Many of us have at least one story about lucky circumstances that led us to one or more nice Randall knives at great prices, right?

I always try to be fair when I purchase knives or guns from those who aren’t familiar with them, but with Randall knives that only happened with me once – sort of; I don’t have a great garage sale story (but I’d love to hear one). I acquired nearly all my Randall knives from about half a dozen sources. There was a span of 5 years or so in the early to mid-2000s where my daily routine was to check Spaceport Cutlery and the Treeman website. Every morning—and again in the afternoon! The Behrings, in that period, were regularly getting their hands on some crazy nice Randalls, often older ones; and invariably selling them at more-than-fair prices. And Spaceport… well, Perry… was Perry: you never knew what you were going to see. (And I can still remember that prickling at the back of my neck when I clicked on an interesting new listing, the knife not yet showing “Sold Out!” (and relegated to the “Just fer lookin…” list)). Beyond that, in order, it was Randall direct, authorized dealers, and maybe one or two trades over the years.

But in early 2004, I was perusing the web, googling for Randalls. The first couple results pages were always the same—authorized dealers mixed in with the ubiquitous “mark-up” sites. eBay was pretty much look-but-never-buy, for me.

A few pages down, deep into the search, I found a freshly minted website for an upscale brick-and-mortar Sporting Goods store in Connecticut—like an Orvis store, but just the one location: Barbour coats, leather shell bags, over-under European shotguns, that sort of thing. They’d hadn’t been online for long.

The website was rudimentary: contact info, store pictures showing merchandise and a small, barely noticeable tab-link to “Knives.” On that page were small pictures, mostly fancy folders, lined up nicely. But there was also a little picture of a handful of what appeared to be very pretty Randall Made Knives.

No prices were listed, so I telephoned. It turned out that the owner’s father had purchased some Randall Made “Hunting” knives directly from Randall back in the 80s. At some point over the years, what remained was pulled from the showcase to make room for other things. The son found the remaining knives in the rear of the store, well-kept all these years, and decided to put them on their new website as New-Old-Stock knives. (He wasn’t wrong about condition).

He wanted $275 for what he was calling a #1-6 with a stag handle. It looked more like a Model 5 to me (the group pic wasn’t great) but I said, “I’ll take it.” I think he was pricing them from what he could find for current list prices.

The #1-6 turned out to be a Model 5 with stainless blade, thumb notches, stag handle, NS single hilt, dura crow’s beak butt cap and wrist thong and it had one of the prettiest pieces of stag I’ve ever seen on a Randall.

After receiving it, I called again and (in the most casual voice I could muster) told him I’d take the rest. I got a #7-5/6 in stag, a #7-4 ½ in stag, and another #5-6 in stag. For each he was asking about $10 over base model 2004 catalog prices, but it was significantly more than his dad had paid and he was “moving stock.” He was happy. And I felt like I was making out like a bandit because I was getting free options and immediate delivery – and they were truly NOS 80’s knives! I don’t know where they were stored over the years, but the conditions must have been perfect.

To this day, these are still some of the prettiest Randall Made Knives I have. The #5-6 with crow’s beak butt is exceptionally beautiful. But so is the #7-4 ½! They all are. (One model 5 I gave to my brother).

Any other good stories of great finds out there? Anyone here find the fabled garage sale vintage Randall in great condition?

Thanks, Gary

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