You have GOT to be my age or close to it, i graduated HS circa '78, spent mucho tiempo en Panama, El Salvador y Grenada, drier climes in recent times and i sure hope you are slowing down....after i went to doc about bones in knees grating and hurting a wee bit and him explaining i was wearing cartilage out faster than it grew back, and that was '92, i pretty much was done humping a 75-100lb combat load....down south was where i got into the habit of soaking leather goods in beeswax to keep them from rotting, and i am almost suprised to see you still have that original handle, even kabars rotted and they have treated leather compressed much more....did the sheath make it too?...i WILL be suprised if you say yes to that as well....if nothing done to it, anyhow....don't know about you, but i liked waxed leather as i discovered down there that apparently sweat and grime soaked cordura from several weeks in the field is some sort of delicacy to local insect life, as well as my body....a great knife with some yarns to go with it, and hope they are good....i just painted any rustables i carried, but i was carrying more mundane things than Randalls back then, stupid me, but a wife and three kids at home kept Randall off the menu....

I had another question as well, which is how did the exposed tang at pommel nut fare compared to blade?....better?...worse?....about the same?....corrosion is a big problem on our airchines, and i would have about bet a #1 pulling constant duty in tropics would have a problem there from steel/aluminum/moisture dissimilar metal corrosion (think steel sheetmetal screws in aluminum camper shell), but Randalls continue to defy common wisdom every time i look into things.