Quote:
Originally Posted by RonJ
Have they ever made folders. Are they anywhere near affordable for the average guy?
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NO, and no. You'll get many answers to your question, most will be wrong and then some will be very wrong. Long ago, like not quite 20 years, I was given the opportunity to buy a Randall Folder. A buddy wanted one too, and as luck would have it, we used the connection to purchase two of them. The buddy even has an interesting Randall connection. His uncle was Jimmy
Garrett, a relative of Sheriff Pat Garrett. Think Billy the Kid fame. So the purchase went pretty much as planned. The knives were state of the art liner lock knives, both sporting antique elephant ivory. Yes, they were both very well made, almost works of art. Every so often someone comes along and wants a picture. I don't post pictures. But Frakes does. He comes and goes by the moniker GF, also known as a cheap uncle who won't provide his nephews with ammo.
So at the Louisville National Gun Day show in December, I brought the knife, Frakes the phone w/camera. He took 2 photos and even posted them here on the Lounge for every one's viewing pleasure. I have no clue if those are still up on his photo hosting service or not. No, they aren't priced in a range they can be purchased. At least I'm not selling and I seriously doubt my buddy would. We probably both have our price, but its ugly to say the least.
The story behind them, at least as it was told to us, was that the factory has considered folders over the years. The main obstacle was quality. They have a reputation they're going to protect. There was just no way they would market a cheap Chinese import with their name. So apparently as the story goes, they asked a few knife makers to produce samples to consider. Those select makers apparently received blade blanks to use. Not all blanks were returned as models, but some were.
Other knives have shown up for sale. About 15 or so years ago another pair with kind of ugly black scales traded for about $2500 each. Ours have some "ugly" white ivory, obviously from a tusk with some warfare behind it (bark). The photos of my knife have never been posted anywhere else to my knowledge. I can't control what Frakes does with the images, or what our posters who clicked and saved did with them. I'll go look in December and see if I can find them, but you could too.
Here's the link to the thread:
Louisville Gun Show Question
Scroll down to post #12 to see the photos Frakes took on Doublesharp's table. Note its against show rules to take pictures in the venue. Breaking the rules felt good. The promoter does it so why shouldn't we?
Randall knives
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