Vintage Gerber fighting knife collection

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xing

Joined
Sep 12, 2009
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Hey everyone, here's some pictures of my Gerber fighting knife collection. All of these are from the early 80s, right before Fiskars took over. I've always felt like these were underappreciated knives. The Mark II gets all the attention because of Vietnam, but all of these knives were equally high quality and any would have served it's role well.

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Very nice, Gerber was very much a go to back then. I still have my Guardian tucked away safely.
 
Most excellent collection!
The boxed set is exceptional.
The only thing you are missing is the Gerber shoulder holster.
 
:eek:

Outstanding collection, xing.:thumbup: The old Gerbers really are fantastic knives. I have two '80s vintage Guardians and a Guardian II of the same era (which just came in yesterday).
 
It is a shame that Gerber does not put out this quality of product today. I know that they produce some quality stuff now but overall they used to have a much better reputation.
 
Yeah, Fiskars bought them out back in '87, and while quality continued for a few years, it started to go downhill after that. They do have a few nice knives today (I love my StrongArm), but the company is still overall a shadow of its former self. :grumpy::(
 
Great bunch of knives. The vintage Gerbers rock.

As you say very much underappreciated. Maybe because Gerber turned to making mostly cheap 'carp' and this overshadowed prior accomplishments.

I have several MKI and MKIIs and have had other older Gerber knives now sold off.

There is s a very nice Gerber, which Id like to get my mitts on - its like a Gerber MKII but has an integral steel guard (the name escapes me at the mo).
 
Gerber and Puma were two of the most respected names in the production knife world up until the mid -80's. Sad how those two great companies have gone completely downhill.
 
Some of us old farts remember when Gerber meant high quality. Nice collection. I sold off my Gerber Eddie Bauer Edition MKI just last year. Yup, the orange one. I owned it since way back when, 1971 or so. Nice to see your stuff.
 
Absolutely beautiful collection, xing! They might be a bit underappreciated these days, but they weren't back when the knives were new. Those Gerbers set the standards for combat knives for a long time, and everybody wanted one model or another (myself included--my favorites were the Mark I and the Guardian I).

Thank you for sharing those great photos!

-Steve
 
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