Great Eastern Cutlery is a manufacturer of traditional pocket knives located in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Founded in 2006, GEC has quickly gained a reputation for producing high quality traditional pocket knives. GEC has also produced knives for Northwoods Knives. I recommend buying GEC knives at KnivesShipFree.
GEC Knife Reviews:
GEC #15 Tidioute Boy’s Knife
I was just reading some statistics about Great Eastern Cutlery: in 2007 GEC produced approximately 7300 knives whereas in 2017 it’s nearly 30,000 pieces. This is remarkable in today’s hyper competitive EDC pocket knife market. That’s a 310% increase over ten years for a traditional knife company. Admittedly, these numbers are based on hearsay, but ...
Great Eastern Cutlery #71 Bullnose Review
Traditional knives are like genre fiction: they’re expected to follow certain tropes. These conventions are more restrictive than those we impose when we say things like ‘tactical knife’ or ‘EDC knife,’ maybe because they’ve been cultivated over a longer period of time. However, as with a fantasy or horror novel, it’s possible for a traditional ...
Great Eastern Cutlery Tidioute 43 Oregon Trapper Review
I’ll never forget when my family was cleaning out my late Grandfather’s house after he passed. I found an old band-aid tin that was full of a variety (in both style and age) of small multi-bladed slip joints. They were all he carried and on most of them one blade was worn down to a ...
Great Eastern Cutlery #66 “Calf Roper” Review
I have a small confession to make. Though my articles may not reflect this, I have a crippling addiction to Great Eastern Cutlery knives. For every modern knife in my collection, there’s a traditional knife (often in matching or complimentary colors), and I fear it won’t be long before the old timers actually outnumber the ...
Great Eastern Cutlery #73 “Cody Scout” Review
Last Update: August 11, 2019 Just a few years ago, it seemed that fans of traditional pocket knives and modern “tactical” folders didn’t intersect. Enthusiasts of modern designs (myself included) were often leery of the carbon steel, clipless carry, and two-handed opening. Before the days of Instagram, the most popular way for people to ...
Northwoods Knives Indian River Jack Review
I have been interested in traditional slip joint knives for a while now. I am not alone. Many have come to enjoy the pocket friendly lines of a simple slip joint, and the thinly ground blades cut like nothing else. Some might find the absence of a lock unnerving, but in my experience most of ...
GEC #47 Viper Review
Last Updated: August 5, 2019 I have recently seen a resurgence of interest in classic slipjoint knives. Maybe folks are getting tired of shelling out $200+ for the latest framelock flipper. Or maybe they like the idea of carrying something their grandpa may have carried. Who knows for sure. Buy the GEC Viper at KnivesShipFree Personally I ...
I bought one of their knives through one of the distributors. Very disappointed. Mine is a four bladed congress. This knife will not hold an edge. I do believe just looking at it will dull it. Maybe they are subbing their knives out to China these days. Who knows. One of the worst edge holding knives that i have ever had.
Don,
I am sorry to hear that. Maybe yours has a bad heat treat? I might suggest contacting GEC. 1095 is pretty soft stuff and for regular EDC stuff it won’t hold up nearly as well as a super steel, but it should be serviceable and is great for carving wood.
Dan
I have a fair number of GEC knives. I have only had one that wasn’t sharp. The edge geometry seemed to be a bit off. A few passes on my Spyderco sharpener took care of the problem. 1095 definitely hold an edge as well as most modern steels. I find that a few strokes on a stropping block restores my GEC knives to shaving sharpness. The most difficult knife to sharpen for me was an early 1970s vintage Buck pen knife.
Mike
I have a Great eastern Cutlery Triduoete Whaler , and am thoroughly pleased with it. I regularly have it at Shaving Sharpness and only have to do minimal touch up to restore its edge. 10/10 will buy again. I hope to acquire a Lumberjack next.
Something is wrong with your knife if that’s the case, and I’d send it back to GEC and let them have a look at it.
I’ve got about a dozen of their knives (none in stainless) and all are somewhere near the top end of their spec in 1095. Not sure what people are doing with knives, but 1095 approaching 60 hardness in a thin blade will be a better slicer than almost anything around, and it’s super quick to touch up because the wire edge has no loyalty to the mother steel. It also wears nicely if you’re just slicing – never really getting fractured or gappy at the edge.
They will rust, of course, but I have zero interest in supersteel knives with fat blades or that lose chunks out of the edge to a simple leather strop.