Well here we go,
In days gone by the factory blems were etched "FB" there was no mistaking what this knife is. When Buck said they would no longer mark the blade only the box I was happy and sad.
What did I just say???? I have a few factory blem knives that are very nice and for the most part did not need to be blems IMHO. However, that FB stamp/etch was ugly if one wanted to take a photo you had to make sure not to take a photo of the marked side (the stamp sucks). Now the other side of that coin if you take the knife out of the box you have no way to know the knife is a factory second. Some unscrupulous seller see this as a chance to make some money by selling seconds as standard quality Buck knives and this can lead to heartburn and ruin Buck reputation.
One seller who sells Bucks factory blems is very good at marking his auctions with that information (always read the info before you buy). I bought a knife that was marked as a blem in the auction text, but only looked at the photo's of the knife and was shocked to see the box marked as a blem (my mistake). I looked at the knife over and over and can find no issues with this knife other than normal fisher cracks in the stag. To be honest I bought this knife due to the natural look of the stag the cracks gave it the character I wanted. However, if I ever need to sell this or my family sells it, it will take a loss due to the blem status IMHO.
Ok now the uninformed or unscrupulous seller of blem knives. I bought this 119 off the auction sites and was happy with the great price. When the knife arrived I opened it and right away saw the fuller was poorly machined with lots of machine marks? Then I saw the label on the box had a big black sharpie mark, then saw they had scribbled out the factory blem print on the box. However, in the right light you can still read the printing "Factory Blem". I contacted the seller and they said they had no idea as that is the way they got the knife and box.
More of the same. I had been wanting one of the high end LE Buck 905 Mountain Man bowie's with the stag/bear claw/blade cut out. I searched for one and bid on a few and lost, then I got one. When it arrived I saw the label on the black LE box had been removed, this had peeled a bit of the box away where the label was. I bring the label issue up because this knife has no limited edition number etched on the blade it should have xxx/xxx as this was a limited edition of 250 knives. Hummmm, I contacted the seller and she said she was selling this for a friend and would have to contact them. Her answer was this LE issue did not have any numbers etched so none of this issue had numbers. I looked at the big auction site and contacted 3 different sellers and asked if their knives had numbers etched, all three said yes and added photo's to their auctions showing the etched numbers on the blade. I contacted the seller again with this information and said I only need to know if the seller has the knowledge if the knife is a factory blem, or an over run, or a prototype of the issue. Again the seller/owner said this is how all of these knives were made
. Ok, they have no clue or are not admitting anything, I sent an email to Joe House to see if he could shed a light on this knife (were any sold at the factory store sales, over runs, ETC) never got any response from Joe. All I can say is the knife is perfect as far as I can tell, but it could be a factory blem.
I'll try to find some photo's of these to add.
JB
