Benchmade 943 Osborne box question

[BubsterX1]

I picked up a Benchmade 943 Osborne design on eBay today with a plain edge satin S30V blade. It really has a nice action, flips open and flips closed really easily. Surprisingly light. A great knife overall, and I have no doubt about its authenticity.

That said, I noticed that some of the people selling 943s (on ebay and elsewhere) have sort of a plane jane Benchmade box, while others have the boxes that I am used to seeing (that say Blue Class or Black Class, etc). I am not talking about the LifeSharp boxes that you receive when a knife comes back from the company.

I have the plane jane version of the box, and I was curious to see if anyone knows why there are the two box types. Did BM switch to the Blue Class boxes at some point, which would indicate that mine is an older version?

Thanks if you can shed any light on this.

 

[mrfields]

benchmade did switch box styles a while back, not quite certain how long ago. the style in your top picture is one of the older ones. the newer style is the larger ones, like your bottom picture, with the foam insert that are different colors for blue, black, hunt, etc.....

 

[BubsterX1]

Thanks a lot for confirming, mrfields!

 

[Benchmade]

mrfields is correct. We switched to the bottom style about 4 years ago.