Joe Kertzman's Blog

In my posts on the Greatest Loveless Knife Designs, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a matching camping knife and skinner set. The Bob Loveless Lawndale-made crooked skinner at right in the Hiro Soga photo features a 4.5-inch skinner blade, a nickel-silver guard and ebony handle. The camp knife is wrought from 1/4-inch stainless steel stock with a 6.5-inch clip-point blade, full tang and ebony handle.

The knives are in the John Denton collection, and were showcased stretching from top to bottom on page 149 of the book Knifemaking With Bob Loveless. 

Spending a day with the Loveless-Parke drop point would be like spending a day in the park. What I love about this knife is that it is a drop-point hunter, but it has that high grind and skinner-like hump along the blade spine toward the tip. 

Only 36 knives bearing the Loveless-Parke logo were ever produced (Parke was an investor in Loveless’s knifemaking business for a short period of time.) This knife, made in 1967, is an example of that effort. It features a brass singe guard and stag handle with a hidden tang. And because I was born in 1967, it’s all that more sweet to me.

The knife photo is by Hiro Soga, the knife is from the John Denton collection, and it was featured in the book Knifemaking With Bob Loveless.

If you’ve been following these posts on the Greatest Bob Loveless Knife Designs, then you knew, didn’t you?, that the Big Bear would rear it’s oversized but beautifully bladed head?

This particular Loveless Big Bear Classic fighter boasts an amber-stag handle, which makes it one of the few made, and no Loveless bolts. Its approximate value, you ask? I’m glad you did—$35,000. That’s a lot of bear bones. 

Thank you, Dave Ellis, for the image and information. Visit Dave at www.exquisiteknives.com and www.robertloveless.com. 

Another early (1950’s) hunter made by R.W. “Bob” Loveless when he lived in Claymont, Delaware, interestingly, there are thumb notches on the back of the blade, just ahead of the guard. This is an extremely uncommon feature on a Loveless knife.

The photo, by Hiro Soga, ran full-page on page 131 of the book Knifemaking With Bob Loveless.

If you’re a fan of Bob Loveless knife designs, you likely have a soft spot for at least one of the Delaware Maids … no, not the logo, although that etched “Delaware Maid” is part of it … but perhaps a hunter such as the below. From 1954 to 1960 Loveless made over one thousand knives called “Delaware Maids” and they became Abercrombie & Fitch’s best-selling handmade items, outselling the Randall blades.

An ultra-rare (only three of seven survive) Loveless “Delaware Maid” hunter with the VL&A (Von Lengerke and Antoine) logo, the knife has a trailing-point blade and a slender double-pinned hardwood handle. The photo is by Hiro Soga, and the knife comes from the John Denton collection. It appeared on pages 114 and 115 of the book Knifemaking With Bob Loveless. 

When a Merchant Marine named R.W. “Bob” Loveless walked into Abercrombie & Fitch—a retail sporting goods store—in downtown Manhattan, New York, he was looking for a Randall knife. But Randall knives were out of stock, and the waiting period was too long, so Bob decided to make a knife on his own. When he returned to Abercrombie & Fitch with a knife he had built, the store manager liked it well enough to order four more just like it.

This is one of Loveless’ first knives made for Abercrombie & Fitch during the early 1950’s. The photo is courtesy of John Denton, and the image ran in the book Knifemaking With Bob Loveless.