what is good enough for one guy is not good enough for another....

That is a really big difference in quality of work between those examples. Stainless then was not the stainless of today, and stainless of my youth was primitive in cleanliness to much of what available today, even in same exact named alloy.

It might have been with the rough example that all attempts at finesse ceased as soon as metal started having problems, and finished up to just to have something functional, maybe never even originally sold, but instead just given away.

May even have been a very earlier attempt with the stuff (big difference in handle style), which most assuredly does not react at all the way a normal carbon steel steel does to forging, especially if lousy alloy to begin with. Randall used the clean Swedish alloy O-1 to get around those sorts of problems even with domestic carbon steel.

Personally would just feel that as soon as the rough knife started having problems, as little more time was wasted on it as possible, and quit while ahead before something worse happened. It seems obvious is was trying to come apart.

As anyone from gulf coast will attest, with exception of H-1 steel, no such thing as truly rust proof, and it still would have "seemed like a good idea at the time" to anyone thinking a lot of salt water in their future. Maybe not so much, once they realized some fish with big teeth really like shiny things thinking it a favorite meal.