Lum was a pretty sharp man

From left, Dave Lum, Tom Baker and John Lum share a laugh.
KARI PETERSEN - The Daily Astorian

Posted: Friday, February 29, 2008 12:00 am

By Elleda Wilson
Editorial Assistant

Tom Baker, owner of Seaside Pocket Knives, came in to see the Ear in early February to talk about an Astoria native who was a famous knife-maker and designer, the late Bob Lum (www.boblumknives.com), son of John and Clara Lum. Most Astorians, including Lum's family, were unaware of how celebrated he was for his knives until after his death.

Baker, who admires Lum's knives, called Kelly Williams, sales manager at Spyderco Inc. (www.spyderco.com), a custom knife design and manufacturing company, to try to obtain a Bob Lum knife to give to Lum's father, and she was able to find one for him. On Feb. 8, Baker went over to Lum's Auto Center to present the engraved knife to John Lum, while his brother, Dave Lum, looked on.

"This knife is actually a knife that Spyderco collaborated on with Bob Lum quite some time ago [in 2000]," Williams told the Ear. "Tom called and explained that he would really like to honor Bob's knife-making skills by presenting one of these knives to the family.

"I spoke with the owner of our company, who had the knife in his historical collection of our products. Tom suggested that we engrave it, and he left it up to us; we did engrave the product at our facility in Golden, Colo."

The knife, pictured, is engraved with, "To My Dad."

Spyderco had also planned a limited edition of the same Bob Lum knife, with a black handle, but, Williams says, "these are already sold out, so even though we haven't delivered them, we have no more."

Reprinted with permission of The Daily Astorian of Astoria, Oregon.