OK, so I'm relatively new to the 110, but one thing I do know is the way collectors compare eras of things made for a long time. In the gun world, for instance, Dan Wesson get compared between the CZ era, Monson, etc... In bikes, Trek bikes from the original Waterloo facility get compared with the different iterations up to the modern materials used today, and the list goes on with every hobby.
So with the 110, is there a particular era when they are considered "as good as they've ever been," or have things been pretty consistent? I know I've heard people speak fondly of the edge retention of the 440C blades. What time were those made?
With the 420HC and Bos heat treat, are they at their peak today? or is fit/finish a little lower to stay price competitive?
Whoa! I ride a '79 Trek 500 from the old Waterloo barn, so this is a comparison I can sink my teeth into.
I think there are similarities and some big dissimilarities.
I think the thing interesting about the 70's and 80's were the advances in materials and machining that allowed for more automation.
With steel framed bikes, the transition point was with the introduction of manganese alloys like Tange Mangalloy, Ishawata Mangy-X and Valite (Fuji rebranding of Ishawata Mangy-X, by most accounts). This allowed the mass production of brazed steel biked with crude robotics of the day. Prior to that, lightweight tubesets such as Cr-Mg Reynolds 531 and Cr-Mo Columbus SL or Ishiwata 022 needed to be hand brazed to keep the temperatures very low - something that old robotics couldn't pull off. The Mangalloy type tubes could handle the higher brazing temps of the old, crude robotics which meant for the first time in history, a light weight frame could be mass produced. I remember selling Fujis in the very early 80s when the lines started moving to Valite and it was just crazy how good the frames were at a very, very low price point.
I think the transition from 440C to 425Mod and then to 420HC is similar to the cycling industry move to Mangalloy. More correctly, I think the knife industry moved to fine blanking blade forming in the same way that the cycling industry moved to machine produced frames. My understanding (please somebody correct me if I have this wrong) is that 440C was too hard on Buck's fine blanking machinery.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1157650-110-change-from-440C-to-425M
By the 90s robotics got good enough to machine braze cr-mo but by then, the market had moved to other materials entirely. Welded aluminum, then TIG welded titanium and then carbon fiber frames seem to be somewhat the equivalent of the powder steel revolution (e.g. S30V).
Another similarity that I see between the Buck 110 and the early Treks is that both are Americanizations of pre-existing European designs. The geometry of the early Treks was stolen almost directly from the English clubman style bikes (e.g. Raleigh International) and French Spotif and Randoneuring designs (light frame, long wheelbase, lots of rake). In the US it was called a sport-touring design and incidentally was the same design Cannondale used to launch their bike building.
In a similar way, I don't think the Buck 110 design just appeared out of nowhere. The Spanish Navaja and others established the combination of a clip point blade and locking blade and the combination of brass and wood was well established with the French makers like those from Laguiole.
I think there is one important way that the comparison of the Buck 110 and the early Treks doesn't hold up. Nobody rides lugged steel anymore. Well, almost nobody does. In this sense, only the most serious retrogrouch (like me) rides a '79 steel Trek. IIRC, Joe Hauser (from Buck) rides a carbon Trek Madone (or did when we briefly exchanged email on the subject).
In contrast, the Buck 110 has much more long standing appeal to more people.
Trek has sort of kind of brought the sport-touring frame back with the current Domane. I have a colleague who rides one and we compare notes. Each of us defines the "golden age" differently. He loves the carbon fiber. I prefer the old steel.
But on the other hand, I prefer the modern 420HC and Dymondwood version of the 110 compared to my old 2 dot one. No logic to it.
All this to say, you'll have to find your own "golden age" in here somehow.
