What's the story/history of the Euro releases?

rcb2000

rcb2000

Joined
Apr 15, 2014
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Does anyone know the story with the European released knives?
The Euro 4, 6, Caretaker
My google-fu hasn't turned anything up.
I assume they were only sold at a knife show in Europe??
 
The euro basic 4 and 6 were knives only sold by a distributor in germany in the early-ish 2000's. The euro basic 4's are different than the basic 4 sold here (the ones in the thread you linked to).

Here's one of Ragnarok's pics of his Basic 4 and Euro Basic 4 LE (super rare satin) showing the difference...

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There were some pretty sweet euro-only knives at one point. There's one in particular that is on Bad Mojo that I would absolutely love to find, but am resigned to the fact that I won't ever get the chance.
 
Interesting, thanks for the pics!
Any idea of why they would produce knives only to be sold by a German distributor?
In case you can't tell I love the history of Bussee almost as much as I love the knives, almost
 
As far as I can tell, the Caretaker is simply a Natural Outlaw Ergo with the exposed tang at the rear being ground down close to the micarta. I got mine on the secondary market years ago and have never seen one for sale directly from Busse in this country. The Busse Germany web site used to offer them.

I consider it just a variation of an NO-E and include it as such in my NO-E collection.
 
Euro 4 story for you. Some time in my first year here, I scored a Euro 4 off the Exchange. It helps to understand that back then, 2006, the Busse community was small, the number of knives was small, and knives were often moved behind the scenes at cost from one Hog to another. That was just how it was done. Proud of my new and unique blade, I took it with me to Blade 2007. Thursday night, after Fogo's, Jerry held court at a table in the Pit, pouring JW. I brought out the Euro 4 and learned that every previous owner, save one, was sitting at that table. Tells you something about just how small the Busse community was. When I sold it later in 2007 the buyer had exactly one post on BF, never to be seen again. When I queried him as part of our email exchange, he said that he was buying it for a friend. AFAIK, that knife has never surfaced again. I wonder how many knives have just disappeared into collections?

Euro 4 pics. 0.25" thick. I’m told the mods were done by Jerry. Enlarged choil, penetrator tip, slight edge bevel along the spine, butt job, satin spine.










Jerry and his court, Hogs and a wee piglet happy to be with the gang.



 
Wow, first of all, what an awesome story. I kick myself every time I hear about the old days,, why didn't I know about Busse then??!!
I love the look of that one, the spine job is such a cool touch.
Thanks for the pics an story, I honestly love the history.
 
MikeH said:
As far as I can tell, the Caretaker is simply a Natural Outlaw Ergo with the exposed tang at the rear being ground down close to the micarta. I got mine on the secondary market years ago and have never seen one for sale directly from Busse in this country. The Busse Germany web site used to offer them.

I consider it just a variation of an NO-E and include it as such in my NO-E collection.
Click to expand...

Didn't the Caretakers also sport a clip whereas the NO-e was more of a drop point? Also, were there any NO-es that were recurves?
 
Busse needs to do cool adds like that again !
It would also be cool if they worked on new steels
Maybe a new super INFI ?
 
on_the_edge said:
Didn't the Caretakers also sport a clip whereas the NO-e was more of a drop point? Also, were there any NO-es that were recurves?
Click to expand...

I think you are right, although not a very pronounced clip.

As resinguy noted, there were seven desert tan NO-E's that were recurves, and 14 desert tan NO-E's that were clip points. Also in this desert tan series were five triple grind clip points.

The desert tan clip point models were not Caretakers or Euros, though. All the Caretakers I ever saw were black coated with black canvas micarta handles.

An interesting thing about the 14 desert tan clip points is that I have never seen two that were identical. The length of the clips varied noticeably, and there were two different handle patterns.
 
MikeH said:
An interesting thing about the 14 desert tan clip points is that I have never seen two that were identical. The length of the clips varied noticeably, and there were two different handle patterns.
Click to expand...

I knew that there were two different handle patterns--raptor and quilted. I did not know that the clips were basically all different. Not many pics with multiples of these in the pic.
 
At one time I had three and all were somewhat different.

FWIW, I think that these are among the most aesthetically pleasing knives that Busse has produced, as resinguy's photo illustrates.
 
This is a very timely post...I was just perusing Busse Collector/BAd Mojo as I picked up a Groove Master recently (got 2 Buff Soldiers), and if I want to round out that "series" I would need an original Public Defender (I sadly passed on a great deal on one a few months ago)...

As I was looking through the posts I came across the Caretaker, and I have one...always thought it was an NO-e variant (which it is too, I suppose), although if it is in fact a Euro-only model, that is very interesting...

It is one of the best feeling, best looking blades I own as MikeH points out (maybe I bought one of his 3?!?). I would have to go back and check...

The one I have has bead-blasted/naked flats and swedge and the clip is different than the ones I have seen here.

Glad this post came up as I was wondering about this knife after I discovered it was a "Caretaker/NO-e Variant"

I also have a killer ZTNO cusotm in the same color combo with a clip and a swedge I was trying to dig out as well. Both really freaking awesome.

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