All About Pocket Knives

Those photos were made at The NKCA Museum as it existed on the mezzanine at The Smoky Mountain Knife Works.

I wish we had comparable photos of the original museum in Chattanooga.

Charlie

Being a fan of museums I have to admit I was very disappointed with the displays I saw at SMKW (those pictured here). I think of museums as being for educational and historical preservation of artifacts from an earlier time in history. The museum did (while it lasted) preserve the knives, but it was poorly curated if at all, with little or no documentation presented about the knives, their history, their makers, nothing. Just knives under glass displays, unidentified, or at best poorly identified. There was also some cutlery ephemera haphazardly strewn in some of the display cases, again without curation. Might have been interesting if you could examine it more closely, but you couldn’t.

Those of us who are already knowledgeable don’t necessarily need all that - we know what we’re looking at, and therefore can appreciate it regardless. But for the average visitor there wasn’t much if anything educational about what was on display at SMKW. If you weren’t already collector, it was a quick stroll through. JMO

Thanks for sharing the pictures Gary, sorry to be so negative about the “museum”. I think I’m just disappointed it didn’t live up to my expectations, largely set by the hype of seeing it touted numerous times on SMKW advertising. It had so much unrealized potential.

Ken

Wasn't this collection split up into 3 different locations? If so, does anyone know where?

edge213 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 6:37 pm Wasn't this collection split up into 3 different locations? If so, does anyone know where?

Here’s a story about it. Says one of the locations to which part of the collection was sent is the NRA Museum in Springfield, MO. (housed inside Bass Pro Shops headquarters/flagship store).
https://blademag.com/blog/steve-shackle ... ife-museum

It’s been a couple of years since I was there (2017, IIRC). We spent a good while at the NRA Museum, but I did not see any of the collection being displayed at that time.

Ken

Gary,thanks for taking the time to post all the pictures.

Thanks for sharing Kennedy Knives. That was quite a show. I enjoyed looking and will look at again.

Thanks to everyone that posted I have 4 other disk that I think has more to show will see if I can dig them out

Thanks Gary! Those are great!