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transitions

letter from Chris Hamm

lottery

women's T-shirts

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transitions

Over the past two years most of you have had the pleasure of working with my fantastic office manager, Chris Hamm. She has been an integral part of the growth and organization for Kramer Knives. Chris has decided to realize her long held dream of moving to the Santa Fe area to be closer to her family. If any of you are looking for a hardworking, talented addition to your business - let me know and I can pass the information to Chris. We will miss her, but we are proud to support her in her new adventure.

Luckily, we were able to find and hire a new person to keep this transition seamless. Ariel (pronounced R-EEE-L) has joined the Kramer Knives family and is here to provide you with the great customer service you deserve. She has excellent experience wearing many hats within a small business. We feel confident you will enjoy working with Ariel as well.

Finally, we are seeing light at the end of the order list that we've had since a Cook's Illustrated article in 2007! My customers have the patience of Saints, and have been waiting 3 years for their knives--and I've had a 3 year backorder since 1998. We will be opening up the order list very soon to a small number of knives. These orders will be shipped in 2011. This is huge.

We're still struggling with this process--we think we have the answer, but it doesn't solve all of the problems. We are trying to make it fair for the people who have been on the list for a while, as well as those who have joined recently, all while keeping ourselves sane here at the shop.


Here's what we've come up with:

We will be taking some orders chronologically and some at random; we will start with orders that came in after the 2008 New Yorker article, and do a random selection from the email list that we have compiled over the last two years. We'll see how this goes for a while, and may need to make more changes in the future.

We'll let you know if your name is drawn, and you can let us know if you're still interested. To be fair, we will not be selecting names of previous customers.

If you are receiving this newsletter, you don't need to do ANYTHING! You are already on the Email List. We'll also send a note to let everyone know when those spaces are full, just to keep things clear.

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letter from Chris Hamm

Hello Everyone,

It is time to go home, closer to my family and ancestral roots.

Thank you for the many amazing inspirations you have brought to my life, from your unwavering patience to the great comments in your emails. Through you, I am gaining a renewed pride in our country knowing that many people are excited to support a US craftsman, as well as desiring a beautiful aspect in life: to use an everyday tool that is art.

An interesting concept I stumbled upon while working here is an answer to one of my many life-long questions, "what is Art?" … Art is created when solving a problem. When one attempts to "make art" they rarely succeed. It is through the magical process of solving a problem and persistence that art is created. This is it.

Here at the shop, daily I see this in action, and it especially rings true when I consider that Bob's desire to build knives began with the simple problem of tired hands at the end of a long day in a commercial kitchen with quick-to-dull knives. It is my hope that I will always remember this when approaching my own artistic experiments in music, dance, charcoal and oils.

It is an honor to have had the opportunity to work with all of you.

Have a wonderful summer.
Chris Hamm

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lottery

We have modified the 'lottery' system since April. Instead of a quarterly lottery, names will be selected from the Email List periodically, as Bob is ready to make more knives.

If you joined the lottery in April, you're on the list; be assured that once you've joined, your name is permanently in there.

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women's T-shirts

We now have Women's T-shirts in.
To order, call Ariel in the office (360) 455-4357


Here is a shot of Mark's sister, Tiare.

Thank you for your interest in my work, and your patience.

Bob Kramer, Master Bladesmith, ABS

www.kramerknives.com
(360) 455-4357
kramerknives@earthlink.net