Tom, thank you for your compliment's and your well written post!

I agree with you on all aspects. It was made for a specific application beginning in 1938, and first advertised in 1940, and named appropriately for that application.

The following year all hell broke loose as we entered into WWII.

My thoughts, (and they are my thoughts only) is that the specialty teams, near and far, needed a knife that would be resistant to salt water "more so than to lemon juice" and Bo had just that type of knife available! Of course it wasn't an ideally designed knife for this application, but it was certainly a better choice than a Model 1 with carbon steel!

And once again, there is the issue of using materials that were difficult at best, (if not nearly impossible) to acquire and were procured for use in the making of military items only by the War Production Board, coupled with Bo's involvement in the Civil Air Patrol and assisting any way possible with wartime efforts, I see no viable reason to doubt it's use for an unattended, but useful tool in the light of the situation at hand.

Of course, we are all familiar with the Model 16 which IS the best design for it's intended purpose, but the 16 wasn't to come about for nearly two more decades.

So, whatever anybody would like to call it, or think about it, is entirely up to them, which they certainly have the right to do. But in the meantime, I am entitled to my thoughts, like them or not, and not particularly swayed by being told by somebody "to stop it".

I don't call my Model 2-5" knives "letter openers" which they were named in 1950 either. lol

Thanks again Tom, for your interest in this extremely rare Randall knife! Most collectors will probably never see another one outside of the museum, and if they were to, it would be astonishing to find one any nicer, especially with the alligator sheath included!

TB