Glad to hear you're enjoying your new 38, Kiteman. I love the pattern, but I think (unless they sneak in a run of whittlers or something) I'm going to sit this release out. I have too many knives that are too similar already.
I'm also excited about the upcoming run of 66 stockmen. It's just such a perfectly sized pattern and great knife. I have a few already, so I initially just reserved the Northfield jigged bone version. The Oily Creek Bone on the 54s, though, looked so good that I just hopped on the standby list for one of those as well. So it goes...
I was perhaps a touch snarky in my post about the Calf Pen above. As has been discussed much in this thread, though, it just seems like an odd knife with a really odd combination of blades and implements. I don't get it. Maybe it will wind up being really well received and super popular. We'll see, I suppose.
I haven't had any particularly strong feelings on the stag/pin issue and have certainly continued to buy GEC stag knives since they stopped putting the pins on them. That said, I definitely prefer them with the pins. Will makes such a great point:
Yes it's tricky, yes you may wreck some slabs if you don't know what you're doing...but I've got Stag knives from them with remarkably inlet shields, and it really sets off the material. A mark of craftsmanship and cutler skill no less.
I couldn't agree more. A big part of what makes some of my favorite stag GECs remarkable is precisely the way that the shield is incorporated into the slab. There's artistry there.
As a commodity, cattle bone is almost worthless. There are something like 100 million cows in the US. Conversely, many of the woods that Great Eastern uses are actually quite valuable. We happily, though, pay more for the bone handled knives not because of the intrinsic value of the material but because of the amazing work that goes into the processes of dying, jigging, etc...
I think that the same principle holds true for stag knives. I realize that we're talking about Sambar stag and not the antlers that they sell as dog chew toys at my local Agway. Still, the material isn't THAT valuable. What makes a stag knife special, I feel, is the cutler's skill in manipulating two slabs of stag to make them fit and work just so. I feel that incorporating a shield, enhances, rather than detracts from the artistry. As an example, here is a photo of three of my favorite stag GECs that I first posted a few weeks ago. The way that the shields are worked into the stag, particularly on the 77 on the right, makes them more unique, more special, more valuable - to me anyway.
Looks really striped in the dealer's pix so I'm thrilled. Stalking the Postman begins again...
Yes it is like a Laguiole, one of my favourite knives, but with the huge advantage of a covered tang/sunk-joint
