All About Pocket Knives

The Northwoods brand was started i believe by Dave Shirley. I don't know when the first Northwoods were produced but in 2009 Dave sold the Northwoods brand to Derrick Bohn of KSF.
This thread is for showing your Northwoods knives from the Dave Shirley era. I do not know how many different Northwoods knives he had made but i think it was quite a few knives. Many are handled in ivory or mammoth. Included here as well are the Northwoods Scagel knives.
Most, maybe even all of the D.S. Northwoods were made by Queen.
If you know more of the history of these Northwoods please post it here so that this thread can become 'The Place' to find accurate information and many examples of the Dave Shirley Northwood knives.
I only have one: a 3 1/4" Senator Pen knife with mammoth ivory. It arrived with a tiny chip missing on front handle, but really, so what, the knife is beautiful, so i kept it and am glad i did.
kj
p.s. these are my first indoor pictures and my lighting is not quite adequate.

so here's the Gladiator, KJ. as you'd mentioned this is indeed a Shirley edition. here's a quote from Bohn himself that was posted in reference to this knife on Blade Forums--"these are especially interesting knives. They were made by GEC (though Dave would have said he made them....) and they are a super steel. I have worked like crazy to get Bill at GEC to do some knives for me with s30v or some other super steel, but he is steadfast on 1095 and 440c. I don't know if there will ever be another one like it come out of GEC."

Thanks Cletus. I have never seen this one before. Likely there were not a lot made and those who have them are keeping them.
Do you know if any of the Northwoods knives were made by Dave Shirley himself ?
kj

Here are 2 Northwoods recently received, both from the Gladstone/Dave Shirley era: 3 5/8" Canoe, one with exterior elephant ivory and the other with "Mastadon" (= Mastodon, or is really a mammoth tusk ?)
Ivory & Mammoth seem to have been favorite handle materials for D.S. as i have seen a number of different Northwoods he had made with ivory or mammoth handles.
kj

Joe, I do not know for sure whether Shirley ever built a knife himself but from the little I've read, he did try his hand at building early on and like a lot of folks, figured out it wasn't for everybody. I did find a short article on some of the Shirley history. Is it ok to link to other sites here? Didn't know if my posting a quote earlier even with citation is proper. I'm a long time reader and daisy fresh rookie poster and not familiar with board etiquette. please advise. thx!

them Canoes is a couple a peaches I'll tell you that!

AAPK is a very sensible website. It is o.k. to post links to other sites, ebay auctions, etc., whatever is useful in composing your post.
kj

so this a pretty good read.

https://www.knivesshipfree.com/blog/int ... e-shirley/

Roland, your Northwoods Canoes are gorgeous!

" your Northwoods Canoes are gorgeous"
Thank you and they appear better in person. People are paying over $500 for KSF Northwoods with ivory or mammoth, but these earlier Northwoods, made by Queen are not getting as much attention so are more affordable, but still not inexpensive.
I debate with myself what a reasonable price is for recent production knives with ivory handles. "Reasonable" to me means that price will be maintained for the next 5-10 years.
The debate is at a stalemate. I just cannot decide if prices for these knives, now in a limited supply, will increase or if many collectors will eschew ivory and thus prices will be very low.
Ironic if one would have to remove ivory handles and replace with Delrin to sell a knife !
kj

So if the Northwoods brand was born in 2004 and Dave Shirley sold to Bohn in 2009, that leaves several questions to be asked. How many and which patterns did Dave produce and what was Derriks first pattern? Also how long after the sale was the Gladstone, Mich. stamp used. It certainly would be nice to have a chronological list of the patterns. By the way Kj those Canoes are outstanding indeed!

I emailed KSF and told them of our new Northwoods forum and asked if they had any information on how many different patterns/runs were made under Dave Shirley. The reply from Josh is that they have no history or records of any sort to do with the Dave Shirley Northwoods.
I am hoping there are AAPK'ers who were following the Dave Shirley Northwoods who will post what they know about these knives.
kj

Here is a Northwoods 4" Premium Stockman likely made by Queen and with mammoth handles. The box says "Ext. Ivory" but this is mammoth ivory not elephant ivory. Dealer says box is original so got mixed up before he received it.
kj
Edit: looks terrible in these pics, dog dodo handles ! i need to figure out indoor lighting.

That does NOT look terrible. Beautiful knife!

I got in touch with one of our members here (Sketch) because I knew he was an avid collector of the Northwoods brand and I knew he had a few of them from the Dave Shirley era. Sketch let me copy some of his older pics and Roland (kootenay joe) helped me put a pattern name to each picture.

I don't have any information on the different handle materials that were used for each pattern but here are the attempts of Roland and I to put a pattern name to a picture. We have no way of knowing for certain the official names of the patterns but we did the best we could.

Please feel free to add pics and pattern names to this thread if you happen to have any Dave Shirley Northwoods knives. I'll be adding a few more as time permits.

Folding Hunter Muskrat English Jack Left to Right: Railsplitter Moose. Engilh Jack. Half Congress. Gunstock. Canoe. Toothpick

Shadow Lockback Congress Trapper Stockman

Doctor's Knife

Hey I can add some of my Dave Shirley's Northwoods to this thread

Thanks Mitch!

Here's a good pic of all four of the handle materials offered on the Railsplitter Moose.

Wow Mitch, those are amazing!!!

Here's a Fixed Blade to add.

Wow. This is great for viewing and as an archive of D.S.Northwoods. Thanks Rick, Mitch & Kennedy.
Anyone know how many different patterns Dave Shirley used in his Northwoods line ?
And how many handle materials ? I know of D.S. Northwoods with elephant ivory, mammoth, Stag, jigged bone. Are there more ?
kj

I forgot to add these to this Thread. Dave Shirley also produced a Northwoods Scagel line of Knives that were Pretty Cool!

Mitch you are Mr. Scagel Northwoods. Wow, what a great collection of these knives you have.
Are you able to list all of the Scagel patterns that Dave Shirley had made ? I am trying to get this thread to be an authorative source for information about Dave Shirley Northwoods & Scagel knives.
Did D.S. consider the Scagels as part of his Northwoods knives ? He used the same shield but "Northwoods" is not marked on the Scagel knives.
I had a large single blade Scagel Jack which i carried & used. I regret selling it and now these Scagel folders are hard to find.
kj

KJ, Don't have a complete list of DS Patterns. Back in the day, I would buy Dave's knives by phone and later online when he had a model available. As far as his Scagel reproductions, they were always called Northwoods Scagel Knives, so I consider them Northwoods as well!

Thanks for posting those Mitch! They are beautiful!

Here's a couple more Scagels.

Regular Jack Safety Hunting Knife