Bear & Sons traditional folders

r8shell said:
Didn't Parker own Blade Magazine? :rolleyes:
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I'm not sure if he did at the time. I'd need to look it up. A quick search online pulled up a wikipedia entry saying that Voyles was the sole owner in 1994 when he sold the magazine to Krause. I didn't dig further.

One of those awards was for their multi-tool which was a deserving award at the time (in my opinion). I don't know about the others.
 
Don't know for sure but it seems to me that Parker lost his interest the magazine along with Case in his 1991 bankruptsy.
 
supratentorial said:
I'm not sure if he did at the time. I'd need to look it up. A quick search online pulled up a wikipedia entry saying that Voyles was the sole owner in 1994 when he sold the magazine to Krause. I didn't dig further.

One of those awards was for their multi-tool which was a deserving award at the time (in my opinion). I don't know about the others.
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I was kind of being snarky, especially about "best collector value"

I've handled a few Bear & Sons knives, and was pretty disappointed with both the fit&finish and the hardness of the blade steel. I don't need or expect 1095 to be a super-steel. But it should be run harder than a baloney sandwich. :D

I really want to encourage American manufacture of knives in carbon steel, so I won't rule out giving them another chance, but my expectations are low.
 
A couple of Bear & Sons Barlow knives I have. Both well made - nicely finished and fitted and both very sharp right out of the box. Don't pay attention to the dust motes on the red stag one - I didn't clean it prior to taking the picture. The scratches on both knives are from carrying them along with change/keys and what have you in my pockets.

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Sure. Bear and Sons puts out a dud once in awhile but so do ALL commercial manufactures such as GEC, Case, Boker, Queen, etc..
 
edbeau said:
Dixierust, No I just liked the wood scales. Picked it up off the bay.
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Ahh , the eagle symbol in the hex nut etching on the blade is matco tools logo , i bet that knife was $30 over retail new just because it was sold off a tool truck .or maybe it was some sort of promo if you bought a socket set or something , who knows.
 
The good:





The bad:





And the ugly:





EDIT: Research and a little bit of extrapolation has made me fairly sure that the trapper is not in fact a Bear product. I'd be interested to see if anyone had a similar trapper that might help pin down the source for the knife, but I believe it to be pre-1988 which would rule Bear out as a manufacturer.
I'll have to double-check but I believe the package that the USPS seems to have sent into limbo (supposed to deliver three separate times last week, never got here) contains a Bear SFO knife which should help establish their upper bounds of quality in the mid-90s. If we can rule out the trapper then I'll post the SFO instead if and when it finally arrives.
 
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I have one of their large sodbusters in G10. I won it a few years ago. I have never used it, due to how big it is, but the F/F is great. I'm afraid that is my only experience with the company.
 
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