The News from ElephantToenails.com

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.  

For the last two days I have been a part of the W R Case Collector Appreciation Weekend in Bradford, Pennsylvania, both as a member of the Case Auction Team and as a collector. I have to say I don’t believe I have ever witnessed the sincere gratitude a company has for its consumers like the Case firm has for its collectors and customers. You see and hear the “lip search” many companies attempt to pay to its customers, but usually it is more of a PR effort and staged than heart felt. Any one there over the last two days will attest, Case sincerely appreciates the folks who support and purchase from this company- from its owner and senior management all the way through its associates working in the factory.

This firm recognizes its responsibility to its customers. Let me give you a small example.  I am amazed at the admiration its customers have for the company and its executive team. I have never seen individuals line up to get autographs from corporate executives before. Most consumers are of the what’s-in-it-for-me mentality- “Give me your product or service how I want it when I want it, and if I don’t like something I’ll let you know.”

One of the most intriguing phenomenon is Case’s customers are more fans than consumers, and the Case firm clearly recognizes and accepts the responsibility that comes with this culture. And I must say, the senior management team spend hours meeting and signing autographs for their fans. And Case spent this weekend expressing through a special event that it wanted to let these fans know- it values and appreciates them too.

I’ll add more about my trip over the next week- about the first meeting of the ETCC club, the auction, significant events and people I encountered while in Bradford, but the truth is of all the events and happenings there, I am most impressed with Case’s sincere appreciation for its customers and collectors.

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.”