Field Grade Desert Storm Fighter (circa 1988), 8" A2 blade, 13 3/4" OAL, 3/16" thick, & jet black parkerizing.
This is a very rare piece. * In reference to the knife shown above... "idahoskunk" owns this one.* In fact, it is one of less than 10 that were flat ground. The remainder of the Desert Storm fighters were hollow ground. It is also great to see how well that parkerized finish has held up under no use.
Here's a little history on these knives.
In 1986, I purchased, what to me at the time, was a huge batch of A-2 tool steel barstock (over 600 Pieces), that I believe measured 1 3/8" wide by 16" long and a little over 3/16" thick. I designed specific models that would fit this size bar. It is important to note that I didn't design on paper, back then. These knives were definitely the precursors to the Custom Variants. I would simply sit down at the grinder with the handles cut out and start grinding out the profiles of the blades. Once I had the blade profiled, I would put in the primary grinds and Bam! a blade was born!!! You'll note that the guards are not nearly as healthy on the Desert Warfare models as on all other models from the same period. That is due to the narrow barstock that these were cut from. I began making these models in 1986 and continued up through 1989. I would normally only sell these at gun shows near military bases and primarily only to military personnel. They sold for $225.00 unless you were military, police, or rescue personnel in which case the price was $135.00 . Hmmmmm. . . . looks like we were giving them away back then too.
We were at a gun show in Fayetteville, NC (Ft. Bragg) in August of 1990. Iraq had just invaded Kuwait on August 5th and the 82nd Airborne was being deployed on the following Tuesday for Operation Desert Shield. I have had bigger shows, money wise, but I have never sold that many knives at a single show. The fella at the table next to ours actually brought his wife to the show on Sunday so that she could see the frenzy. He told me it looked like we had hung a "Free Beer" sign over our table. Sunday was busier than Saturday as most of our Saturday customers brought their buddies back on Sunday. There was rarely less than 15-20 guys in front of our table. My good friend and main helper in the shop, Jerry Snyder, packed a boat-load of these blades along with some special small D-2 blades that had micarta as well as para-cord wrapped handles. It turned out that a "boat-load" wasn't enough. We called the shop on Saturday afternoon and told one of our guys to bring every finished knife we had. We sold 262 knives at this show!!!!! Subsequent shows were also very healthy and we blew through every knife we could make. With so many different models and variations of the same size, we just started referring to them as "Desert Warfare" fighters. They soon became known as Desert Storm fighters. I am always amazed at how few of these knives have re-surfaced. I have, likewise, only seen 1 of the 500+ small D-2 blades since we sold them in 1990.
Nice find!!!!
Thanks for sharing the pics!
Jerry
06/22/02
:thumbup:
Out of the two, my favorite is the straight spined one, it feels like the predecessor to the Tali-Whacker. The fit and finish on the slabs is excellent.