Jared Oeser Bags Major Awards at the USN Gathering

The first day of the 9th Annual USN Gathering ended with a bang with the presentation of the show awards. Modern traditional maker Jared Oeser enjoyed a record-setting debut. The Lehi, Utah-based Oeser bagged a pair of major honors on the strength of his latest creation, the Wicked Lanny’s.

Best New Maker and Best of Show are two of the most highly coveted awards at the USN Gathering. They are the shows’ equivalent of Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player. Winning either prize is a huge honor, but winning both in the same year was unprecedented. “It was really cool,” Oeser tells us. “I can’t believe this just happened.”

As the name implies, the Wicked Lanny’s is a riff on Tony Bose’s Lanny’s Clip pattern. The typical Lanny’s Clip would be curvy and organic, but Oeser’s takes harder lines, imbuing the pattern with a new attitude. He also took the blade shape far afield from a standard clip point. Marbled carbon fiber covers round out the package. “I wanted it to look like one of my knives, but also for people to be able to recognize what it was,” Oeser says.


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This is Oeser’s first year attending the Gathering, but the second year he made waves at the event. In 2016, his Zulu Flipper collaboration with Enrique Peña impressed fans and fellow knife makers alike. That knife carried a price tag of $2000. The price of the Wicked Lanny’s will be decided today at Oeser’s table when it goes up for auction.

USN Award Winners

Here are your USN Gathering 9 Winners (shown from left to right in photo):

Gus T. Cecchinni: Judge’s Award

Steve Skiff: Best Tactical Folder

Joe Caswell: Most Innovative Knife

Brian Fellhoelter: Best Non-Knife Accessory

Jared Oeser: Best New Maker and Best of Show

David Sharp: Best Fixed Blade

Jade Marsh: Best Bling


Knife featured in image: J. Oeser Wicked Lanny’s