Selling Select Self-Defense Knives

Massad Ayoob

The self-defense knife market is a growing one. Yet, many gun dealers are reluctant to Jay in an inventory of knives. That's a mistake. Guns and knives complement each other, especially in the self-defense market.

While there will always be customers who buy such products as knives through mail order or the Internet, most customers want to handle before they buy. They want to feel a knife's smoothness of opening and its heft; they want to gently touch the edge, and they want to gain a sense of its balance. This means they'd rather buy it from you.

Of course, there are those who will buy it locally, and cheaper, at the monster mart. However, even though a particular brand may be available at the big marts, many of your customers will still come to you. These are customers who feel better buying from a personal dealer instead of faceless mass-marketers and their clueless mass-hired clerks.

Most gun dealers agree, however, that the best bet is to stock top-quality products that have name recognition and are not sold at cut-rate prices at the monster mart. Let's look at some proven brands.

Benchmade

Knife designs as old as the Filipino balisong and as modern as the hugely popular Emerson designs have, over the years, contributed to Benchmade's growth as a real force in this marketplace. Their quality is tops. Your typical Benchmade tactical folder is light for its size. Some models have the Spyderco-style opening hole for the thumb instead of the often used thumb-stud, and it's well known in the industry that Benchmade was honest enough to license the trademark design from Spyderco. That carries more weight than some people think. Gun and knife buyers tend to have very strong and elemental values. Most customers insist on the products of good guys, and they shun rip-offs.

The Benchmade folder will typically have a liner-lock, as opposed to the older, lock-back design. A tongue of steel that runs horizontally inside the blade cavity of the folding knife, the liner lock exerts less pressure on the blade when the knife is closed. It thus requires less thumb pressure to open in the conventional one-handed manner, and it requires much less effort to "flip open" in the manner many of your more serious customers prefer.

Yes, Benchmade has a solid reputation. For the last three years, a Benchmade has received Knife of the Year honors from the Shooting Industry Academy of Excellence.

Masters of Defense

There are five tactical folders from Masters of Defense: four designed by knife-fighting instructors, and one concealable, fixed-blade, defense knife. Your single best bet for impulse sales is the LadyHawk, designed for women by Graciela Casillas-Boggs, undefeated women's world champion kickboxer. In a famous incident, Casillas stabbed one of two attempted rapists, using the thug's own knife, and sent the other running.

She designed the LadyHawk to be all but impossible for a man, or woman, to take away from its owner without being slashed to ribbons. It's small and easy to carry, and almost every man who sees it wants one for the woman in his life. A good companion item is the Masters of Defense video from Paladin Press, which includes Casillas demonstrating the LadyHawk.

Cold Steel

Company founder Lynn Thompson's aggressive advertising has pre-sold this wide and fascinating knife line for you. I'm especially partial to his Voyager series of lightweight folders with strong, lock-back designs. Cold Steel blades are famous for their razor-sharpness out of the box. Some of his big, fixed-blade models, notably the Tanto series that this brand single-handedly popularized in America, are ideal for the surprisingly significant market for home-defense blades.

Kershaw

Solid quality couples with the ingenious design work of Ken Onion to make these knives increasingly popular. Onion's "Speed Safe" design allows effortless high-speed opening with minimal strength and dexterity. That makes them a natural for your older customers, your arthritic ones, and those who consider themselves less than dexterous. It's a classic case of "when they try, they buy."

Meyerco

This relatively new firm is coming on strong with folders designed by the famed Blackie Collins. The all-purpose "L'il m Rascal" may be the most popular. My own favorite is the Tactical design by Collins, which rides low in the trouser pocket and will appeal to your customers who wear dark-colored suits. It will all but disappear when they clip it into their trouser pocket.

Spyderco

Anyone who's read anything about modern folding knives will recognize this most prolific brand, the knife that popularized one-handed opening and pocket-clip carry. The slim, efficient Spyderco Police Model is a perennial best-seller. Among the most popular is the light, inexpensive Delica with a 3-inch, straight-edge blade.

Other "designer models" from Spyderco include the splendid Tim Wegner knife, Bob Terzuola's super-fast StarMate, and James Keating's big-cutting, Bowie-influenced Chinook. All these folders make friends of customers who handle them.

The market for these high-quality, moderate-cost knives is huge. Don't cheat yourself. These lines go with gun shops like powder and brass.

Product Of The Month

Bet you've lost count of how many of your handgun customers said they liked the Beretta 9mm, but it was too big for their hand and too bulky to conceal. The long-lost Type M (compact, with short butt and eight-round, single-stack magazine) is back and in style. With a stainless finish, genuine Novak sights and the whole Elite treatment, it's now called the Concealed Carry II.

The one I tested was accurate, 100 percent reliable, easy to conceal in the waistband, and an excellent fit to the hand. Only 2,000 are scheduled to be produced.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group