i read with much interest a thread on mil contract buck knives...its closed now.. not sure why but as this combat 110 i made served with pride i felt i may as well put my two NIS in ...
buck may or may not have had many govt contracts but Buck Knives and military service go back a long ways
i wander how many here know the story of the 112 - how and why it came to be...
as to the 110 ... there were storyes of UN-MARKED 110s in the paws of some of our forces that were some place that dey had no place to be shall we say...
here is a person story of one that i was showed and told about by ... some one that was were he never was supposed to be.... walt (not his real name) used to get that 1000 yard stare and would talk some times of what he was seeing in his daymares that even today i wont repeat much of what he told me ... times some these forces were given sanitized items with out any usa markings so that if found dead that they could not be id'ed as usa these items were like as not never found in any gsa cataloged as such. in todays international world many forces carry items with other country's markings on them but back then our spooks did not.. yea walt was a spook ... and he carried a thin lock back knife that had a 1/4 short blade and well warn...it was a 110- i had one like it once.. but this one NO name on it...why?
i know now that at one time the 110 had an etched Buck name on the back side of the blade..(most ALL knives at that time were marked with dies like today and buck did also on its fixed blades at that time)...but this one had no Buck on it... i could see were it had fine shiny place were buck might have been etched... these knives still exist but some times are taken for a old knock off when in fact many times it is just warn off ... due to that many don't know that they were buck 110s.. ... i have not learned why they were etched for that short time as no other knife buck made after them was etched.
There are stories like how the 112 came to be and other Buck history.... many were wrote down by Ables some were not, another time Chuck was filmed as he related some history of the company ,,,
i know i asked Chuck about the buck 110 with no name on it and he knew i was talking about the ones that had etched but said then that he did not remember why they did the etch and offered that it may have started out as a order of some kind .. that he was not involved in every order that happened as he was on the road selling Buck Knives to folks along with some other family members ...
{{oooooooooh ..(play x-files theam muzak)..
could it have been a order by some 'agency' as yet forgotten? or some other mundane practical reason... only the shadow 110 knows for sure!}}
I was told by Chuck Buck in one of my first chats with him that they were so worried about making payroll and tithe at the time they did not worry about records except what they needed for taxes and statements to the board of directors and the few stock holders and that he wished now that they had recorded a lot more then they had..
. some records do exist and some stories exist in the company and family ..
this story along with others was going to be in my book "the Buck110 (a un-official history)" that life and health got in the way of... i would still like to wright that book even tho the 50 anniversary is over...
... who knows it may still happen some day..
