Dave Shirley Northwoods

[kootenay joe]

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.

[Cletus Awreetus]

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."

[kootenay joe]

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

[kootenay joe]

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

[Cletus Awreetus]

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!

[kootenay joe]

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

[Cletus Awreetus]

so this a pretty good read.

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

[RalphAlsip]

Roland, your Northwoods Canoes are gorgeous!

[kootenay joe]

" 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

[gsmith7158]

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!

[kootenay joe]

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

[kootenay joe]

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.

[Railsplitter]

That does NOT look terrible. Beautiful knife!

[Railsplitter]

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

[Railsplitter]

Shadow Lockback

Congress

Trapper

Stockman