I got it a few days ago on CL and I broke it down to check the parts before I handed my money over. Everything looked pretty good at the time, as well as the packaging, and could pass for NIB, but when I had better light and broke it down to lube up back at the office, I noticed a few things that were odd. The there is only one bevel on the inside of the stop pin and pivot bushing, where as the back spacer has it on both sides. The pivot hole on one side of the blade has a nicely ground bevel on one side, but the other is really rough looking.
Here it is broken down:
Here's the blade with the stamp. Notice the different "V?" CRK told me that some blades with this particular build date have a regular "V" as opposed to the more commonly seen angled "V":
Here are the scales. Date stamp has a dash? CRK also told me that having a dash in the date is also consistent with the build date:
Here's another pic of the blade with the thumb stud as well as the bevel in the pivot hole. Everything looks very good here:
Flip it over and you can see the roughly finished bevel:
Presentation side of the scales. Everything looks good here too:
Bevels on the inside of the bushings. You can see the light reflect off of the bevels:
And no bevels on the inside of the bushings:
Another thing I noticed is that the stop pin is VERY soft. Like I said earlier, the knife could pass for NIB, but the stop pin had dents in it where it came in contact with the blade, so it made very little sense to me that there was nothing on the tang of the blade to reflect that it had been slammed open/shut. Broke it down again today to improve the action with a fourth lube job and noticed that the stop pin is starting to look pretty beat up and there is no way that the flicking that I've been doing after reassembly to set the lock should be making that kind of damage especially since my other large 21 is 13 years old, which I've treated harsher, and absolutely no dents on the stop pin.
I'm hoping that it isn't a fake because it cost me a lot more than what a clone should go for, but I've got really mixed feelings if it was just someone having a bad day at CRK. I'm also submitting pics to CRK to see if it's fugazzi.
Here it is broken down:
Here's the blade with the stamp. Notice the different "V?" CRK told me that some blades with this particular build date have a regular "V" as opposed to the more commonly seen angled "V":
Here are the scales. Date stamp has a dash? CRK also told me that having a dash in the date is also consistent with the build date:
Here's another pic of the blade with the thumb stud as well as the bevel in the pivot hole. Everything looks very good here:
Flip it over and you can see the roughly finished bevel:
Presentation side of the scales. Everything looks good here too:
Bevels on the inside of the bushings. You can see the light reflect off of the bevels:
And no bevels on the inside of the bushings:
Another thing I noticed is that the stop pin is VERY soft. Like I said earlier, the knife could pass for NIB, but the stop pin had dents in it where it came in contact with the blade, so it made very little sense to me that there was nothing on the tang of the blade to reflect that it had been slammed open/shut. Broke it down again today to improve the action with a fourth lube job and noticed that the stop pin is starting to look pretty beat up and there is no way that the flicking that I've been doing after reassembly to set the lock should be making that kind of damage especially since my other large 21 is 13 years old, which I've treated harsher, and absolutely no dents on the stop pin.
I'm hoping that it isn't a fake because it cost me a lot more than what a clone should go for, but I've got really mixed feelings if it was just someone having a bad day at CRK. I'm also submitting pics to CRK to see if it's fugazzi.
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