Rod -

That is the question I am trying to get a better handle on. I have seen that spacer arrangement for years, and definitely not on TL knives, but on knives out of the shop also. I tended to think all knives with that arrangement were TL knives for years, until I took a couple to the shop and they nixed it.

I want to know what prompted him to do basically regular knives, simply installing handles no differently than the shop would do, if that was what he was doing.

I don't know, but maybe he just liked to tinker with the stuff and not every knife his hands touched had to be a "masterpiece"

I would like to hear more on the friendship of TL and the woman's husband if possible. Perhaps that would shed some light on the "plain" knives that were allegedly assembled by him.

Were they made primarily for friends? Family? Co-workers?