Hi Charlie,
Firstly thanks for the great work contacting Bill. I wish you all the best in your endeavours!
As one of the Australian members of these forums, I would love GEC to produce an authentic, old school bunny knife like the ones you have in your collection or the newer ones here
https://www.knivesaustralia.com.au/collections/joseph-rodgers/bunny
But I have a couple of reservations. One is, I think a bunny knife has to be an authentic bunny knife. That is, a pattern that rabbiters all carried as it met their needs perfectly. I think any Bunny Knife should respect that tradition and be the same pattern (length, shape and clip blade) as those old knives were. I don’t think it would work if it were made longer.
Also, what distinguishes a bunny knife from other jack knives is its kidney shape, including its length, so that’s another reason you can’t really make a jack knife on a different pattern and call it a bunny knife. Unless it has that silhouette it won’t be recognisable as one.
Lastly, I would love to see a bunny knife in two versions such as an ebony or callico bone with that amazing blade etch, and a user in say stainless steel and orange delrin similar to this knife - that would be so cool!
Lastly, although the word ‘antipodean’ is sometimes used to describe these parts of the world, technically the antipodes are a bit south of New Zealand (the antipodal of Cherbourg) and I doubt they have any bunnies there! Much too cold and windy - but there is any number of cool names you could give this pattern of either the geographic or leporine variety!