No sir, he told me he bought it from Kevin McClung. that he sent it to Kevin to be marked and that years later Kevin denied having marked it.
Hmm ... or to put it in slightly different words, he sent it to "Mad Dog Knives" to be marked, someone there took a vibro-engraver and marked it, and later when Kevin heard the story he denied knowing anything about any such thing ever having happened?
The time period when that happened could be significant.
I do not know anything about partners or former partners. However if a partner did it it is the same as Kevin doing it, no?
A fellow named Scott Fowler, who later changed his name to Allan Blade aka Allen Blade aka Alan Blade (he changes the spelling back and forth at random), was once an employee of Kevin's (he claims he was Kevin's partner). Fowler was fired, on unfriendly terms, and left with a lot of stolen property (he claims he took the stuff in lieu of back wages). Seems he'd been stealing from Mad Dog for a long time, long before he was fired. He might have been cheating Mad Dog's customers, too, putting false markings on knives, who knows what.
For a while after Mad Dog fired him he made and sold knives that were clearly influenced by Kevin McClung's style, you might say imitative of Kevin McClung's style, but also clearly different. Not knives that anyone familiar with Mad Dog knives would ever mistake for the real thing. He often claimed they were made by Mad Dog and often tried to pass them off as rare early knives or prototypes made by Mad Dog (in an attempt to explain the differences -- also to jack up the price).
Later he made and sold knives admitting he had made them himself but claiming they were the same as or as good as Mad Dog's knives.
Eventually he developed his own style of knifemaking and swindled people by taking payment for knives he never delivered, giving many inventive excuses to keep the scam going. He disappeared for a while, then he would reappear with stories about why he hadn't delivered all those knives he had been paid for yet and promising to catch up if people would only send him more money for more promises, then he would disappear for another while, and reappear with more stories.... Most recently, having exhausted all possible victims in the United States, he found some new suckers on a knife website in Britain, took their money, gave promises, took more money, gave more promises, and hasn't been seen for quite a while now, but who knows, he could turn up again any time.
You sound knowledgeable, would you like to see the knife?
There are others who know more about Mad Dog knives than I do, Parker for one, but I doubt anybody particularly wants to see the knife in person. It's plain enough from the picture.
I've summarized a years-long career in a few paragraphs. His activities as Allan Blade are well documented here at Bladeforums; he did a lot of his swindling here. Some of us remember him making knives that superficially looked like Mad Dogs and trying to pass them off as Mad Dogs, but that was a long time ago -- before Bladeforums was founded. A lot of those knives are still around, though. They have a distinctive style -- design kinda like Mad Dog's designs, but different materials and very different workmanship.
I wouldn't blame the fellow who sold you the knife. I think he was taken in, just like a lot of other people have been....
