Buck custom shop piece

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Gossman Knives

Edged Toolmaker
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Apr 9, 2004
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Here's a question for all you knowlegable Buck knife lovers. I traded a knife dealer friend of mine for a custom shop knife. It's the Geronimo 100th anniversary knife. It has a dagger style blade ( appears to be 6" in length) double guard, full tang with stag handle slabs. It comes in a wooden box with blue felt. It's etched on the blade, appears to be soldiers and Geronimo with other Indians. What was the year of manufacture and it's value? It's in mint condition. Sorry no pic, I'm still working on a camera. Thanks
Scott
 
That was a long time ago.

At the very beginning, in the tail end of 1981 or 1982 we started a repair shop. The guys got bored, or should I say the supervisor Byron "Mac" McKinney started the guys on working on custom knives.

We were just trying to figure out if we could make money at this when Cutlery World buyer Dan Wright bought 100 collectible bowie knives. His next purchase was Daggers with Mastodon Ivory Handles. We tried to "double hollow grind" the blades by machine and found that the square 90 degree hollow lines were not what custom knife buyers wanted so we switched to doing all the daggers by hand. (Dean Davidson and John Knapp were the dagger makers).

Oh did we have trouble with that Ivory cause it had absorbed so much moisture being discovered in a glacier that overnight it would shrink and crack, or gap or split around a rivet etc...so much of that Ivory just went down the dust collection intake...but I digress...

The extra blades we had the old way we used for the Geronimo Dagger. I am trying to remember the year when Mac retired cause I know this was his idea. He was fascinated by the old west, and bowie knives etc.

I would guestimate this project as '85 or 86.

Joe Houser is up in Idaho right now and will be back in the office next week.

I am sure when Larry Oden answers this thread we will learn all the details... ;)

cj
 
Thanks CJ, sounds like I have an interesting piece. Hopefully the other guys will help us out :)
One other thing I forgot to point out was the fact that the edges of the knife were not sharpened. Was this intentional because it was a display knife and not made for using?
 
I picked one up (15yrs ago) in mint condition in the presentation case,does yours have gold in he blade? I would like to know what its worth also.

Its a beautiful knife. Does yours have the little silver plate on the stag handle.Geronimo by the hilt? ;)

I was told that these knives were given to buck exec's for the 100th yr
anniv.
 
MokoShang said:
I picked one up (15yrs ago) in mint condition in the presentation case,does yours have gold in he blade? I would like to know what its worth also.

Its a beautiful knife. Does yours have the little silver plate on the stag handle.Geronimo by the hilt? ;)

I was told that these knives were given to buck exec's for the 100th yr
anniv.
Click to expand...
Yes to all of the above. You described it to a tee. :) Mine is also mint. There are a few scuffs on the box. Nothing serious that couldn't be tended to with liquid scratch cover.
Scott
 
Thanks Bro, I'll keep checking this post for more history, It just became a
family heirloom. I also have an engraved Winchester with all the Sioux Nations. I bought both around the same time, Before Southwestern Goods became popular.

Thanks again for your reply and enjoy your Blade, I will. :)
 
That dagger is a great looking knife! We actually made them in 1983 for Providence Mint in Rhode Island. They were to be a run of only 2000 pieces but they ended up only purchasing 1000 from us. Each knife was engraved with a serial number. The problem was, we had made all 2000!
In 1986, we used some of the "extra" knives to do a special run for Sharper Image. Those knives will be engraved the same, each one bearing "1 of 250" on the blade. The case for these will be blue velvet lined instead of the red velvet found in the PM run.
The rest of the knives from the original run were sold eventually. Some have serial numbers, some don't. All are a great collectible and conversation piece for sure.
PM sold them to customers for $450 but I don't see them getting that much on Ebay, although they rarely appear there.
I hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the update Joe. I have a blue velvet lined box but the blade is not engraved with any numbers. It is as I stated above.
Scott
 
Thank You very much for the intel..fantastic, I've always wanted to know
more about this knife. Mine has no number,red velvet lined wood case.

Thanks agains guys :) That was fun!
 
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