Question for Vern Taylor

[Larry Oden]

Vern,
Eugene Shoemaker recently ran across some 426 models with gold etch that we find rather surprising. I suspect you may know the story. On the mark side, the blade is etched with the same artwork that is found on the first club knives: 1 of 250, Buck Collectors 1990, blacksmith at anvil and Buck Knives famous for holding an edge logo.
The blade has the 1989 year mark.
Then on the pile side, the blade is also etched with Hydro Construction 1989 Safety Award Acccident Free verbiage.
I had no idea that the club knife etch was used on other knives. Do you know of others and is this old news to you?


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"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose".

 

[Vern Taylor]

There is no short way to answer this, so here is the long answer. My first concept of the club knife was of an etched blade 531, probably because I was so involved in the BuckLock project and then they were recalled. After I got the 300 or so 531 into my hands, no easy task, I found a guy who was brand new in business, and I mean I was his very first customer, who thought he could gold etch knives that were already assembled! We did a couple of other projects first, and one of those was the knife you mention, the safety award. Problem is, he misspelled safety on the first 10 knives; he spelled it “saftey”. A week or so later, when he felt he was ready to do the club knives, it seemed logical to practice first on something other than one of the few existing 531 BuckLocks. Get the picture? We did three or four of them before starting on the real 531’s and making the real club knife. I gave those knives away more than ten years ago so they must have a history by now because, as I recall, I gave them to several different people. It is interesting to see these things resurface. The important part of the story is that this man was a Jew, and through our association I was able to tell him that the Messiah is Jesus and He is coming again. His name is Mark, please pray for him, that he might yet recognize that the Savior is Christ the Lord.