Korth Knives

Korth is the named used by two brothers, Rick and Rudy Lala, for their knife making endeavor. The Lala brothers live in Brazil and they produce some ground breaking work.  Aside from their knives, which I'll get to shortly, the Lala brothers are co-inventors of the Ikoma Korth Bearing System (IKBS) which is used by many knife makers as the opening/closing mechanism for their knives.

The knives created by Rick and Rudy are quite good but what is especially remarkable are the pieces featuring carved handles and frames.  These two make a great team with Rick building the knife and Rudy doing the carving.  Other makers do carve knife handles, however, the carving on the Korth knives is unique in it's style.  It has been my privilege to handle many of their knives and I would like to share photos of some of those I have had.  I hope you enjoy;

This particular model knife is called the Amazona.

The Korth carved skulls tend to be the most highly sought after pieces.  This model is called the Coyote. 

This is a more recent piece done in an Art Deco style.  The model is called the Sentry.

Here is another Sentry with a Hanya (Traditional Japanese figure of a women so jealous she has become a  monster and has grown horns) carving.

Another Sentry model with a skeleton carving.

Another skeleton, this one smoking a cigar.

Skull and snake design.

 A Stinger model with Dragon.

Grim Reaper.

This is the most recent and I feel the most detailed and spectacular piece done to date.  This is the Reptile model featuring a skeleton with legs crossed leaning on a cane smoking a cigar and wearing a top hat!

 Back of the Reptile with a pocket clip carved to look like a serpent climbing a tree.  Notice the Spade standing out on it's own; the skeleton has a playing card in his hat band that is a Spade.

Korth knives have become a hot collectible and are unique and extremely cool!

Engraving

I was fortunate to pick up several new knives that will all eventually be engraved.  It is kind of exciting deciding what engraving theme/style is appropriate to each knife, who the engraver should be and anticipating what they will look like when finally done.  Here are the knives I just got (these are kind of quick & dirty pictures I did for inventory vs. display purposes);

This is a large model 15 from Tom Overeynder with Blue Biggs Jasper.  This piece is a Prototype as it is the first large model 15 with the "pinched butt stock".  Not yet sure were this on is going.

This piece by Warren Osborne is his Slim Pick model.  This piece is very special because the inner oval is Lapis and the outer is Mother-of-Pearl; it is very difficult to properly mate these dissimilar materials.  This knife is off to Brian Hochstrat.

This is a Joe Kious model 10 which is on the way to C J Cai.  I had Joe center the black-lip inlay (it is usually closer to the rear bolster) to allow equal areas for engraving on both sides of the inlay.

This beautiful little knife is from Steve Hoel.  Not sure yet about the engraver or theme.

Here is a small model 15 from Tom Overeynder with a Deschutes Jasper.  This knife will go to Joe Mason for engraving in a scroll pattern with lots of Gold.

Last of the new knives destined to be engraved is another model 15 from Tom Overeynder.  This one has the nicest Gold-lip Pearl I have seen.

I believe this is the greatest number of new knives, destined for engraving, that I have secured at one time.  I expect it will be a couple of years before I see the last of these back in my hands fully engraved.

Wolfgang Loerchner is arguably one of the top 5 living knifemakers

www.wolfeknives.com/ and I was fortunate enough to obtain this elegant example of his work.  Wolfe informs me that this is one of the first Daggers he ever made...about 1984.  This is not a large piece, the blade is 5 1/2" and the overall length is 9 1/4".  The Grotesque engravings (Grotesque is a style/theme, the execution is superb) are by master engraver Rick Eaton.

In bound!

Just received an e-mail this a.m. to let me know this is on the way.  Very cool.

On the way

This piece is in the works and should be on the way pretty soon.  I presented the theme for the carving and I think Rick & Rudy Lala (Korth Cutlery) are executing it quite well.  can't wait to see the finished knife.

Wrinkled Wrinkle

Here is a really cool knife I picked up recently, a Ken Onion Wrinkled Wrinkle.  All Onion custom knives are hard to come by, this one even more so.

The handles are textured and anodized.  The texturing actually does make it feel as though the surface is wrinkled.

Work of Art

I like all types of knives; folders, tactical, fixed blades, engraved knives, etc... However, I would have to say that my favorite knives are those that are engraved.  I especially enjoy having a knife made and then working with the engraver, having some of my ideas incorporated into the knife and the engraving.  Here is a new piece I just received, the work is from two of my favorite artists; Warren Osborne and Brian Hochstrat.