When was the 500 series introduced?

[The Deacon]

In responding to a post in another BladeForums forum I realized that, while I can clearly remember where I bought my Buck 501, I can't for the life of me remember when. I do recall it was the first time I saw it in that store, where I was a pretty regular customer, so I was wondering, when was the 500 series, and the 501 in particular, first added to the Buck lineup?

Till recently, it had been close to 30 years since I bought a new knife, two of my "old reliables" seem to have disappeared from the Buck catalog (my Caper, which was my first Buck knife and has field dressed a couple dozen deer - and my Fisherman that has fileted enough Blues and Stripers to feed a small army), guess I'll have to be more careful with them now. My other Bucks from "way back when" are a Skinner (never used it for that, but makes a damn fine camp knife), a Cadet, and a Kalinga.

Thanks for any help you can give me,

Paul

 

[Larry Oden]

Paul,
The 501 was the original model introduced in the 500 series and it was first shipped to dealers in February of 1975. If you obtain a Buck Collectors Club newsletter from December 2002, there is an article on the series by yours truly. Otherwise, you can email me and I will email the article back to you.