Ronnie, Thank you very much for posting the pictures and the kind words for Pete's work. I wanted to take pictures of him making it but he nixed that. No smart phones in those days.

Sidney, thanks for the info on how to resize the pics. I will try that next time. Nope, no cracks or checks in the handle after all these years. I keep the knife in my safe in Robbins' soft case with the handle wrapped in a paper towel soaked in baby oil with saran wrap around the paper towel. That's also how I ship ivory handled Randalls when I can bring myself to parting with one. I have had very good luck shipping that way...so far!

DW-I'm sure Pete appreciates your left handed compliment. :-) Thanks for the info on whether he ever worked in the forge. I never asked him that but sort of assumed that he had since I thought that back then new hires worked their way up from sweeping the floors to cutting fibers, and so on through the various operations. Well, it was kind of fun imagining that he might have forged the blade too. Oh well. When the kit blades were being sold, were they made by several craftsmen? Is there any way of knowing who forged them?

Steve, that #2 is awesome! nice Ivory and gorgeous silver. I recognize Ron Scaggs' engraving. Nicely done! Silver engraves beautifully, but then I'm not entirely objective! I've got #2 in fossil walrus with a silver lugged hilt, silver spacers and silver butt cap that needs to get engraved one of these days. I think it's an older knife since it has thicker than standard spacers. The shop tolerated that in the early days, but later on asked me to keep the spacers the same thickness as the brass and aluminum that they were using.

Regards,
Doug