Clay

Ben W. Kelley, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1934. He was reared in a nearby rural area. Being brought up in a rural setting, he soon learned to love hunting and fishing. Pocket knives were an everyday thing and a part of life. Ben received his primary and high school education in DeKalb County, Georgia and soon after finishing school went to work in the aircraft industry. He was an aircraft assembler, tool-maker, sheet metal mechanic, flight-line mechanic and technical representative working overseas for a number of years.Ben learned the fundamentals of metalurgy as well as attending tool design school and other industrial courses and training seminars in metal work. At one time he was chosen to fabricate an escape knife for a government agency. While overseas he began to collect knives and as time went by, cutlery became more and more important in his life until today he is acknowledged as an expert in the cutlery field.He works as an appraiser for insurance claims on stolen or damaged knife collections, writes cutlery related articles for various trade publications and has served on the Board of Directors of the National Knife Collectors Association.Ben has always enjoyed the great outdoors and has hunted moose, caribou, and bear in Alaska and fished for salmon and trout in Alaska's rivers and streams. He has hunted wild boar on the slopes on Mona Loa in Hawaii, enjoyed varmit hunting in Indiana and deer hunting in Georgia. Ben is a member of several fraternal organizations and is honored by being commissioned a Colonel in the State of Kentucky.