Yours truly picked one up, NOS. apparently the seller had some connection with Guns and Ammo back in the day, if I am reading between the lines correctly. He had several of these, and it appears I may have gotten one of the last ones.

It was poly-bagged when shipped to me, no box, etc. The sheath is a remarkably heavy leather, and well made. The knife itself has the remains of some sort of tissue paper (?) stuck to the blade. The paper has turned dark yellow and is STUCK. I will need to use some sort of solvent to remove it, I imagine.

The haft is thick stacked leather, alternating with thin aluminum wafers. The hilt and guard are, of course, brass, and the whole has a bit of a "toothy" or rough feel in the hand. It appears new, but I wonder if I am feeling the difference between the leather, which may have shrunk, and the aluminum. There is a tremendously talented custom knife maker here in town, Bruce Bump, who is a friend. I may take it to him and ask if it can be smoothed up a bit . A lot of quality there, even if slightly rough,, especially as a freebie reward for a subscription. Think about how cheap Japanese goods were back then, in order to be able to send one to every new subscriber, who definitely got their money's worth.

All in all, I paid too much for the darn thing, but there are some nice memories associated with this knife. I recall at the time these were offered arguing with a good friend, Tom Austin, as to whether or not this was a suitable, useable knife. Neither of us had two nickels to rub together, mind you, and couldn't afford the cost of a subscription, but man, did we have opinions. Tom is gone now, took his own life as a sad result of depression and alcohol, but I remember him well, and miss him deeply. Somehow I think he would have approved......

Otony