Guessing Games

mbjannusch

mbjannusch

Joined
Apr 1, 2010
Messages
3,115
I'm going to leave this one without an explanation for awhile. See if you can guess what it is and give it a date. I was going to post it in the SPS but I didn't want for it to take away from the show. Here it is, give it a guess...




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A 1950s 118?

That's about all I can do. If it's a special order model or something it's beyond my ken.

:)

Nice old knife.
 
Looks like a Group 9 or Group 10, 1955-61, that had warranty work performed, after the original handle failed.
 
Looks like it was made up with the handle from a shorter model that was installed with extra spacers to make it work on the longer tang.
 
So is this the prototype for phenolic handles? The pommel looks like it may have a pin through it, or is it a barrel-nut?
 
Scott Hartman said:
So is this the prototype for phenolic handles? The pommel looks like it may have a pin through it, or is it a barrel-nut?
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Badhammer was close but Scott you hit the nail on the head. After several long hours talking about this knife and studying the littlest details, the census is that this knife is a transition knife or prototype made somewhere between 1959 through 1960. The transition from wood and antler handles to phenolic handles. The phenolic handle looks to be short, causing a need for several spacers. The one thin aluminum disk between the leather and pommel was the deciding factor. I was told that this spacer disk was only used in the early transition knives, and they are few and far between. Between a few collectors there may be 3 or 4 in existence. This isn't a pinned but or a barrel nut. Knives in the 50s had a pommel that was tapped and threaded and it screwed onto the tang. This method was labor intensive because where ever the threads stopped is where the pommel stopped, causing a need for spacers. Spacers were the only way to get the pommel to stop in the right spot. The early knives are definitely interesting.
 
If you don't know what your looking for, you may be hunting all the time. I do spend quite a bit of time preparing though.
 
Anyone know if there is an example like this one at Bucks' museum? Joe or hkingdom have one? It is a very nice knife...I'm sure it would fit nicely into my collection:D
I've been giving that knife some serious thought and it strike me as odd. Don't take what I'm typing the wrong way, because I'm just curious and really do not know.
If it was a proto, why was the handle made short. Buck would not have been mass producing the black phenolic resin handles, like after they moved to Congress St. Does anyone know how the testing phase came to be? Was the resin just poured into a cylinder or pipe or die or cast, allowed to harden, then cut to length, drilled and the finger grooves added, then finished? They had to have chunks of resin around for testing durablity, so why not just cut the resin to length to fit the tang?
Compare your pictured handle to the length of a first year factory knife handle. I compared a Group 10 ebony handled Personal, to a first year factory Personal, and the ebony is at least a 1/4" longer. The ebony handle also has several cracks running the length of the handle.
I can envision someone walking into the new factory with their knife in one hand, and a cracked handle in the other, and Al Buck telling them "Buck has Lifetime Warranty", and that they can replace the handle with their new black resin handle, that happens not to shrink or crack, and is unaffected by the elements.
I can also envision that your knife was one of the first knives made in the transition or testing phase.
I've read until my eyes blurred, anyone know of a newsletter or article or BCCI meeting where this topic has been covered?
 
Scott Hartman said:
Anyone know if there is an example like this one at Bucks' museum? Joe or hkingdom have one? It is a very nice knife...I'm sure it would fit nicely into my collection:D
I've been giving that knife some serious thought and it strike me as odd. Don't take what I'm typing the wrong way, because I'm just curious and really do not know.
If it was a proto, why was the handle made short. Buck would not have been mass producing the black phenolic resin handles, like after they moved to Congress St. Does anyone know how the testing phase came to be? Was the resin just poured into a cylinder or pipe or die or cast, allowed to harden, then cut to length, drilled and the finger grooves added, then finished? They had to have chunks of resin around for testing durablity, so why not just cut the resin to length to fit the tang?
Compare your pictured handle to the length of a first year factory knife handle. I compared a Group 10 ebony handled Personal, to a first year factory Personal, and the ebony is at least a 1/4" longer. The ebony handle also has several cracks running the length of the handle.
I can envision someone walking into the new factory with their knife in one hand, and a cracked handle in the other, and Al Buck telling them "Buck has Lifetime Warranty", and that they can replace the handle with their new black resin handle, that happens not to shrink or crack, and is unaffected by the elements.
I can also envision that your knife was one of the first knives made in the transition or testing phase.
I've read until my eyes blurred, anyone know of a newsletter or article or BCCI meeting where this topic has been covered?
Click to expand...

Scott,
There are some that believe that Buck never made "prototypes" when they transitioned into phenolic handles. This doesn't sound right to me. What company dives head first into a product without Prototypes and testing.

Scott Hartman said:
They had to have chunks of resin around for testing durablity, so why not just cut the resin to length to fit the tang?

Maybe the chunk of resin they had laying around was a bit short, so to make it work they used spacers.

If it was a rework, why would they build the knife exactly the way it was built the first time, and again why would they have built the knife so far off the mark that they had to use so many spacers to make it right. Why would they put the same pommel back on. They would have been into the barrel nut configuration by then.
Click to expand...
 
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mbjannusch said:
Scott,
There are some that believe that Buck never made "prototypes" when they transitioned into phenolic handles. This doesn't sound right to me. What company dives head first into a product without Prototypes and testing.

Scott Hartman said:
They had to have chunks of resin around for testing durablity, so why not just cut the resin to length to fit the tang?
Maybe the chunk of resin they had laying around was a bit short, so to make it work they used spacers.

If it was a rework, why would they build the knife exactly the way it was built the first time, and again why would they have built the knife so far off the mark that they had to use so many spacers to make it right. Why would they put the same pommel back on. They would have been into the barrel nut configuration by then.
In part, that's what I'm saying, if it was a rework, they would have taken the knife apart, slid a factory length resin handle on, then used the extra spacers to fill the void left by the resin handle being shorter than the original ebony. The original pommel could have beed re-used or a replacement made to fit. Everything at the "factory", was still being basically hand-made, plus Buck never threw away anything. Their entire beginnings grew from what others threw away & discarded & considered scrap. I'd bet they still had rough made pommels & spacers from the 1950s, when they moved to Federal Blvd and on to North Magnolia Ave.
See if your knifes' resin handle is the same length as a first year factory barrel-nut resin handle. Then compare your knife to a Group 10, and see if the resin handle with the additional spacers, is close to that handle length.
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I compared the handle of the 118 with the handle of a 120, 103, and 102 leather spacer barrel nut. The 120 was almost identical, but the 102 and 103 were considerably shorter. I then compared it to the handle of a gaboon ebony 102, although the blades matched almost identically the handle of the 102 was allot shorter.

The handle of the 118 only looks shorter, giving into reason that you think it may have been a rework. But the handle is longer than it appears giving credence to the theory that it is a prototype. IMO
 
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Thought I would resurrect this thread for one last look. This knife is really special. Its a great piece of Buck history...
 
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