Yes: It reminds me of a full-fledged custom one I saw on Ebay that was much like an enlarged First Blood, 10" but not quite as wide as a "Mission", which was mirror polished and engraved with the name and unit information of a US Army officer (late 80s on a texas base, if memory serves), showing marks of being heavily used(!). I even think he was a Colonel... I don't remember the maker name, or even if there was one, but it looked pretty amazing. The handle was knurled but no cord.
Here's a visual comparison of my REK-refurbished Farid First Blood (which I think is just ever so slightly broader than most Lile FBs) and a Lile Sly II: If you thought the knives were similar you can see they are in fact very, very different. Had I realized that, I probably wouldn't have bid for it, thought $1100 is good for any Lile. The sandblasting is more refined than under the paint of the black-painted "Mission", but the Mission had more precise surfaces and perfect symmetry:
Note that, like on the "Mission", the Farid has a completely fuctional sawback, with individual teeth top havind a forward "dip", while the sawback on the Sly II is purely decorative..
The Sly II here had surface "issues" that were invisible initially (and almost no edge at all, just an 80° inclusive grind on a 0.043" bevel, so putting any edge on it is a huge undertaking), but these issues came out really obviously under sharpening: The "Mission" was much better made in that regard, symmetry included, and sharpening the "Mission" revealed no problems like this, except right next to the plunge line, which caused me no real concern:
The problem here is probably a combination of two things: The knife is flat ground, but it cannot have distal taper for the whole length of the -useless- sawback, so there is a "transition" to the clip taper, then there is the use of the dual grinder which causes some barely visible "waves", that you can just make out here, but enough to cause the edge to waver at the "transition": You can see the vertical "ridge" congruent to the "transition", which might accentuate the edge having an issue: Fortunately Josh of RazorEdgeKnives can fix this sort of thing...:
It likely will get the same treatment as the Farid, but the Farid did not have these flaws: On the Farid I just wanted the edge thinned from 0.043" to 0.030", and a more contact-resistant finish (the original "prototype" beadblasting was kept on the ricasso and clip, and idea of Josh that turned out great).
Basically my advice to anyone interested in getting Liles, or similar knives, and not wanting to deal with the hassle of refinishing them: Get the ones with mirror polished edges: Because of the dividing line between the bead blast and the mirror-finished "contour", these knives cannot get away with this kind of sloppy second-rate finish: It woud be far too obvious with the dividing line waving about... So you can assume the two-tone knives are really of a superior level of finish, and hassle-free if you sharpen them, because the surfaces will have to be straight and true, owing to the nature of the finish...
Also don't get the Sly II if you want a functional saw: Another thing is sheaths for the Sly II are much narrower than those for the FB, so they will not fit an FB at all...
On the good side the Sly II is a very slim and light knife, mine has a very, very strong point geometry (!): It feels very much like a small concealment fighting knife, not at all like the full 9" that it is(!)... I am not thrilled with mine but it is good enough to make a user, and where would I find another Lile at this price? I think I'll go for something a bit crazier on this, like asking for a full mirror polish or some weird Cerakoat colour...
Gaston
