The News from ElephantToenails.com

I know many of the members of the Elephant Toenail Collector Club are also members of the iKnifeCollector collector community, so I felt it was only appropriate to address my recent post there entitled: Rites of Passage- Memoirs of a Knife Collector. If you previously read my post, you probably wondered what is going with me selling toenails from my collection.

If you didn’t read my post, I shared with iKC that I sold three toenails from my collection and what this sale signified in my life as a collector.

I feel obligated to provide my toenail friends here at ET.com additional information on my decision. First off, the “What” involves my three H. Boker toenails. I have a knife friend I have known probably as long as any other. Prior to collecting toenails I collected H. Bokers and met this collector while hunting the Bokers.

He is as passionate about these knives as we are about toenails. In fact, I would venture to say he owns the largest collection of old Bokers than anyone in the Country. Plus, he bought a large number of knives from me when I sold off my Boker collection.

So, here is how it went down- Over the years we have remained in touch. He would send me info on toenails he ran across while he hunted for old Bokers. He owns close to every pattern, except our favorite- elephant toenails. And while he never approached me directly about selling any of the old toenail Bokers, he did ask me to keep my eyes open, so I know he has been actively looking for many years.

Well, there is a discussion over at iKC where members post what knives they are looking for and, yes, he posted he was looking for any H. Boker toenail, particularly the bone and pearl handled varieties.

I can’t quite explain what happened, but when I read his post I simply felt it was the right thing to do. Yes, I felt compelled to sell him the three Boker toenails I owned.

Needless to say, I contacted my knife friend to tell him I would sell him those knives. He was a true gentleman about it. I gave him the price and he agreed. There was none of the typical haggling that is associated with knife trading, and I appreciate it because that sale was a bittersweet event in my knife collecting life. It represented the first sale of toenails from my collection that weren’t either duplicates or knives I had upgraded from.

I don’t share this with you, my dear toenail friends, in an attempt to evoke sympathy, not in the least bit. Instead, this sale to my knife friend gave me tremendous satisfaction, as I knew he would enjoy those knives probably more than I had.

It’s official now-

This is a video recorded to let the YouTube knife folks know about iKnifeCollector

I think the best way to tell you about my last three days is as a photolog, so here goes. The tale begins at Parker’s Knife Show, then a tour through the NKCA Knife Museum and finally, breakfast with some fellow Elephant Toenail Collector Club Members. Then I headed home.

Parker's Show Hall

C Platts Jumbo for sale by Joe Seale

National Knife Collection Museum

Platts History & Jumbo

Case Family Toenail

Case Brothers Toenail

Early Case Toenail

Henry Sears & Son Tear Drop Style

Napanoch Display featuring Toenail

Voyles Knife Auction

We are set. The meeting of the Elephant Toenail Collector Club will be on Saturday monring for breakfast- Nov. 22nd at 8:00.

We will be meeting for an informal get together at the hotel across from the Knife Show at the Wilderness at the Smokies in the Hidden Trail Bar & Grill resturant.

Incidentally, if you need lodging they have a special rate for the knife show (they are also running some specials), if you ask. In addition to the links here is the location and contact info.

Wilderness At The Smokies Resort | 1425 Old Knoxville Highway, Sevierville TN 37862 | (877) 325-WILD | info@wildernessathesmokies.com

Hope to see ya there. If there is a problem with finding us….email me at scott@ET.com (you will need to spell ET out and don’t forget the “s” on the end of toenail) and I’ll give you my cell number.

At the first meeting of the ETCC we decided to meet around certain knife shows throughout the year. So, if you are able to attend the show in Sevierville, Tn on Thur- Sat, Nov. 20- 22, we will be huddling together then.

On Saturday, Nov. 22nd, we will meet, so mark you calendars now. I’m working with the other officers : ) on the where and when, and will let you know. This will be an informal meeting and will either be around breakfast or lunch. More details to follow…

The first meeting of the Elephant Toenail Collector Club is now history.

While the majority of our members weren’t able to make it to Bradford for the meeting, I would like to thank two of our most active members, Mr. Roger Cunningham and Mr. Ken Mundhenk. These gentlemen have been active in helping plan this meeting.  They also took it upon themselves to have a special gift made for me and presented it right off the bat. 

Roger is on the left and yours truly the right. This gavel memorializes our first club meeting and I will be sure to have it at our next meeting.

The main topic of discussion was the direction of the club and we then wrapped up with the discussion of our next meeting date. The consensus was to have our next meeting to coincide with Parker’s Knife Show this winter. The show dates are Nov. 20-22 at the Sevierville Convention Center, in Sevierville, TN. I’ll get the details once they are finalized and let you know. We realize our members are located all over the Country, therefore we will only have it annually and usually around a major knife show.

Attached is the handout of the meeting club-meeting-handout.pdf.  

Saturday, July 19th is the big day and it is fast approaching! Some of you may say, what’s happening on this day- well, if you have just started coming round, this is the inaugural date of our meeting of the Elephant Toenail Collectors Club.

Case is having its Collector Appreciation Day Weekend that weekend and several of us are going up, or over, and maybe some down, to Bradford, PA for it. Case invited me back to be the auctioneer for their auction Friday nite, otherwise, I don’t think I would have made the trek.

We got a wild hair and decided to take advantage of this opportunity and will have an “official” meeting. I realize it is hard to take time out for knife vacations (I have made 1 show in a year), but we welcome anyone who likes toenails to attend.

Here are the details. Case has been gracious enough to allow us to meet in their boardroom. We will call the meeting to order at 11:00. It will be informal and will provide us the opportunity to meet each other in person for the first time.

If you are headed to Bradford, please make sure to stop by and say “Hello.”

If you have any questions, shoot me a note.

For Immediate Release:

Online knife collectors club announces first-ever meeting on Saturday, July 19th at 11:00 at W R Case Cutlery Co., Bradford, Pa.

The Elephant Toenail Collectors Club (ETCC) officially announced it will hold its first membership meeting around the W R Case Collector Appreciation Day weekend, July 18th & 19th in Bradford, Pa. Knife enthusiasts with an interest in elephant toenails / sunfish knives are invited to attend.

“We are excited about meeting our members for the first time” said organizer Scott King. Case has arranged to allow the club to use their boardroom at the corporate office for this historic meeting. One of the interesting aspects of this meeting is the ETCC is not just another knife club. They were founded in 2003 and have never had a membership meeting. It is an online collectors club for antique toenails. The online club originated with the launching of ElephantToenails.com and has now grown to over 300 members worldwide. Scott began the community to provide a forum for collectors to access information on the popular knife pattern.

“I never dreamed we’d ever actually have an off-line meeting” Scott said. “It was a natural event timing for us to get together while we will be in Bradford for W R Case’s event. Our members are from all over, so I don’t know at this time, how many will attend, but we are excited about meeting. Plus to think we will be calling our first meeting to order in the boardroom of the oldest remaining American cutlery company is just the icing on the cake!“

The ETCC is unique in that it is an online knife collecting community. There are no membership dues, no bylaws and its newsletter, The News, is only available online.

“One of the interesting things about our community here at ET.com is about one third aren’t really toenail collectors, per se. They like knife collecting and the community we have built, another one third are moderately active toenail collectors and the rest being hard-core. We have a good cross section of knife collectors, which is healthy for a community. We really are but a small group of niche collectors of old knives.”

Meeting date and location: Saturday, July 19th at 11:00 in the boardroom at W R Case Cutlery Co.

For additional information contact Scott King at scott@elephanttoenails.com

A historic meeting is in the works!

Word has been leaking out and it wasn’t because we were going to have a secret meeting, instead I wanted to work out the last details before I announced it, BUT also didn’t want all the hotel rooms to get gone.

So, YES it is true. The Elephant Toenail Collectors Club (ETCC) is going to get off-line and actually have our first-ever meeting!

Can you believe it? We have been an online community here since 2003 and now have a great opportunity to get together around a major Case event.

Here are the details. Case asked me to come back and conduct the auction this year. I was asked to do the auction at the Swap Meet in 2006 and guess I did OK cause they asked me back- with that I heard several of you were also coming up to the Case Appreciation Day so some of us here decided we would get together. This was the start of discussions about us having an ET.com club meeting.

The folks at Case are helping us find a room for our meeting. It won’t be formal. We will not be passing the hat or voting on any by-laws, instead we will meet and put a face with the name.

Many of us have been having email conversations for a long time, so we desire a chance to put a voice to a name. Some of you have been brave enough to send in Collector Profiles with your photos, so for some of us, we feel we know you, at least those guys anyway.

Go ahead and mark you calendar now. July 18th -19th. I’ll let you know which of those two days we plan on getting together as soon as I can.

Case’s website has some more detailed info on the event they are hosting along with hotel info. I’ve linked to it here.

Come on up. Make sure you are attend our first-ever meeting. One day we will all look back and say, “yeah and I attended our first meeting back in July 2008.”