The Story of Marilyn
Having managed to get a run of Guardians Lambsfoot knives made, in Sheffield, in 2017, I had hoped to turn this into an annual event. The following year, Wright's had promised me some "Jet Black" ebony, so I commissioned a knife, to my specifications, with ebony covers, and a threaded bolster. That knife is another story!
Over the previous year, a lot of good-looking horn had been shown here, and in the EDC thread, horn which covered the 2017 Guardians Lambsfoot SFO (above). Interest in the Lambsfoot pattern had grown, but a lot of folks had missed out on the Guardians knife because they weren't members here and/or weren't on my email list, and having seen that nice horn, they wanted some. I obviously didn't want to replicate the 2017 knife, but I had picked up a nice Big 'Un at the factory, a few months before, with what I called 'Peaches & Cream' horn (see below).
Due to the demand, in addition to the ebony knives, I commissioned a run of Lambsfoot knives with the 'Peaches & Cream' horn, and a rat-tail bolster. However, when I next visited the factory, there were some problems with the ebony knives, and on checking the horn, I was concerned that it didn't appear to be the horn that I had been promised (see below).
Admittedly, it can be hard, when viewing horn in its natural state, to tell what it will look like after it has been polished, but it looked too dark to me. I had numerous conversations on the issue, while Wright's tried to source the horn I'd requested, which took some considerable time. Eventually, they told me they had found some suitable horn, but I requested a couple of samples, so that I could actually see it. After a few more days, I was told that the samples were in the mail. I waited, but they didn't come, and we assumed they had been lost in the post. They said they would send two more (I was paying for all the samples of course). A few days later, I received a card from the post office, informing me that I needed to pay outstanding postage on an item sent to me. We have an archaic system for this, and I had to take the card to a post office, buy stamps to twice the value of the outstanding postage, stick them onto the card, and put it back on the post. For some reason, the post office then delivered the card with the stamps back to me, rather than the item, so I had to go to the sorting office. As you have probably guessed, the mail item was the sample from Wright's. The two knives had been put in a recycled, unpadded, paper envelope, with a thinly gummed flap, and no postage stamps! It was a wonder they had made the journey!
The two samples were certainly attractive, but the horn was nothing like what I had been promised, and the bolsters were wrong. Moreover, for some reason, the horn used for them was horn Wright's no longer had in stock! The next day, I received another card from the post office, and had to go through the same procedure again, to get the other two samples, which had also been mailed without postage.
The horn on these samples was quite different to that on the previous two samples, and while, again, they were attractive knives, this was not the horn I had been promised, and more importantly had promised my fellow Guardians. In fact it was very much like the horn used for the 2017 Guardians Lambsfoot. At this point, I was inclined to cancel the knives, but I consulted with those who had ordered them, and enough folks still wanted them. To set them apart from the 2017 knives, and because Wright's still didn't know what a rat-tail bolster was, (despite my showing them a sample, and providing photos), I asked them to put a threaded bolster on the knife, as they had on my AC run.
The finished knives.
Since the samples were so different from the actual run, I couldn't just mix them in, so I gave Charlie
waynorth
the Redhead - Rita, and I had Marilyn
Nice pic 
in photo
Well done Dan 
Have a good day Guardians 
At least we got a few nice knives 
Maybe someone can talk Eric round 
