When I got this Kabar 1128 fish knife in, it had a broken scaler blade and off gassing yellow cell handles. The original plan was to turn it into a single blade toothpick and rehandle it. Once I got it in hand, I noticed the triangle nailnick. This one was built by Robeson (ca. 1960) and I just happened to have a perfect replacement for the scaler. So, back to the original blade configuration and a new set of natural whitetail slabs. I did leave out the hook sharpening stone, I never use 'em anyway.
This next one I picked up off Ebay a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't sure what to think of it. It was listed as an early Imperial, but it wasn't like anything i'd ever seen before. This thing is a behemoth of a knife! Five inches closed and thick, heavy blades. Mark side blade has a clear early stamp, secondary had what appeared to be an arched early stamp. But, by the time I cleaned it up, there wasn't any stamp left, so i'm not sure what I was seeing.
The original handles were off gassing cracked ice cell and the primary blade was tipped. I just went ahead and took it apart, cleaned it up, reprofiled the primary blade and rehandled it in some toasted elk slabs.
Imperial made some high quality knives in those early years, but this one goes above and beyond even any of those that i've seen. The liners on this knife are a full 1/16" thick brass!! From what I could tell, it was what it appeared to be, an early Imperial folding hunter, but it is a monster and you want to make sure your fingers aren't in the way when she closes!!
WB
