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Supplied to the club for viewing by a member and long time friend of Jim Parker. Their comments are listed below in the comments of friends and family members.

In Memory of Jim Parker

James Franklin Parker - 62, a resident of Chattanooga, passed away Wednesday - November 17, 2004 at his residence.

He was the son of the late John and Donnie Parker.

He was a long time member of Tyner United Methodist Church where he served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees and was a member of the Fellowship Sunday School Class.

He was a past member of the Board of Trustees of Hiwassee College.

Mr. Parker was a former store manager and credit manager for Sherwin-Williams Paint Company. He went on to be the founder and owner of Parker Cutlery Company which he established in the late 1960's. Jim Parker also owned WR Case and Sons Cutlery Company until around 1990. He was also instrumental in starting and operating Parker’s Knife Collectors Service and for the past several years revived and operated Bulldog Brand Knife Company.

He was the first President of the National Knife Collectors Association, past recipient of the Tennessee Businessman of the Year Award and was inducted into the Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall of Fame.

Survivors include his wife Billie G. Parker, two children, James (Buzz) Parker, Jami R. Parker, all of Chattanooga, two grandchildren, Patrick and Olivia Parker, two brothers, John M. Parker, of Kodak, TN., Mack V. Parker, of Knoxville, TN., two sisters, Shirley Keller, of Cleveland, TN., Nina Pell, of Athens, TN., and several nieces and nephews.

Tributes

Tribute by Amanda Woolf (Pigpen)

Mr. Parker.... what can you say about this wonderful man that people don't already know? I loved him like a father and he treated me like a daughter. He always greeted me with a smile and left me with a laugh. He always made me feel better after talking with him. He will always be a part of my life and hold a special place in my heart. I smile now knowing he is in Heaven with my dad and talking ball.

Thank you Mr. Parker for everything!

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Tribute by Shirley Brown

Even though I had known Mr. Parker for a short while, he was very much a gentleman and an honest man.

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Tribute by Ed Henley

11-20-94
In a nut shell, I have known Jim Parker since 1981 and been a good friend and employee since 1993. Mr. P, as I call him, was buried this afternoon.

Mr. P. and I had traveled to Louisville, KY to the NKCA show about 6 1/2 weeks ago. Mr. P. stepped out of the Suburban with a sharp pain hitting his side. I knew it must have been bad when he put off going to dinner for about an hour so he could lay down. He loved the Fifth Quarter restaurant and could not wait to get there whenever we arrived in this particular city. Well, we put two and two together and decided his problem was his gal-bladder. The next morning when I woke up, I could tell Mr. P just was not himself. I asked him if he wanted to go home. He said yes. I knew he had to be feeling pretty lousy to leave a knife show the day it starts.

After a miss diagnosis at the hospital, he returned a few day later still in pain. It was then they discovered a problem with his liver. The problem was cancer, not gal-bladder. Not just any cancer, but a cancer that grew really fast and is pretty rare in the United States.

Buzz, his son and my best friend, tried everything that was humanly possible to help his dad and my friend. Buzz, through some wonderful God sent friends, was able to get his dad to Vanderbilt and seen by three different oncologist. Mr. P was too far gone though.

Through no fault of his own was this disease contracted. He walked several miles every week for as long as I can remember. He had a sweet tooth now, but for the most part, he tried his best to stick to a healthier eating habit. He cherished his family and did everything he could to be healthy.

I sat at his dining room table last Friday and talked to him for over an hour. It was one of the best times of my life. Even though we talked business for most of the conversation, it is one I will cherish forever. He held my hand tightly and told me he loved me like a son. It was such an honor to be thought of that way by such a great man.

I have traveled for over 10 years to knife shows with him regularly. I tried to figure up the days I have spent with him over the years; about 1 year worth of weekends. So I loved Jim Parker like I love my father.

I'm sure gonna miss you Mr. P. You have loved me, helped me, taught me and just been a wonderful friend. You have taught me to have respect for my friends and family. You have taught me a business trade that I shall retire one day with, the good Lord willing.

I love you and I can't wait to see you again in heaven dear friend.

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Tribute by Stephanie & Jon Fleming

My husband and I have known Jim Parker for so long I cannot even remember when we first met. Most likely on the phone. What a wonderful, caring man he was. We always knew we could count on him to give us an honest opinion on anything we asked.

Knife collecting has always been something my husband and his father enjoyed. Finding our first Pocket Knife Trader's Price Guide and getting on Jim's mailing list for his Catalogs (which we have kept) was the best thing that could have happened to us. When we read that Parker's specialized in Antique Case Knifes we knew we had to meet him.

He has taught us so much about the love of knife collecting. We learned what to look for in antique knives and what to collect. I so enjoyed our talks over the years and it was not just about knives. Jim always remembered us and our family. He was always quick to ask about our children as they grew up and our business.

Even though, we only met a few times in person, I feel such a sadness that I won't be able to call him up for a chat to tell him of some great old knife we stumbled across.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jim's family and friends. We will miss you!

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Tribute by J Bruce Voyles

So the call came that the oncologist at Vanderbilt told my friend that there was nothing he could do for the liver cancer. The words about it included, “rare”, “fast-growing” and the worst one of all, “untreatable”.

So here’s the story that I never thought I’d write. The story of my remembrances of James F. Parker.

But first let me tell you what I know of his early life. He was raised in a Tennessee backwater near Reliance, Tennessee known as Greasy Creek. His mother has passed earlier, his Dad had battles with the bottle. He was very bright, even then. I once met his 4th Grade teacher, who was in her 80’s at the time. I asked her if Jim was one of her brighter students. In a cracked voice she told me that in over 50 years of teaching she had one girl that was brighter, “She’s a librarian,” the teacher said, adding, “but Jim was the brightest boy I ever taught.”

On the night before Jim turned 18 he loaded his car with his belongings, and getting up early he left home for good. He moved to Cleveland, Tennessee where he was an avid drag racer, pool shooter, and where he obtained a job at Sherwin-Williams Paint company. On the side he traded guns. He met and married his wife Billie, and rose quickly to a store manager and then credit manager of Sherwin-William’s Chattanooga-based offices. He had two children, Buzz and Jamie, and now two grandchildren.

He was the first President of the National Knife Collectors Association, and in that job created knife collecting as we know it today. His innovative ideas did it. When he didn’t innovate he adapted other innovations, improved them himself, and made them his own. He pioneered club knives, limited edition commemoratives, commemorative sets, and was on the cutting edge of importing knives out of Japan.

When his younger brother started in the mail order business he gave his brother discounts, encouragements and advice that allowed his brother and his brothers partner to grow what is known today as Smoky Mountain Knife Works.

He also brought Jim Frost into the knife business, where they formed a partnership in the early days. He started Parker-Edwards Cutlery, a factory in Jacksonville, Alabama that is known today as Bear & Son Knives (formerly Bear MGC). That factory is owned by a person who started in the cutlery business by shipping packages in Jim’s back shop.

He had an absolute talent for making money. And like all great talents-- he made it look easy. But he gave too. Not many people knew that he was the church treasurer so he could put as much money as he did into the church without many people knowing about it. He bought a piece of property for $50,000 at the corner of I-75 and Shallowford Road in Chattanooga. When he started the National Knife Museum he let the NKCA have that land—for $50,000. He also solicited four manufacturers to make a knife at cost, and once the set of four knives were sold the Museum was built and paid for with money left over. That property was sold by the NKCA recently for $1,000,000.00.

He was the Tennessee Businessman of the Year one year, owned a racing stable and training facility, was on the Board of Hiwassee college. Jim bought the failing Cutlery World chain of stores, paid off the creditors, and when Case came up for sale he bought it. He was told that he could file Chapter 11 in the Cutlery World chain to end some leases in malls that were losing a lot of money—but the ensuing events spiraled downward into a 70 million dollar bankruptcy. Not many people could have withstood a hit like that. But he survived. He invented the Case Classic program. He put together two of the best vintage knife shows in America, he bought and revived the Bulldog Brand line, and he continued buying and selling vintage and collectible knives.

But most of that are things that anyone who was in the knife business at the time knows. That’s the story of Jim and knives.

There’s another story here though. It’s the story of Jim and me.

When I first bought a knife price guide Jim’s name was listed as a place to buy antique knives. I started buying from him through the mail shortly out of high school. The first knife show I ever attended I stood in absolute awe as these men would walk up to him, extend their hand, and repeat over and over, “I thought you’d be older.” I saw him buying and selling $500 knives by the handful. I was buying $10.00 knives at the time.

I was in college, camping out in my spare time in a dusty chair at knife repairman Ben Kelley’s shop in Tucker, Ga. He knew knives and I wanted to know more about knives and I was there pumping. We collaborated on a magazine article or two, and one day he told me that Jim Parker had been approached by a publisher about doing a book on knives, and he wanted someone to help him write it. Ben said he had given him my name. So I drove to Louisville, met Jim in his hotel room to talk about the book, and hoping for a small percentage of the royalties, and I was hoping I could get my name on the book somewhere. I was still in college and getting my name on books was important to me. Parker started off with a startling offer. “I think my name is worth 25% to the project, so you can have 75% of the royalties. You do the research, I’ll do the prices.” I asked how the byline would read, and he said “James F. Parker and J. Bruce Voyles of course.” Of course.

We agreed, and on my way out the door he added, “I had them agree to guarantee payment of sales of 30,000 copies”.

This unemployed journalism student had just been handed his dreams in a single package. When I walked away from my newspaper job it was those book royalties that allowed me to do it. That was the first of what would be eight issues of that book, and three other spin-off pocket size books as well. Jim would later continue with price guides on his own, as well as books on Fightn’ Rooster Knives and Case Classics.

In that newspaper job I was editing the NKCA newsletter on a per-issue basis, and it was growing. We decided to make it a magazine—and did. On a trip to Jim’s, buying knives, getting information for the newsletter, he remarked, “You really need to move to Chattanooga so you can spend less time driving back and forth.”

“I’ve thought about that,” I said, “and it would take $-----.00 before I could move.” Suffice to say that at that time that amount was what I hoped to someday made to allow me to live my dreamed-of lifestyle. (of course this was one-year-out-of-college dreams).

“We can pay that,” he said, “come down and start looking for a house.” When I came down Jim spent three days driving Debbie and I around to look at good subdivisions, where the best schools were located, etc.

We were a long way from home, with a young baby, and working all the time. Jim came in after we moved in and we proudly showed him our new home. He noticed there were no lamps on the end tables in the bedroom. A few weeks later he volunteered he and Billie to come babysit to give us a night out, since we didn’t have help. When we met him at the door he also had two very nice lamps. “A housewarming gift,” he said. They sit on those nightstands still.

Life was good. I fully anticipated that I would edit the knife magazine for the National Knife Collectors for the rest of my life. It was what I loved doing. Jim would remain President and things would grow and prosper. Except for one big thing—and that was the NKCA was a membership-owned, membership-voting organization. And as such there came a time when there were growing pains, egos, jealousies, and nothing more than organizational politics. The specifics are not important anymore—suffice to say that Jim resigned as President. And since I was under his wing then I should go too. A printer friend told me in May of 1981 that I would be fired at that Board meeting, and they had already been soliciting for new editors.

So three weeks before that day I got a call from Art Levine of Lansky Sharpeners. American Blade Magazine was for sale. I called the owner, got the price and the details. And I called Jim to go to lunch. “I want you to buy half of American Blade Magazine,” I said.

“OK,” he said back.

“And I want you to loan me enough to buy the other half.” He stared at me a minute, and said, “No. I’ve had enough partners. But I will arrange it for you to own 40% of it.” I took the deal.

“How much money will I make as a salary?” I asked.

“How much do you want to make,” he shot back. I named a figure, a good figure at the time. He agreed. Two years later the company bought a company car. A Mercedes. Another lifetime dream had been achieved thanks to Jim.

In 1982 he mentioned at lunch on day, “I had one Japanese manufacturer send me two coach tickets to Japan to visit. The other manufacturer sent me two first class tickets.” I raised my eyebrows. “You want to go to Japan?” It was my first time out of the US.

While there I sat in the factory show rooms and witnessed him ordering over a million and a half dollars worth of knives.

When Jim built a new building, we designed our offices which he built in the other end and which we rented from him. With that proximity we had lunch two or three times a week, and more than once would walk down to his horse track where we walked, talked knives, talked about everything else too.

In 1985 Jim got busy with other projects: his factory, with Cutlery World, and Case. He offered to sell me his shares of the publishing company—and carry the note.

When the bad times came with his companies, we moved to a new location, and he did too. Our interaction was more difficult due to lack of proximity. But when I started my auction company Jim was there at every auction—and usually was the biggest buyer. He welcomed my auctions at his Pigeon Forge Shows as an added attraction. I carried his latest auction purchases to him at the recent Louisville show, when he told me he was in pain and was leaving early. In the coming days he was to learn that the pain was coming from liver cancer.

In the first parts of this narrative I told you a small part about who Jim was in knives, and how he built the entire industry segement of collecting—the second part told you about my friendship and business relationships with him.

The third part is what we are losing because of Jim’s health problems. We are losing the number one innovator and promoter that the knife business has seen in the past 80 years. We are losing the co-founder of The Blade Show, of the Cutlery Hall of Fame, and the founder of the National Knife Museum. We are losing the one person in a knife show, no matter what show, that when you asked how the show was would tell you, “It’s a good show.” He not only sold knives but he bought knives. He not only soaked up knife knowledge but he passed it along as well. No one ever asked him a question about a knife that he didn’t try to answer. There are few people that will take that time anymore—and even fewer with the knowledge to answer just about any question.

There was more than once some of my fellow knife dealers and myself would be sitting in a knife show discussing how the latest trend was fading—and how someone needed to come up with something quick—and Jim would come up with it.

He is simply irreplaceable—and knives are poorer for it.

I’m sad for the knife business, I’m sad for his family having their paternal leader suffering, I’m sad for the Chattanooga community who is losing a leader, and I’m sad for myself. It’s selfish of me to say, I know, but perhaps I’ll be selfish this time. I’ve always valued the time I’ve been able to spend with Jim Parker, and I’ve wanted to spend more. And now I know there’s a time coming when I can’t.

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THANK YOU !

The CASE CLASSICS CLUBTM.