I tend to run and hide from responsibility. While growing up, my dad had his Marbles skinner. It was his hunting knife, and I was told to never even touch it because it might cut my arm off. He used it for all manner of cleaning fish and game. We're talking decades. So all was going pretty well and then dad up and croaked in 1980. No a happy event at all, but for once my mother favored me (because my brother had no interest in outdoors things). I accepted the hallowed knife and took it home. Note I didn't look at it until I was alone. I'd seen it hundreds of times when out with my dad, but never touched it. So once home I sat down at the dining room table and removed it from its sheath. It was really old by then, and all we could do was guess but mid 1920s was a good one. The sheath might have been OK when new, but years of carrying out doors in sometimes bad weather and decades of use made the sheath pretty bad. Worse, one of the leather washers had just gone away.
I don't know why one washer had rotted out, but it made the handle less than perfect. Notice to this day I haven't bought a stacked leather handle knife. Dad's only lasted 50+ years, just can't depend on them!
But when I tested the blade, it was what I class as dull. No shaving of hair on my left arm, maybe no as bad as a butter knife, but not working sharp by any means. It confused and dismayed me. I'd been lied to again!
But the blade had decades of discoloration, probably blood bluing (don't know if that's a correct term). So I got out a stone and took a few strokes. It came right up. Its soft steel, sharpened well, dulled down I guess about as quickly.
So I did what I always did with responsibility. I gave the knife to my oldest son. He knows its history so he'll keep it. I wonder if he'll try to replace the washer that's gone bad. He can if he wants to. I've given him a few Randalls, so he's much more likely to use them. Note all have stag handles.
And about 30 years ago I was a man on a mission. I was trying to kill off all the poison ivy in a 67 acre gravel pit/campground. I'd been using a pretty lousy machete for the task. So wandering through a flea market I noticed a Marbles hand axe. It was in nice shape and grossly underpriced. The guy wanted $30 or so for it. So I paid up and took it home. Then transferred it to the jeep and began using it regularly. It took a edge really fast (I cut myself even). Might have had a chisel shape, but it was really sharp too. So I used it for a few years. It was really handy but someone pointed out the folly of leaving it in an open jeep. So I brought it in the house and retired it, the fate of so many of my expensive toys. Then I noticed one just like it at a gun show. It had a $300 price on it, and that was maybe 1990. I saw it not too long ago. It had filtered down to the bottom of the big plastic tub of knives. Now I can see it anytime I want. The tub is semi transparent, and by holding the tub up in the air, I can easily make out the hand axe.
