The inspection of knives during there process of construction is ( at least in the case of Schrade ) extremely stringent. I have watched as knives were taken off the line and adjudged as " not perfect " and therefore seconds. Often I have failed to see what was wrong with the knife even upon inspection. I have even failed in some cases to see the flaw when it was pointed out too me. In Schrades case quality control has always been and still is quite important. In some cases the mistakes or problems with the knives make them more interesting to the collector. Most of the time the blemish or imperfection has nothing to do with the usability of the tool. It rather has to do with the uniformity of the product. There are exceptions to this when a knife has real problems mechanical or in materials, however those usually, are not offered for sale anywhere. Another thing to be aware of is that often a large overun of a pattern ( by mistake or cancelled order ) or other inventory problem can get perfectly good knives labeled as seconds so that they can be sold at a discount to a large buyer such as Smokey. I would not be afraid to buy a Schrade second. The fact is that if you did get a really bad one if you sent it back to Schrade they would probably send you a new one.
Years ago seconds were XXXXXXX over the Schrade Tang, now to collectors those knives are sought after so I have not seen it done in years. Years ago the Uncle Henry guarantee was lifetime and included loss. So people would buy one send in the warrantee and every six months claim to have lost it again and again. Usually the reason was something like I dropped it in a hole while ice fishing ( yes but the same hole and same knife every year ). After that they changed the guarantee to only a broken knife ( and you had to send the broken one in to get a new one. ) In that case they would put a little different dye on one section of the new knife to see if it came back after it had been used for a while. Of course people tried to abuse that guarantee as well. Finally it ( the guarantee ) was down graded again.
In the sixtys Schrade had a promotion where if you sent in some coupons you could get a free knife. I was talking to one of the plant bosses a few months ago. He told me that someone just sent in some 40 year old coupons and wanted a knife. I asked him what he did? He said he sent a letter apologizing for not having the same exact model any more ( it was discontinued years ago ). However he was sending the nearest model like it made today and hoped it would be OK.
In conclusion take a chance on the second I do not think you can go wrong LT
