When you Think You Know..

[bucksway]

Just recently the 432/112 has made a few appearances on Facebook and Ebay and I have been posting about it. It's one of the first odd 112's I chased when I first started collecting and one of the first prototypes I was lucky enough to get. In doing research this last week I found out I really didn't know as much about it as I thought I did! In this last week alone I found out that the handle was Birch and although for the last 10 years I've been saying you got a certificate for a free knife it was actually $10.95..And if you bought 2 tires Twenty two and something! The next thing I completely missed was the obvious fact that both versions, with or without initials, came with both square and radius frames. I still can't believe I missed that lol! I feel a little humbled as I've been chasing odd 112's since 2006 and up until now thought I knew a bit about them..What I learned this week was if you think know maybe ..you really don't .

 

[imafritz]

Please post a pic of one, I don't think I'm familiar with it at all.

 

[DeSotoSky]

Here is mine. Photo by seller from when I bought it years ago. I guess I never took my own pictures. Not even sure where I put it. The 1983 SP list says 10,700 of them are out there, hard to believe considering how infrequently you see them.

 

[bucksway]

Thanks DeSotaSky for posting the pictures..I personally believe that somewhere in a dusty warehouse are cases of this knife..Bucks,Goodyear I'm not sure. Your right not that many ever show up! I even question Buck made that many for that same reason. At the time a regular 112 had a MSRP of no more than $35.00 or so and looking back $10.95 wasn't that great of a deal. They spanned a few years of issue from square frame to radius too. I'm wondering what happened to the blades and handles since as far as I know Birch was only used for this knife and obviously the 432 tang stamp blades . Since you ordered directly from Buck I can't see them making over 10,000 knives and waiting for orders..Based on other LE 112's (DU total 9,000, Stag 1400) I'll bet less than 3,000 knives and shieths were actually sent to customers and of that 500 or less had initials engraved on the bolster.