Okie dokie,
I've just spent the last 12 hours straight reviewing the knives we have, photos of the knives we've owned, and roughly 400 of the 1000 some-odd photos that we're trying to choose from for use in our upcoming book on Randall knives ('we' being my wife and I)...
This is some of what came out of that review...
From roughly 1968 thru 1972, primarily on leather handled Randall's including some Model #1's & # 2's in rivited sheaths, in almost all cases the red and white spacers are very thin, and the 'blue' center spacer is medium/thick gray. Many of the red spacers have turned gray as well.
Also included are a 5 spacer 'Bradford Angiers' #5-6, and a stag handled model #8-4, both from roughly late 1972. Almost all of the Randall's from the 1973 thru 1977 timeframe had medium spacers of roughly the same thickness, with the exception of the white spacers, which are generally thinner.
By 1978 and into early 1983 we see a thicker center spacer, which again is gray colored on the few knives from this period that we own, or have pictures of. The other four spacers are usually brighter that those of the first knives mentioned above, with the reds being both brighter and thicker.
Interestingly enough, use of thinner spacers on the smaller knives seems to have taken place late in the mid to late 1970's, and not in the early 80's as is often heard.
By 1984, all of the RMK models spoken of above use thinner spacers, with the possible exception of the Bowie's, which I didn't examine due to lack of enough review samples.
Also, the early '60's knives were spacer configured much like those from the mid '50's, and the mid '60's knives were configured much like those from the late '70's...
Bear in mind though, this was a relatively small sample lot in the greater scheme of things, and may not mean 'diddly squat' when all is done and said...
Mel
