife fans and Boker Boker collectors and fans will love that sort of public outreach.
I know.

55:33
Well, just as a nerd myself, I know I love that kind of stuff.
And, well, that's the reason why people go to Blade show and other shows like that at great expense to to meet those people, meet the people who are making these things that were so passionate about.
That's how we met.
Yeah, exactly.
Jazz, thank you so much for coming on the Knife Center podcast and talking all about Booker.
It's been a pleasure, Sir.
Thank you very much.

55:55
I appreciate it.
You got it.
Take care, Sir.
Do you use terms like handle the blade ratio, walk and talk hair pop and sharp or tank like?
Then you are a dork and a knife junkie.
There he goes.
Ladies and gentlemen, Chas Fisher from Boker, USA.

56:10
General manager.
Yeah, I made it look like he's just playing with knives in that intro.
But man, what a what a high pressure job.
Really cool as a business illiterate to talk to him about what it's like running such an.
Awesome operation, very excited about the USA made knife line that will be coming out in the offing.
Be sure to join us next week for another great interview and Wednesday for the midweek supplemental.
And of course, don't forget Thursday, Thursday night Knives live, 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time right here on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch.

56:44
Until then, for Jim working his magic behind the Switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying don't take dull for an answer.
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