In the year 2000, I was a Dealer.
As a Dealer, I saw my First Shiny Busse knife after about 9 months, at which time I saw five, the Steel Heart Ghost Knives.
The next Shiny Busse knives I saw were the Zero Tolerance Models, which were a "Reduced price" knife series compared to the Combat grade line.
About that Same time(about halfway through the ZT production) Busse started offering a Satin Finish as an option.
Before 2000, Variants were rare, but started off called "Mutants" and were often priced below or the same as Combat grade models.
The first limited Edition, Numbered Busse knives that I remember were the Presentation Grade Battle Mistresses, Numbers up to 500, but I have not heard of as many as 100
(I have #350)
After market re-finishing of the A-2 Steel Hearts was not uncommon, both by knife makers and owners.
After the close of production the numbers of Straight handled Steel Heart Variants went up quite a bit, that Variant model being now the most common Straight handled Variant by far.
But still nothing like the numbers of Custom shop knives you see lately.
