All About Pocket Knives

SMKW has an eye single-blade trapper that they claim is constructed of old (60s and earlier parts).
I ordered one mostly out of curiousity.

One of the things that leads me to believe that this is not true is the old Knife World article (I forget the issue now).
It said that they kept very few old parts on hand, and this was from the 1980s.
Another questionable thing is the nail tick; I haven't seen an old Eye with that type.

One thing is for certain, it was dirty enough to be 40 years old.
The bone scales started out almost black, but came around to a nice rich brown.

Anyone have any opinions?

Keith

This knife is still / also available at Friedrich Olbertz’ online shop:

http://www.pocketknives.de/shop/carl-sc ... p-204.html

They have a very good service, so you could ask them about the old part thing.

According to the history-page on the Olbertz site, they started making
‘premium pocket knives’, like the one in question, at the 70th.
(mostly for importers brands like Eye, Jim Bowie, Bulldog, Figthin’ Rooster)

Before that time, they were mainly producing simple working knives:

http://www.pocketknives.de/%C3%9Cber-uns/Historie.html

So having an Olbertz made knife with parts ‘ from 1960 or earlier’ sounds odd,
to say the least.

However, these parts could have been made for the original owner of the Eye brand,
Carl Schlieper.
IIRC, the US importer of Eye brand is still the same company and they bought
the Eye brand after Schlieper went out of business.

So it is not entirely impossible that Olbertz bought / got these parts from the importer
(or elsewhere) and reissued this pattern.

I'm skeptical.

While I could reasonably see finding a large amount of older jigged bone handles somewhere (keep in mind that's the only thing in the description listed as "antique") having handles, ground and etched blades, springs for those blades, liners with bolsters for that pattern all sitting around unassembled from the 60s in a quantity that would lead to a $50 price tag at SMKW is dubious, at best.

I agree

But it sure hasn't stopped them from hitting Ebay at inflated prices

I've never seen a Eye Brand with a matchstriker pull. Clarence Risner might has some insight on this.

griz1200 wrote:I've never seen a Eye Brand with a matchstriker pull. Clarence Risner might has some insight on this.

I have some Ka Bars with the matchstriker nail nitch.

Matchstriker pulls are pretty common on newer Eyes.

Thanks Keith...Now I've seen one. I just ain't bought any of the new ones..yet.