Yes generic hawkbills are an old design but as pruners and then as linoleum knives. The blades were shaped differently, did not lock and did not have serrations...that’s all a Glesser invention.
I think some of us are saying the same things and I was only reacting to specific terminology in your quotes concerning lockback hawkbills. We need to take off our black and red sunglasses and know the history from all aspects.
The "Front Lock" (basically a "Mid Lock" in today's terminology) had been invented by Boker in 1903 but was not patented. Several knifemakers in the US used that same "Front Lock" design while improving upon it and by moving it back further on the handle to produce a more balanced "Mid Lock" design, ie. Gerber (70's) and beforehand by custom makers such as McBurnette. Buck had been making "Back Locks" since the 60's but their design was more on the tail of the handle away from the pivot. For example, my Seki Japan made, Al Mar design, Gerber Silver Knight "Mid Lock" was made by the Seki Sakai family in 1979.
Both Al Mar and Pete Kershaw were working for Gerber at that time in the 70's, traveling to Japan developing the "Mid Lock" design for Gerber based on work by McBurnette and Boker, at the same time seeing the hawkbill designs that the Sakai family had experimented with along with other knifemakers in the area. And again this "Mid-Lock" design was not patented by Gerber or any of its design team, it wasn't a decade later until the mid-to-late 80's in the litigation happy US, that Sal and Spyderco patented this as a "Positive Front Lock" design as seen on all of Spyderco's "Mid Lock" designs, all based on work by Boker, McBurnette, Al Mar, et al.. Enough about locks...
The folding hawkbill design in Seki Japan had been around since the 1920's as a slipjoint hawkbill fishing/marine knife but it was not until the 1960's that the Japanese design hawkbills were outfitted with a lock, in this case a locking mechanism similar to Opinel's design which was done by the Sakai family of Seki (maybe copied?). Opinel's locking collar system was patented in 1955 and shortly afterwards they had a pruning knife was introduced with a hawkbill blade, so they were probably the first to have a locking hawkbill knife in production. The Sakai family also experimented with the Boker inspired "Front Lock" design" on some of their prototype "Lockback" hawkbill designs in the 60's ands 70's. In the 70's when Gerber Knives first arrived, there was not a perceived market by Gerber for a "Lockback" hawkbill. "Lockback" in this case referring to neither a "Front Lock" like Gerber or "Back Lock" like Buck, in Japan or the US
(how wrong were they there?). lol.. So there are at least two types of locking mechanisms on folding hawkbill knives in Japan 2-3 decades before Spyderco arrived and one in France.
Where do you get this stuff? I believe Al Mar introduced Glesser to Japanese makers and the mid-lock.
The Spyderco blade design is very similar to the Japanese designs of the time, 60's and 70's, specifically along the cutting edge, which was use for Japanese maritime duty, completely different blade shape from earlier agricultural hawkbill designs. And you are right, it was Al Mar, who had recently left Gerber in the mid 80's, who introduced Sal to the Japanese makers and the "Lockback" knives that Gerber had been producing in Japan. But it was Sal who put it all together with his version of the "Positive Front Lock" patent, his serrations and a plastic (FRN) handle to made it into the Spyderco's hawkbill knives we know today and love today. No arguments/disagreements there.
Later Sal, along with Al Janich started to market the knife more as a defensive (or offensive) weapon and even more refined the designs via Spyderhawk, Merlin, Tasman, Matriarch, and the beloved Harpy. These designs still are excellent fro what they are designed to do. These designs are not to be confused and be mistakenly identified as "mall ninja" hawkbill knives which seemed to really embrace the total tacticool combat knife theme.
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