Pap, it was fun digging into it. I love a historical mystery. And I loved your posting about buying a yellow rat snake from Mr. Allen, how it was shipped, and how cranky the snake was when it came out of the crate.

There is a great deal written about Mr. Allen, but very little about the specific knife model(s) that he used (though most note that he did use a Randall knife).

Mr. Allen certainly sounds like he was quite a naturalist and showman.

I was at the 1964 World's Fair on many occasions in the summer of '64 and I have a vague memory of seeing a reptile show; just this morning I found a photo on line of the "Ross Allen Reptile Show" at the '64 World's Fair, so maybe I saw Mr. Allen or one of his associates. I was most enthralled by the Sinclair Dinoland display and the little vacu-plastic machine that molded plastic dinosaur figures for you on the spot.

On one of the knife blogs that I read, a member suggested reaching out to Mr. Allen's children and asking about the knife that he used. I didn't see anything written about whether he followed through with it, or what the result was.

If I can dig up anything else, I'll let you know.